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The Heat Was On: Pumpkins But No Frost at Liberty Prairie's Fall Fest
- Bob Benenson
- Oct 6
- 2 min read
It's Getting Even Harder to Plan Around Chicagoland Weather
Chicago's ever-changeable weather has always made planning outdoor events a bit of a roll of the dice. Global climate change, though, is making it even more challenging.
Take the Fall Farm Festival presented on Saturday (October 4) by the Liberty Prairie non-profit in Grayslake in far-northeastern Illinois. It was definitely fall, the autumnal equinox having occurred on September 22... but with temperatures in the 80s, it was hard to tell.
The attendees, delighting in a day on the farm, didn't care though, and the day provided one more summer(like) day out for the students of Grayslake High School District 127 who participate in farm work and education at Liberty Prairie (Jeff Miller, who runs the farm with wife Jen Miller, serves as farm educator for the school system).
There were plenty of pumpkins, grown right on the farm, to set the right mood, along with winter squash and some curious gourds labeled as "Dinosaur Eggs."
Or you could wander over to the patch to see pumpkins in the wild...
The very sociable goats...
I made a fine-feathered friend...
While the sheep safely grazed...
I wasn't able to stay for the sheep shearing, but I experienced that at Liberty Prairie's spring festival in May, and it was an amazing experience. Click the button below to see those photos.
Pizzeria DeVille in nearby Libertyville served up genuinely excellent pizzas from their food truck and its brick oven.
I could hardly travel the 45 miles up to Grayslake without a stop at the Liberty Prairie Farm Store. The tree in the background was one of the few flashing fall colors, a result of the persistent above-average temperatures.
Most of the produce in the cooler was grown right on the Liberty Prairie farm.
The store stocks authentic Mexican sauces made by my pal Ernesto Rodriguez of El Molcajete, based in Evanston, Illinois. A slightly delayed story about a mole-making class and dinner presented by Ernesto at Liberty Prairie is coming very soon.
The store also stocks organically and regeneratively produced flours by the Wilken family at Janie's Mill, located in the east-central Illinois town of Ashkum. As a supporter of American Indian causes and of Indigenous Peoples Day on October 13, I was so pleased to learn that Janie's Mill is donating all profits from its October online retail sales of corn products to the First Nations Development Institute.
And my Farm Store haul: Bartlett pears and Empire apples (a favorite of this native New Yorker), carrots, Walla Walla onions, sweet potatoes, Italian sweet red peppers, apple cider from Michigan's Mick Klug Farm, cremini mushrooms from River Valley Ranch of Burlington, Wisconsin, and Grumpy Goat Cheese from Nordic Creamery of Westby, Wisconsin.
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