Cank Festival -- Day 1

Good Day!

The Cank Festival kicked off early this morning when Mayor Stoner tossed out the first worms from the gazebo on the town square. The crowd of about 10,000 roared to life as the worms flew into the air! There is nothing finer than the first day of Cank Festival.

Right after the opening ceremony, the big parade got under way.

The children lead the way

Followed by A Cank Queen Contestant

And another!

And the Queen's Court!

A couple of locals enjoying a tall glass of Lando Cank Lager while the parade goes by.

Wee Miss Cank of 2007

Everybody loves to get in the parade!

Traditionally, the first day of the Cank Festival is known as Whacking Day. This is the day when all the folks in Lando go about with their Whacking Sticks and knock the worms out of the trees. In ancient times this was referred to as the Whacking Harvest.

Today, it's more of a sport than anything else, since most of the harvesting is done by machines that take hold of the tree trunk and shake it hard enough to release the worms. These machines are called, for obvious reasons, Shakers.

Whacking Sticks have really come into their own, as well. Today, it's not uncommon to find a serious Whacker with a professionally designed Whacking Stick costing thousands of dollars. Take a look at these.

We even got our very own Whacking Day Salute on Google.

Once the whacking is concluded, the serious cooking starts, and then it's on to the Cank Crawl!

Folks got their eyes on all the past years winners to see what they got cooked up this year. I hear that we got about 250 entries to judge this year!

Drop the tiny kids off at the day camp, and come on and crawl with us!