A group of Palisade locals is heading up a brand new festival that is set to take over downtown Palisade and Veterans Park on May 2nd, 2026: Palisade Farm Fest. Find out about all the fun opportunities to celebrate Palisade’s agricultural heritage at the upcoming Palisade Farm Fest at Veterans Memorial Park and Farm Fest Market!
And…we’ll also get a sneak peek on what Cygnus Crossing and the Milky Way are planning for the property by the high school!
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Transcript:
Welcome to the Postcards From Palisade Podcast. I’m Lisa McNamara.
There’s a new festival coming to Palisade this spring: the Palisade Farm Fest. Organized by a group of locals, this festival aims to celebrate Palisade’s agricultural heritage with a big, family-friendly party filled with a ton of fun ways to honor and learn about our farming past, present, and future.
The Farm Fest, held on Saturday, May 2nd, has two hubs: there’s a market downtown from 10am-4pm and a festival in Veterans Park from 11am-5pm.
I talked with Amy Gekas and Charles Talbott about the Farm Fest at Veterans Park and Kathy Gilbert about the Farm Fest Market to hear about what is in the works for this full-day celebration of all things agriculture.
And…we’ll also get a sneak peek on what Cygnus Crossing and the Milky Way are planning for the property by the high school!
Join me to learn about and make plans to attend this new event, on today’s Postcard From Palisade.
Lisa: Thank you so much for coming in today and talking to me about Farm Fest.
Charles: Thanks for having us. My name is Charles Talbott.
Amy: I’m Amy Gekas.
Charles: And we’re here to talk about Farm Fest.
Lisa: So tell me about where the idea of Farm Fest came from?
Amy: This is a fun question. The town of Palisade essentially lost Honeybee Festival. We won’t say it’s a total loss. We loved Honeybee. Our community loved Honeybee. We wanted something else to fill that space, especially for an early spring event. Going into event season, it was important to the town of Palisade, our businesses, and economics and agricultural to have another event that really encapsulated what was Palisade.
Charles: And with it being Honeybee Festival, it very much was an agricultural type of festival. So we wanted to keep the same light and try to find something that promoted the farmers here, promoted the wineries here, but really was a festival focus on what made Palisade, Palisade. So, our idea in the event was to bring out farmers, farm vendors, people who use local fruit. But then also to show the value added agriculture that we have in the valley. Because it doesn’t just stop at the farm, it leaves the farm and then it goes to a brewery. And then it leaves the brewery and it goes back to a farm and you know, it’s feeding pigs, it’s feeding cows. So it was kind of how do we show this whole cycle and then bring out educators that give people the opportunity to ask the hot topic questions and different things like that that we have in our local area and the struggles that we face and the opportunities that we have.
Lisa: I love it. I think what I like so much about the concept is that, Honeybee festival is important. Bees, obviously, pollinators, very important. But it’s a little bit of a narrower focus and this is broadening it out to basically all of the agricultural community and all of the products that Palisade produces and all the things that go into it. That’s why I think it’s such a cool thing.
Amy: Absolutely. It’s everywhere the bees go.
Lisa: Yeah.
Charles: Well, and I think it’s the thing about how we designed the festival is I think it has a long-term strategy for Palisade and I think it has the opportunity to become as iconic as Peach Fest, as iconic as Bluegrass. It’s just, it’s an earlier event that continues to promote the town of Palisade.
Lisa: Yeah, it’s a great kickoff to the season too.
Charles: Well and it’s at a time of the year, the biggest argument we had, is it’s at a time of the year farmers can actually attend. They can actually be a part of it. They can help speak, they can enjoy some food and alcohol. It just makes it a lot more fun.
Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. So give me a little preview about what’s going to be at the Farm Fest at Veterans Park.
Charles: So the, it’s, we’re going to be running at Veterans Park from 11:00am to 5:00pm. The 11:00am to noon is going to be our VIP section. On top of that VIP section, we have guest chef Matt Tezak coming out to do a, High Lonesome Ranch has donated half a beef and he’s going to be doing an educational seminar on how, where does your meat come from? What is this meat? What is like when you go and buy a ribeye, where part of the beef did that come from? And so that’s how we’ll start the first part of the day. From there, noon on to five will be general admission and VIP can obviously come late, but we have a bunch of different seminars.
