Activities, nostalgia forge fun day at Country Life Fair

YACOLT — Generations of families gathered at Pomeroy Living History Farm on Saturday. The sunny skies and warm temperatures drew hundreds to the farm’s third annual County Life Fair for old-time skills demonstrations, hayrides, hands-on activities for kids and an herb and plant sale.

Four generations of Dovy Landerholm’s family sat around a picnic lunch on the grass. Landerholm, 89, was joined by her daughter, Jeannie Garth, who was joined by her daughter, Lydia Thralls, who was nursing her daughter, Maybelle, 6 months. Tyler Thralls sat next to his wife on the blanket spread underneath a massive tree. Tyler and Lydia Thralls were married at the Pomeroy Farm five years ago.

“We danced right under this tree,” said Tyler Thralls as he looked up toward the branches.

“And they rode off on horseback after the celebration,” added Landerholm, Lydia’s grandmother.

Landerholm and her husband, Irwin, had a many-decades friendship with the farm’s former owners, Len and Lil Freese. Both of the Freeses have died. Every fall, Landerholm’s family still makes a trek to Pomeroy Farm to buy their Halloween pumpkins, and each spring Jeannie Garth buys garden plants at the farm’s annual herb and plant sale. Her purchases Saturday included a Mother’s Day cosmos for her mom.

This is only the third year Brink’s family and crew of volunteers have offered the fair. It grew from the farm’s herb festival, which began in the mid-1980s. The herb festival was successful and mostly drew gardeners, many of them older than 40.

After farmers markets became popular, the herb festival “struggled with its identity,” Brink said. “The popular swell was done. We decided to get back to our roots. We’re a farm. We wanted the festival to represent country life, but we added games, interactive activities for kids.”

That rebooted model seems to be working. In E.C. Pomeroy’s old blacksmith shop, Tom Dwyer and Clay Ford demonstrated blacksmithing. Both men volunteer in the blacksmith shop at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. Dwyer heated metal in the fire, pounded out a heated metal hook and thrust it into a bucket of water. It sizzled.

Just outside the animal barn, Brandon Todd made a hazelnut longbow. Olivia Hall, 13, her sister, Ashlyn Hall, 3 of Brush Prairie, and her grandmother, Mary Brown from Woodland, watched and asked questions. Olivia said she has her own bow and enjoys archery.