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Emandal's Harvest Festival
Take a Trip Back In Time By Peggy Vincent
Steaming coffee, hot chocolate and huge trays of sticky cinnamon buns greet the lucky visitors who come to Willitis, Calif., for the annual Harvest Festival. We've enjoyed Emandal's Family Camp for the past 23 summers, but 1999 was the first time we returned for the annual November harvest celebration.
An easy three-hour drive north of San Francisco and 14 miles east of the small town of Willits, Emandal is a 1000-acre farm on the Eel River, owned and operated by Clive and Tamara Adams, who created the Harvest Festival about five years ago. Rolling hills, woods of oak and pine, hiking trails, a one-room schoolhouse, 2 acres of organic gardens, a vineyard and the wonderful river with several swimming holes make up the foundation of time spent at Emandal. Great food, interesting people and the leisure time to enjoy them keep people coming back year after year.
Prunings from the garden, gleanings from the woods, dried flowers and herbs, pinecones, tiny ears of corn, holly berries and about 30 choices of greenery were all arranged on long tables, hay bales and in piles on the floor, awaiting our creative spirit. Circles of wire in several sizes (the "frames" for the wreaths) hung from nails on the barn wall, and florist's wire on spools was provided, along with instructions and suggestions for successful wreath making. As we worked, the sounds of cows, sheep and donkeys conversing with each other interrupted the interchanges of people intent on creating sensational holiday wreaths: "Who has my clippers?" "Are there any more of those dried yellow flowers?" "Oooh, that's so pretty – where did you get those red berries?" "Will you help me, Daddy?"