Amy: We do. So we’re starting off with the beef butchering, which I think the most important part, or at least to me, the most important part of that is this is using the entirety of half a cow. This is really sustainable practices that we’re talking about with it. We’re super excited to open up with something as bloody and gory as that. But going from there, we are doing a Q and A session: Past, Present, Future with Green Junction Farmstead. Their story, how they got started, what the future of organic veggie production really is, what their story is. We have Still House String Band, which we’re extremely excited about. I know that’s a local favorite for all of us. Good friends too, to most of us in Palisade. So we’re really happy to have them there from 1 to 3. 3 to 5 we have two different seminars going on in the educational sphere. And that is Brian Reed from CSU Extension. First seminar that he is going to give for us and bless him for talking for two hours. But we are so excited to have him there. he is doing soil science and drought mitigation. I think that is a topic that is important to all of us in this valley this year. We all know it was a rough snow year. Watering everything just from our lawns to our crops is going to be a big deal this year. So we’re happy to have him here for that. Not only that, but he is doing at home fertilizer and compost seminar as well. So I think all these things are just so valuable to our community and things that we all really care about.
Charles: And then what we’ve brought out on the part of the light in this is one that I’m in the alcohol industry and that’s kind of what I know well. And, as does Amy, and we used to have Brews N Cruise and that was one of our favorite events. We’ve never had a beer festival in Palisade again since then. And so when we reached out to all of our vendors, we said the biggest thing we want to push is how you use fruit, how you use grain, how you use these different things and take a beer fest and make it educational. So you can still go and have your beers and everything else, but there’s that value added aspect of. And that’s why we opened it up past just breweries and cideries, wineries. And then the distillery will be running VIP.
Amy: Peach Street Distillery.
Charles: It’ll be a lot of fun educational aspect to this beer fest that I think will make it different than most beer fests where people are just going to taste and over-consume.
Lisa: Taste and waste.
Charles: Yeah, taste and waste.
Amy: We semi adopted the slogan more than a beer garden.
Lisa: Nice. Who are some of the people coming in that you’re excited about?
Charles: Excited about everyone that’s coming in, but.
Lisa: Yeah, trick question.
Charles: Yeah, it’s really hard. What’s cool is we were able to get not just people in the local community. We have people coming up from Paonia, so Paonia United, Chrysalis, Big Bs. from the Front Range, we have New Terrain, Breckenridge Brewery. And then locally, of course, we got all of our big favorites here. Palisade Brewery, WestCo, Ramblebine. And then when it came to wineries, we you know, unfortunately the same weekend as Sip Into Spring.
Lisa: Yeah.
Charles: But, it was the weekend in the town approved, so it’s what we have. So some of the other wineries in town are going to be coming. Mafia Princess, Carlson Vineyards, Periphery Cellars. So really mixing up some diversity there on what we’re going to see in both beer, cider, wine. I think we’re at 16 alcohol vendors.
Lisa: Oh, wow.
Amy: We, we’ve got that side. But we also have the farm side of it, too. So we’re very excited to host Paonia Soil Company, Mesa County Conservation District. Several other vendors you’re going to see there, including High Lonesome Ranch, that are on more of the ranch side of Farm Fest. What we’re doing to really more encapsulate what we’re after. Again, more than a beer garden.
Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. That sounds really cool. And you know, because Sip Into Spring isn’t a full day thing, people can put these two together and complement the two and have a whole big Palisade day also.
Amy: Exactly.
Lisa: So I know an important part of this too is also supporting La Plaza. Is like part of the ticket sales going to go to them or how exactly are you gonna organize that?
Charles: So this is a nonprofit and we’re doing a couple different ways you can give. La Plaza is gonna be there and we’re gonna have a booth that you can physically donate. But on top of it, any profit that’s made during this festival, once we cover cost, every dime’s going to La Plaza.
Lisa: That’s awesome. Very cool.
Charles: Again, it goes back to investing in Ag here, investing in our farming community, investing in our neighbors. And we thought that that would be. We support them when we do our bluegrass festival for when we do Palisade Bash. It’s very much the same thing. Everything that’s made at Talbotts goes down to them.
