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!

Read Complete Post...

This Week in Lando

This is a really hectic week for all of us here in Lando.
Obviously, we're all getting ready for the big Cank Festival which starts on Thursday!
Most everybody in town has something to get ready before the festival starts.


Bobby Green and his wife are working with all the girls who will be vying for Cank Queen.
Sylvia Snodgrass is getting together the judges for the best Cank dish.
Rafe Hollister is working on his solo for the Cank Chamber Choir Concert, and there are countless others working to make sure that this year's Cank Festival is the best ever. That's a hard thing to do, too, since we have so many years of festival tradition behind us.

Well, it seems like the only one around here who doesn't have too many things to do is me, so I thought I take a walk around town, and give you all a glimpse of what those hard working people are doing to get ready for the biggest event of the year here in Lando!

First I went by the opera house to see how the crew is getting on with sprucing up for the concert.


These guys really know how to use a ladder!

This is Jake Deese hauling off some brush from the town square.


Chief Wiggum has installed new road signs...


Workers all over town are sprucing up....


I finally got my dumb ole brother-in-law to get that dead tree out of his yard...


I dont know how this happened, but Mrs. Mayor Stoner took her eyes off the road for just a minute and got stuck on the bridge over Woody's Creek...


These boys had just a bit of trouble getting those lights on all the trees on Main Street...


Here's the Jacob's twins getting their boat down to the lake for the Cank Crawl Rowing Meet...


Here's Dirk Crouse moving the swingset down to the playground....


Look at Crazy Cooter working on one of the trucks we use to pull the floats in the parade!


As you can see, there is a lot going on this week!

Remember the Festival starts at 8:00 am on Thursday, April 17, and concludes on Saturday.
You DO NOT want to miss it!
See you there!!!

Read Complete Post...