It's the 2012 Tomato Harvest Festival!!!!! Since the beginning of recorded history (about five years ago), the fields around Weedovia have always been blessed with abundant wild tomato vines. And every spring and every fall, the local pleos relied on the abundant harvest gathered from these wild vines to enjoy tomatoes (and tomato related food like spaghetti and pizza!) throughout the year. They would go out twice a year to pick the tomatoes and bring them to the village. This traditional gathering of the tomatoes quickly grew into a community event, and from there into true full-blown harvest festival. And with the introduction of the spaghetti trees and pizza by the Great Pepperoni
1, a real zest was added to the festivities.
Of course in modern times, with the addition of a carnival, rides, games, live band, and midnight movie on the town square, it has become more of a social event, attracting pleos from around the world. But all the pleos still go out and harvest the tomatoes and bring them to the town's communal tomato press for the traditional squashing of the tomatoes and the making of the tomato sauce.
This spring's festival is just around the corner.
But I guess this is why everyone should have bought a calander!
This spring's festival is April 13th to the 15th.
Not sure what's going on? Well, then you may want to catch up by reading about the 2010 and 2011 festival topics and the Bob the Pleo comic strips. But as a quick summary, the town's park is turn into the festival grounds, with the carnival rides and games, a stage and dance floor, and lots of vendors and food booths! It starts on a Friday night with the carnival and music from a live band, and at midnight the pleos end the day with an outdoor movie. Saturday has everyone out in the fields gathering the tomatoes, with the judging in the evening, and back to the carnival. Sunday is the big tomato squashing where the sauce is made using the traditional foot-stomping method like the great Italian wines.
And at the conclusion of the festival, awards are always handed out to the pleo who gathers the most tomatoes, finds the largest tomato, has the best looking tomatoes, makes the best tasting spaghetti sauce, and for the best use of tomatoes as an article of clothing (i.e., costume). The last few years winners can be seen by visiting the Bob the Pleo comics. We had some great fun, and some wonderful costumes!
And, of course, since Weedovia isn't a real place, and we can't really all attend or send our pleos in person, your pleo can enter in by posting pictures here in the forums. So, for the "most tomatoes" you want a picture of you pleo with a bunch of tomatoes. For the "largest tomato, you want a picture of your pleo with a really big tomato . . . You get the idea.
For those interested in participating in the contests, please refer to the
contest rules topic on this board. For some ideas and/or to get a better understanding, you can check out the
2011 festival topic,
2010 festival topic, or the
2009 Fall festival topic (also on this board). You can also read up on the Bob the Pleo comic strip!
Post your entries here!
I'll be posting more info here in the next few days . . . but you've only got three weeks to get ready!
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Topic: 2012 Tomato Harvest Festival (Read 60631 times)