Lisa: Right. And of course, Talbot’s has an extremely long founding history of the organization that became La Plaza as well. So that’s cool. Just to continue that ongoing, you know, tie back into, that organization.
Amy: I keep kind of reiterating, this is a family friendly event. Just like downtown Palisade Farm Fest is. So we will open ticket sales. We do have the VIP section which has been sponsored by Peach Street Distillery. We’re so happy to partner with them and just to go in the history of that. Cody was actually one of the original planners for Palisade Brews N Cruise back in the day. So we’re so happy to have her support and honestly, just knowledge in how to make this happen at Veterans Park. It’s been several years since anyone has done something at Veterans Park. So to highlight that as well, the Town of Palisade will have a booth at Veterans Park event as well. It’s not going to be directly tied to the Veterans Center, anything like that, but community feedback is always something that’s extremely important to not just us as event planners, but being part of the Town of Palisade. So to tie back into this is family friendly. Everyone is welcome to come and go out of Veterans Park. The only people that need to purchase tickets is anyone who wants to participate in the beer tasting, wine tasting, cider tastings included in that or VIP tickets as well. So everyone is welcome to come and go. We do have plenty of other things for kids to do as well that we’re very excited about. So I, I don’t. I don’t know. Maybe there are kids that are interested in seeing half a cow being butchered. I’m excited about that part of it too. But it. This, this is family friendly.
Lisa: What kind of. Oh, go ahead sorry.
Charles: Well, I, I would say another big part of choosing Veterans Park is, when we were kids, that’s where the Peach Fest was. That’s where all these festivals were. Like, it was very small and so like parts of our childhood are remembered, you know, back in the day, we used to have weddings of Veterans Park. All these different things, and again, nothing political, but that is a big part of our history and it was fun to be able to do something that’s right in town.
Amy: Charles and I spent a lot of time at Veterans Park as kids growing up. I think that was actually the hub for a lot of us growing up, outside of the pool and Riverbend, we hung out at the skate park.
Lisa: Yeah, that’s awesome. What kind of family friendly things or what kind of kids activities are you going to have? If you can share anything.
Amy: The one I’m most excited about is our bump and jump. Who doesn’t love that? I don’t know. We might have to put an age restriction on the bump and jump. So we’ll see.
Lisa: What is a bump and jump. Am I the only one who doesn’t know what that is?!
Amy: The bump and jump castles?
Lisa: Oh, okay. A bouncy house. I don’t know if that’s like regional or something?
Amy: Exactly. Every everything about Farm Fest, including our seminars, is designed to be family friendly. So even when we’re talking about composting and how to make at home fertilizers, this is very interactive. You will be able to touch soil and plants and I don’t know about raw beef, but it’s very interactive for families.
Lisa: Awesome. I think one of the coolest things, in addition to like highlighting local farmers, is just the interactivity of it and the way that it encourages people to get into Palisade and explore and find the things that you think are really cool and dig deeper into what you are interested in. And it seems like there’s a ton of opportunities to do that.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what we’re so excited about, honestly, is the 360 of everything from food production, whether that’s a farm or a ranch or. You know, I think a lot of farmers enjoy a nice, cold beer or cider or wine after a long hot day in Palisade too. But also tying into: this is Palisade. This is not something I think any of us in this community want to step away from or see go away. I hate to put Charles on the spot as a legacy family in Palisade, but it’s hard to vocalize really what this means not just to us.
Charles: Well and I think that’s, you know, farming is going to change and it already has. And it’s, you know, you used to be able to raise a farm, you know, six kids on seven acres with one income. And that’s the way it was. And anymore farming’s changed so much that I think if we don’t learn to cross-diversify and do different things, things that are value added things to the farming industry, ultimately we will. What none of us want to see, but we don’t want to see urban development all over prime farmland.
Lisa: Right. Absolutely.
Amy: We went from hanging out at the skate park to this. We’re very happy to be here.
Lisa: I think that’s some good progress. While I have you both here, is there anything else you want to plug?
