BETHEL – The 6th annual Bethel Harvest Fest and Chowdah Cook-off will be held Friday and Saturday, Sept. 19-20.

On Sept. 19, a lineup of informative tours and open houses are scheduled. From 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. people are welcomed to stop in at Maine Line Products’ Greenwood Store to see how they create their Maine gift baskets and fudge.

At 10 a.m., all are invited to Bethel Furniture Stock for a tour of the mill to see how furniture and component parts are made, including the high-tech wood bending process. The Maine Chair Kit Co., a division of Bethel Furniture, will have the chair kits and the Grover Rocker on display.

At 11:30 a.m., those who are curious about local forest management are invited to the Chadbourne Tree Farms Philbrook lot on Route 2 in Hanover for a one-hour tour.

At 2:30 p.m. there will be a 90-minute tour at Hancock Lumber on Route 26. Those wishing to attend this are encouraged to be there by 2:15 p.m. and park next to the railroad tracks in the designated lot.

Immediately following, Timberlake & Co.’s Mayville Showroom will hold an open house and demonstration. To finish off the day, there is a wine tasting at Briar Lea Inn & Restaurant, featuring specialty Italian wineries.

The scarecrow theme this year is Celebrating the Spirit and Bounty of Bethel.

On Saturday morning, Sept. 20, the Harvest Fest begins on the Bethel Common. The arts and crafts festival will begin at 9 a.m. More than 40 crafters and farmers are expected to fill the common with their unique products and harvest items.

Ted Walker of Peru is scheduled to provide a chain saw carving demonstration, and is creating a moose carving for the chamber to raffle. He will be there most of the day and will have some of his own carvings to sell.

At 11:30 a.m. the chamber will begin to sell tickets for the Chowdah Cook-off. This year’s event is being sponsored by U.S. Foodservice who will provide a judge, along with two culinary-media representatives. A solid turnout is expected from Bethel area restaurants and invitees from a 35-mile radius. Music on the gazebo by Denny Breau and friends will be played from 11 a.m. through the mid-afternoon.

The Pulp and Paperworkers Resource Council is bringing the puppet show The Forest Grows Back Again, at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Everything on the Common will wrap up by 4 p.m.

As part of the Harvest Fest, the Bethel Historical Society will hold “Bethel’s Own Antiques Floorshow” at the Middle Intervale Meeting House. From 10 a.m. to noon, Kaja Veilleux of Thomaston Place Auction Gallery will conduct verbal appraisals and a public Floorshow Appraisal is scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m. The cost of appraisals will be $5 per item and general admission to the Floorshow is $3 per person (without appraisals). For more information phone the Bethel Historical Society at 824-2908.

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