ABAC’s ag museum to host Folklife Festival

TIFTON — Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College’s Georgia Museum of Agriculture will host its annual Folklife Festival April 7 at the ag museum’s historic village. The festival will showcase south Georgia’s rich cultural and rural heritage. The festival will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with interactive activities for both children and adults.

Visitors can take the Vulcan Steam Train from country store to other parts of the village. The steam-powered locomotive will give guests the experience of the old logging days, setting the atmosphere for a nostalgia-filled day with the family. At 11 a.m., the annual ceremonial firing of the village turpentine still, which was used in the 1890s to create turpentine and rosin, will take place. Museum guests will experience this age-old process that was a key component of life and can even try rosin-baked potatoes. The turpentine mill will run until around 4 p.m.

The Folklife Festival will present many opportunities for visitors to take part in historic hands-on experiences. Activities include tree barking and hewing, sawmill demonstrations, sheep-shearing, mule plowing demonstrations, and quilt square sewing demonstrations. Antique and model tractors will be on display and will parade through the village at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

ABAC athletes from days past will be showcased in “The Glory Days” exhibit in the Museum Gallery. The exhibit will include gloves, bats and assorted relics from hall of fame Golden Stallion athletes.

Guests interested in American history can visit the J. L. Sweat law office, where engravings from 1985 featuring three historic figures — Andrew Jackson, Martha Washington and William Henry Harrison — will be on display. There is a new display in the historic Tift House that will spotlight Bessie Tift’s personal china collection for guests interested in antique finery. The American Legacy Quilt show is scheduled at the Peanut Museum. A temporary photo exhibit of the barn quilts of Kentucky’s Buffalo Gal Trail will also be showcased.

In the main exhibit hall, guests can use an interactive code to watch a turpentine documentary that will also be made available outside by the turpentine still.

For hungry guests enjoying all that the Folklife Festival has to offer, the village drug store will offer barbecue sandwiches, chips and drinks. Henry’s Concessions, Taqueria Hermanos Chavez and the Snack Shack all will offer specialty foods, while food items will also be available at the Country Store.

The festival coincides with the seasonal opening of the Wiregrass Farmers Market. Local growers and producers will offer fresh-picked produce from 9 a.m.-noon, as well as hand-made goods for sale at the market located under the pole barn behind the Country Store.

Admission to the Folklife Festival is $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens, $5 for children 5–16 years of age, and free for children under 5. For more information, interested persons can contact the Country Store at (229) 391-5205.