Charles: I do. The one thing that I do want to plug is that we have some sponsors. When it comes to our sponsors, we do have GJ Radio that has came in as our biggest sponsor. And then behind them, Fruita Co-op came in as a sponsor, as well as High Lonesome Ranch in both the sponsorship and donating the beef for our show. So, we want to thank our sponsors.
Lisa: Absolutely. Very important.
Amy: Sponsors. We’ll thank our community and the Town of Palisade, everyone here. We can’t wait to see what this is gonna grow into. This really, truly is in its infancy. And it has been so fun to see what people have pulled together so far. So to infinity and beyond.
Lisa: Yeah, I can’t wait to see what it is and what it becomes. And it’s such a cool thing to be local, grassroots, locally developed. So thank you guys.
Charles: Well, and that’s the thing. We’d like to see how it grows in years to come, but eventually we’d like to see it be more than just one day. And different events on different days. You know, whether we bring back, like, Peach Fest still does it, but it’s not as, not like it used to be, but, like, you know, Friday night street dance, and then on Sunday, we could do a tractor and hooptie. I mean, but it’s the time of the year again when farmers can actually come out, so we could do a parade that celebrates them and they get to bring out some of their cool stuff that no one gets to see, you know.
Lisa: That would be so cool.
Charles: It’d be fun.
Lisa: I love it.
Amy: Hooptie. I love it.
Charles: Hoopties. My dad calls them orchard hoopties.
Amy: Farm Fest hooptie day. I like that.
Lisa: Well, thank you both so much. Just not only for spending your time. I know this is volunteer time, but your energy in putting this together and doing something really cool for the town. And thanks for coming to talk to me and taking the time to do this. So appreciate you.
Charles: Thanks for having us. We really appreciate it.
Lisa: I’m told that there might be something cool happening in downtown Palisade on the Friday night before the farm fest, but I can’t say exactly what. So plan to head down there to find out…
Next, I chatted with Kathy Gilbert about the Farm Fest Market.
Kathy: Kathy Gilbert, owner of the Milky Way and the Cygnus Coffee Bus. And soon to be, oh, like what are we calling the warehouse? We’re calling it the Launch Bay. That opens soon. And Palisade Kombucha is already in there.
Lisa: Awesome. I have more questions about that later. But so first of all, tell me about Farm Fest Market. What is it?
Kathy: So I am in charge of the Farm Fest Market and that is Downtown Palisade, 10am to 4pm on Saturday, May 2. And we are doing basically the farmer’s market footprint with all kinds of different farmers showing what they make or what they grow. And then we have people that make their own tallow and like face cream and seeds. One of my favorite is what is oh, J.D. heirloom seeds. Yeah, J.D. heirloom seeds. And he’s got some great stuff. He’s always got like frozen chickens and stuff out there that they process too. So we’ll have as many farm or from the farm to the table vendors is generally what we have in there. We also have like the backwood anglers from, I think they’re out in Fruita, so you can go fishing. But the whole point is to show that we are a farming community. That is how we were founded. That is what we want to continue to be. We may have wine, which we do, grow the grapes, but Palisade is all about farming and we want to respect that and feature that. So I’m excited.
Lisa: So how did this idea come up in the first place?
Kathy: Honestly, I’m not sure. I just kind of had it floating in my head. And then the Talbotts kind of had theirs floating in their head and we said, hey, let’s do this thing together. And so we’ve kind of got. We’re taking over all of Palisade that weekend. We’re sorry. Not sorry. We’re taking over all of Palisade downtown and Veterans Park and there will be something for everyone. So I am leading in the plaza. We’ll be doing presentations in the plaza that are geared more toward, hey, is it your first time trying to grow something? Let us help you. We’ve got Desert Bloom Hydroponics. They’ll be doing grow your own food and medicine. Like, grow real food. 4H beekeeping is coming out to show us how. So they will give a presentation and then if you go over to their booth, they can even help you more one on one. Mesa County is going to compost, come by and do composting. And if I understand right, there’s going to be a compost sweepstakes, which I’m not quite sure on. But I mean, compost is expensive. That stuff’s expensive. And, man, your stuff can just really grow with it. So, yeah, we’ve got all kinds of fun things.
Lisa: Oh, yeah. I’m just. I’m curious to hear more about it. Like, what other, so, like, what other things are happening in the plaza?
