Ever year, at the end of August, the local town of Ripley hosts a scarecrow festival.I have to mention that it was much different than I expected, but so much fun!
I've blogged about Ripley before, because Ethan and the kids and I went to the grounds of Ripley Castle last year. While there, we learned that an Inglby family ancestor (the Inglby family still resides in the castle), apparently fought off some wild boars that were attacking the King at the time. Thus, there is a boar theme throughout the village of Ripley.
That history should shed some light on the scarecrow festival, as all of the scarecrows were in fact boars! Scattered and hidden throughout the village were scarecrow boars of all kinds. Villagers who wanted to participate would make a scarecrow that characterizes a famous person/character, and give it a name that has "pig" or "boar" in the title.
When we arrived at the festival, we purchased a quiz sheet for a few pounds and began our search. We had to walk all around the village and find as many scarecrows as we could (we had to look high and low as some were even on roof tops!).
Our quiz sheet had all of the names for the scarecrows, so we had to match the number of the scarecrow with the name. It wasn't always easy, but it was a lot of fun!Here are some of our favorites:
Pig-nocchio
The Red Boar-on
Boar-at
This was one of those festivals that was so sweet and so simple... it makes me want to bring the idea back with me to America. What do you think... Do you think Americans would be up for a scarecrow festival like this?
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