By SHARON KILPATRICK

By SHARON KILPATRICK

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

The first Crossroads was judged a success by both organizers and participants.

Designed to bring together artists and farmers in a celebration of the land, the event succeeded on many fronts.

Most events were attended by enthusiastic but not overwhelming crowds. Many people were moved by the presentations at five farms, four in Rappahannock County and one in Culpeper County.

The weekend began with a country dance at Ki Theatre. Dancing was interrupted by an extremely successful pie auction. Walter Day, acting as auctioneer, sold 16 pies for an average sale price of $19. The most expensive one, an apple, bourbon and walnut pie baked by County Administrator John McCarthy brought $33.

Saturday brought a quandary to many attending, because they had to choose one farm tour or workshop to attend in the morning and one in the afternoon. In between they visited the farmers’ market set up in a section of Gay Street.

The evening barbecue hosted by the Rappahannock Farmers Association was a sell-out, as was the concert by John McCuthcheon later Saturday night.

At the pot luck brunch Sunday, back at Ki Theatre, organizers and participants told what the weekend had meant to them. Darwin Lambert said of the tour at Horseshoe Hollow and the presentations there, “There is something I’ve been trying all my life to figure out how to say, and the whole message was right there.”

Mr. Lambert said such celebrations combining arts and farming are part of farming communities all over the world, but in America “there has been a falling apart... We don’t know about farming any more, and farming is the basis of every civilization.”

Jim Thomasson said he had spent the past several weeks interviewing people who worked on farms in Rappahannock, but didn’t own farmland. He said he

See X-Road, Page A-6