As it has for the past 33 years, the

As it has for the past 33 years, the third weekend in October, when Rappahannock County and the Blue Ridge are at their most colorful, ushers in the 34th Annual House Tour and Dried Flower Sale.

This increasingly popular event is sponsored by the Episcopal Churchwomen of Bromfield Parish and on that weekend the Parish Hall of Trinity Episcopal Church in Washington, will serve as headquarters for the activities. This year’s dates and times are Saturday, Oct. 20, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 21, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

From the present to just before tour and sale opening day the Parish Hall is a workshop with plastic on the floor, long work tables, dried flowers nearly from floor to ceiling, boxes and crates of pots, dishes, baskets, urns, vases and other containers to hold hundreds of arrangements put together by the ladies of Trinity Church and others in the county.

Since spring many have been growing flowers in their gardens, nurturing them thru drought and downpour to help fill those pots and other containers. Field and forest, “where the wild things are” have been scoured for their product. Grasses, ferns, milkweed, Joe Pye weed and many other wild growths are incorporated in the arrangements; boxwood hedges, which probably needed trimming anyway, add their input.

All this greenery is carefully hung in attics and garages to dry; flowers are either hung or kept in sand to preserve their color. In the Parish Hall they are snipped, trimmed and clipped, added to artifacts or bits of dried wood to make lovely arrangements which will grace tables in homes from here to Maine, Ohio and Georgia.

Arrangements vary in size from a tea-cup to add some color to a display of crystal in a china cabinet to large library or dining table centerpieces to add the fall touch to