Good day and welcome to DKos Asheville. This is the weekly DKos Asheville open thread for Saturday, February 28th. Once again, it was the longest month of the year! We try to get together every weekend to share with everyone what we're all up to in Western North Carolina and beyond. We hope this group serves to invigorate us locally and regionally here on Daily Kos, building on the sense of community that's grown through our online engagement. DKos Asheville can give us all a better sense of connection, a better understanding of who we stand with, work with, and share with. We hope this community can help leverage our orange passion for progressive politics to elect more and better Democrats.
For our next meet up on April 25-26 we will be returning to the theme of our first meet up on 4/20/2013: Meeting, spending time focusing on community and networking and less time with an agenda driven schedule. And this time we will be taking the meet up on the road to Roanoke Virginia in April! Please sign up by dropping me a kosmail. For more information, please drop over to this DKos Asheville diary.
Please join us below where we take a break from the winter and look forward to spring.
Spring Festival Edition
Greetings from the mountains of Western North Carolina. For the last two weeks this blog has been focusing on getting involved in local politics at the precinct level while honoring a long time Asheville based progressive activist we recently lost. You can find those two posts and all of DKos Asheville's diaries here.
This week, in the spirit of gathering together for fun and goodness, I offer a reason to visit Asheville and surrounding communities this spring with a short list of Spring Festivals in the mountains. The last one on the list is my favorite and I have been performing there for many years, both during the spring and the fall editions of one incredible festival.
And speaking of gatherings, a big shout out from Asheville to Austin!!! You guys rock! I spent time in Plainview Texas growing up so I'm with you in spirit as an Ex-pat. Have a great meet up folks!
Romantic Asheville has the scoop on our weekly festival like event that happens every Friday night.
Don't miss this favorite Asheville tradition. Anyone can participate by drumming, dancing or watching. Stop by the Asheville Drum Circle on every Friday night (warm weather months) in Pritchard Park downtown on Patton Avenue at College Street. Join folks of every age and description. Watch people dance to the thunderous rhythm of the dozens of drums. Or better yet, join in by playing or dancing! See the individuality and diversity of Asheville.
This is a free event. The drummers begin showing up around 6 PM (or sometimes as early as 5 PM) and the crowd builds until it ends at 10 PM. Don't miss the drum circle... It will make you feel good all over! The drum circle has been active since 2001.
Love ballroom dancing? Who doesn't?!
The Heritage Classic Dance Competition offers an amazing array of talent over a four day event at the beautiful Grove Park Inn.
March 3-7, 2015
THE HERITAGE CLASSIC VOTED "COMPETITION OF THE YEAR" 3 YEARS IN SUCCESSION!
Celebrating 28 years at the Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa and now awarding $117,000 in cash awards and scholarships.
The Heritage Classic is proud to be a member of the new and most prestigious United States Dance Championships Circuit. Titles and prizes will be awarded at the 2015 USDC in Orlando in the Pro/Am Student and Top Teacher categories. Results for all entries at the Heritage Classic will be added to your score accumulated throughout the year. We are also a World Pro/Am Dancesport Series event and a "Best of the Best" qualifying event in the Closed Bronze, Closed Silver and Open Gold Multi-Dance events.
Ok, don't care for ballroom dancing? How about bread? Surely you appreciate good bread!
The Asheville Artisan Bread Bakers Festival will be bringing the bread for your tasting and aroma filled enjoyment.
May 2-3, 2015
Asheville Artisan Bread Bakers Festival 2015
Celebrating Local Farmers, Millers, and Bakers
The 11th Asheville Artisan Bread Bakers' Festival - celebrating local farmers, millers and bakers – the first of its kind in the Southeast -- will feature the talents of three of the most respected bakers in the United States: Lionel Vatinet, Peter Reinhart, and Jeff Yankellow. This two-day event offers an opportunity for bread enthusiasts and professional bakers to break bread together, to improve their baking skills, share ideas, and network within the artisan bread community.
If you come away from that festival thinking you might want to spruce up your own batch of bread next time,
The Asheville Herb Festival might be just what you need.
May 2-4, 2015
The Asheville Herb Festival Celebrates 25 Years!
The WNC Chapter of the NC Herb Association will host its 25th ANNUAL SPRING FESTIVAL May 2, 3, and 4, 2015. Don't miss it!
The Herb Association represents the great variety of herb growers, herbalists, and related herb businesses in North Carolina, as well as natural gardening and landscaping specialists and makers of herbal ointments, balms, soaps, teas, sauces, and medicines. We hope you’ll join us and more than 35,000 other herb lovers for our Silver Anniversary Festival May 2, 3, and 4th, at the WNC Farmers Market. It’s the greatest herb festival in the whole southeast!
If you fill up on bread and feel you need to be more athletic, or at least watch sports, this next one is for you.
The Mountain Sports Festival is an annual event featuring a wide variety of challenging sports including disc golf, river sports and much more.
May 22-24, 2015
The Mountain Sports Festival is a weekend music and sports festival that celebrates community, athletics and local business. The festival showcases the terrain, environment and unique culture of Asheville, NC and the surrounding mountains. The Mountain Sports Festival is organized by a volunteer group of community oriented citizens dedicated to the presenting of a well balanced series of events that encourages participation on all levels.
All those sports are bound to make you hungry. This next one will inspire you to grow some food to satisfy that hunger all summer long. The
Garden Jubilee Festival in Hendersonville, near Asheville, offers something for all kinds of gardeners.
May 23 & Sunday, 24, 2015
Garden Jubilee Festival
Saturday, May 23 & Sunday, 24, 2015
9 am - 5 pm (both days)
Historic Downtown Hendersonville
(Main Street from Sixth Avenue to Caswell Street)
Animals are Prohibited
Garden Jubilee is Historic Hendersonville’s premier lawn & garden show, and one of the largest gardening shows in the Western North Carolina. The Garden Jubilee is a spectacular two day festival, held on Saturday, May 23 & Sunday, May 24 from 9am-5pm both days during the Memorial Day weekend. Gardening is one of America’s favorite pastimes and the Blue Ridge Mountains provide a healthy environment for growing a vast variety of flowers and plants. Bring wagon or cart to make transporting your plants easier.
And finally for this installment, my favorite of all the festivals,
LEAF!
Check out our Spring 2015 – Promo Video and experience the wonder and magic of LEAF’s 40th Festival. We’re spreading Global Gratitude this LEAF Festival, we will be graced by Artists & Performers from over 30 countries. LEAF Festival is bringing the whole world to your fingertips at the beautiful Lake Eden. Come join us…
I hope everyone has a great day. GO TEXAS!