UPCOMING EVENTS

The Fourth of July!! Always an amazing parade. Always delicious food. Always a ton a great raffles!! Look for the Grange basket filled with home made goodies from Grange members-it gets raffled off every year. Many consider it the best raffle at the 4th of July!! Take home a scarlet runner bean!

PAST EVENTS

"One bleak cold day last winter, my cabin fever was temporarily alleviated by thinking about summer and my Vinalhaven garden. What, I wondered, were some different flowers I should try, that grow successfully on other Maine islands. I browsed “flower show” websites and found wonderful pictures from annual summer floral shows on Mount Desert and North Haven. It set me to wondering: why couldn’t our island have a Flower Show? Might the Vinalhaven Grange sponsor it?  Members at our next meeting liked the idea. We formed a small but enthusiastic committee and a date was chosen. That required weighing many factors. Would we try to catch day lilies at their peak? What about peonies, roses, dahlias? We wanted a weekend that was peak summer but not already too scheduled, hoping both residents and summer visitors would participate. We not only wanted tables full of displays, but viewers who would vote on their favorite entry in each of five categories. Our winners would be based on “People’s Choice” and not by formal judging.

Categories! We decided on Teacup Bouquets, Traditional Bouquets, Island Icons (representing VH landscapes/ island features), Swap Shop- related (using recycled goods), and Children under 14. We began to advertise the event in early summer, including posters around town and weekly reminders in The Wind, the island newspaper. We opened the Grange a day before the event and set up tables with elegant table coverings. Displays began to be dropped off and were arranged by category on tables, each with an identifying label for voting purposes (names were not revealed until votes were counted). We had ballots, available at the door. The building’s historic aura came very much alive as it filled with flowers and participants. (Getting to be inside the Grange was an added treat because it is not often accessible.)

The show ran for several hours. We had about 25 exhibits and over 100 viewers. Five blue ribbons were presented outside at an informal awards ceremony afterwards featuring punch and cookies. The arrangements were stunning- artistic, whimsical, and even educational. We learned about herbs and wildflowers on the island, and aesthetic ways to use found beach materials like grasses, wood, glass, and shells. Even a lobsterman’s rubber glove was repurposed as a vase. We had a diorama of the island’s carved Statue of Liberty, and a tribute of island-grown day lilies that reminded us fondly of Vivien Knowlton. Best of all, the focus wasn’t about competition and winning, but bringing the beautiful bounty of the island together, creatively. Thanks to popular demand, we’ll do this again in 2024, with some tweaks. Maybe we’ll expand the categories. We’d love to increase the number of entries. And we’re committed to keeping the event free- no entry fee, no other charges. (Donations to the Grange were welcome.) We’ll recruit entries from possible community gardens including the school and elder care. Gardening on Vinalhaven’s mostly rocky ground is certainly a challenge and we hope the Flower Show is some extra motivation!"

Featured in the March 2024 issue of the MOFGA Newspaper

Harvest Festival - October 29, 2023...Features apple pressing, music, potluck community dinner and more.  Yes, we will have our annual apple pressing event. Yes, we wait for the first frost - this sweetens the apples and makes the best cider! Yes, lots of apples blew off the trees on September 16th when Hurricane Lee swept by. Perry Boyden and Banner Moffat are our chief cider makers for 2023!