Posted on 06/04/2007 11:48:23 AM PDT by BenLurkin
LEONA VALLEY - The cherries are ripe, the orchards are open and the locals will be celebrating on Saturday. The 35th annual Leona Valley Cherry Festival, which starts at 11 a.m. with a parade through town, will feature a craft show, plenty of food and, of course, hand-picked cherries from the community's local orchards.
"The orchards will be open, so you can go and stuff yourself with cherries," parade organizer Jim Bonn said.
This year's theme is "Cherry Trees and Bumble Bees," an homage to longtime Leona Valley resident and orchard owner "Big John" Mayfield, who died in December.
Mayfield was an "absolute icon" in Leona Valley, Bonn said.
"He was one of the original orchard growers up here," Bonn said. "He had his own bees and did his own honey."
The parade begins at the corner of 90th Street West and Leona Avenue and goes north to Elizabeth Lake Road and then east to the Leona Valley Community Center at 8367 Elizabeth Lake Road.
Steve Ordway, editor of the Leona Valley Improvement Association newsletter, will lead the parade as grand marshal.
The parade will feature all manner of drivers, riders and floats, and Bonn said it will be a fun and informal affair.
"We'll have equestrian people dressed up as cowboys and things, and some street rods and antique tractors with floats," he said. "We'll have queens from every town within spitting distance. We just try to make it nothing but absolute fun."
Other than the parade and the craft show, which will be at the community center, Bonn said picking at Leona Valley's several orchards is the main event.
"Basically, it's just a festival where we say, 'Here's the cherry season - go for it,' " he said. "It's really a small town, 1940-ish kind of thing."
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
I love the way cherry sizes are described in "rows," dating back to when the industry place-packed the top layer in the box. A tight fit of ten cherries across the narrow face of the lug become "10 row" cherries.
Queen Anne's are my faves ...they come a bit after the Bings.
I have an few antique cherry crate labels that I cherish.
It is a lot of fun and they taste great.
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