WELLSVILLE – American West Heritage Center (AWHC) is introducing their Rocky Mountain Region Homesteading Conference and Fair this weekend with demonstrations on how families and individuals can become more self-sufficient.
The two-day conference has assorted booths and workshops for people to enjoy.
Sarah Gunnell, the marketing director for AWHC, said they have been working on the conference for about eight months. Besides the workshops and demonstrations, the train was running and so were the pony rides and other activities available for the kids.
“There seems to be a real push right now for people to become more self-sufficient, possibly due to it being an election year,” Gunnell said. “We have some of our staff and some outsiders teaching workshops this year.”
She said some of the staff had been to other similar conferences and thought it might be a good thing to start in Cache Valley.
“We have someone here to show how to process chicken, lambs and other small animals,” she said. “Those kinds of workshops cost extra to attend, and they have limited number of seats available.”
They were also demonstrating how to make yogurt and another workshop on how to store eggs in a bottle on a shelf.
“We have chickens, and they lay a lot of eggs during some times of the year and other times not so much,” she said. “I spent some time researching how to store eggs without refrigerating them and I discovered this method.”
She had about a dozen eggs in bottle with a solution and took one out and cracked it open to see if it was spoiled. She held the container with the cracked egg, and it was unspoiled.
“I’ve been storing eggs like this for a year and they seem to be okay,” she said. ”It seems to work pretty well.”
Debbie Sandburg had so of her Sunflower salve on hand for people to try on Friday Sept. 13, 2024.
Debbie Sandburg from Nibley had a booth set up to market her watercolor greeting cards and her salve made from sunflowers.
“The sunflower salve is good for bug bites, burns, rashes and other skin related issues,” she said. “I have it in bottles or ChapStick form.”
There were demonstrations on cheese making, milking cows the old fashioned way or a modern method using a machine.
Tedd McCarthy was showing his skills at Ham Radio. He was talking to the Cache County Sheriff deputies up Logan Canyon.
Dairy West had a virtual farm class and there were other classes going on all day.
There were about 15 commercial vendors on site to show their wares and food trucks to feed whoever needed a meal.
This is AWHC’s first attempt at having the Rocky Mountain Region Homesteading Conference and Fair. If the fair is successful, they may bring it back next year.
For Saturday’s schedule of events go to the AWHC website at www.AWHC.org.