Kathy: So here’s kind of the full rundown. We’ve got, grow your own food and medicine from Desert Bloom Hydroponics. They are over, I think on Pitkin. Yeah, they’re pretty cool. They do all kinds of interesting things there. Then we’ve got the 4H beekeeping. Then, Dodi from J & D Heirloom Seeds. He specifically has grown a tomato plant and he’s let it get wild, just absolutely wild. He’s been working on this since I think February in his hothouse. And he’s going to show how to prune tomatoes and houseplants for patio growing spaces.
Lisa: Oh, that’s awesome.
Kathy: So even if you don’t have a giant plot of land, you can grow anything in just a tiny pot on your patio. The more we grow our own food, the less we are going to supermarkets and we’re cutting down on carbon footprint and just healthier, better, you know what’s in your food if you grow it. Palisade Insectary is coming. Very excited about that. And I would ask them, hey, what’s a fun name we can do, you know, to put on the presentation for the plaza? And I love, I just absolutely love our government agencies because it will be. Not joking. Biological controlling in Colorado. Okay, okay, so we’re doing that.
Lisa: That’s the scientists. They’re very dry.
Kathy: My favorite. Oh, my God, my favorite one. Mesa Weeds. Mesa Weeds is coming out and their catchy title, Eradication of the Japanese beetle in Mesa county in the upper Grand Valley pest control district. That’s a lot. That’s a lot to put on a sign, but I’m going to do it.
Lisa: Bye, bye Japanese beetles. How’s that.
Kathy: Yes. Yes. Everybody needs to come and learn. What is a Japanese beetle? What do I look for? Who do I call when I find the Japanese beetle? Because they could wipe out everything. We would like to not have them, and we would like them to all die a flaming death. So, yeah, that’s how I feel strongly about it. We have La Plaza coming out and giving a talk. Palisade Historical Society. I’m very excited about this one. We’re giving them one end of the street to take over with their vehicles and their stilts. And they’re going to be doing demonstrations on the stilts. Do not let me on there. I don’t want to go to the ER. It’s accurate.
Lisa: That’s awesome, though. So they’re gonna have a lot of their collection items out there that can move down here?
Kathy: Yes, they’re gonna be bringing all kinds of stuff. And the goal is for people to understand this is Palisade. We come from this. Yes, there have been changes and not everyone likes the changes. Change happens inevitably. But I can tell you, since I was here in 1983 and 84 and 85, there’s still no stoplight. Some of the businesses have changed names, but it is still the same town. It’s just still the same town. It’s the same vibe, it’s the same community and you just can’t replicate that. And so we would like to keep that going by continuing to farm.
Lisa: Well, it’s such an awesome idea just to feature all of the cool things that people are doing around here in one place.
Kathy: There’s a lot of interesting farming going on. There’s a lot of interesting things. And there’s a lot of, the smaller farms have the CSAs. And how that works, if you don’t know, is you go in and you just, like, buy a share or you pay this much, and then every week or month or I’m not. Depends on the farm. You get a box of farm things. It could be whatever they’re growing at the time, seasonally. And we do want people to understand the life cycle of a peach. Like, how do they grow? When do they grow? Because people will come to me in my shop in April and be like, all right, so where can I go pick some peaches? Well, you can come see them and I will pull up my phone. Like, I took this picture last night. It’s a quarter of an inch. And isn’t it so cute and tiny? And we just have to explain that. And sometimes they understand, sometimes they don’t. But I can go to the grocery store and get them. Yes, you can. But it’s not going to be as good, right?
Lisa: Read the sticker.
Kathy: Look at the sticker. Where did it come. If it has a sticker on it, it’s not from here.
Lisa: Right? So and I’m sure I don’t think farmer is the first thing that comes to mind when people think of you. They probably think of all the other things.
Kathy: It’s probably.
Lisa: But you guys are. You and Scott are farmers.
Kathy: We do own a farm. Luckily the Ruckman family takes care of our farm because if it were up to me, we would not have peaches. It just. I.
Lisa: Alright, maybe I’ll cut that out.
Kathy: I understand it all. I can explain it and I can say, rah, rah. And I will be out there at 2am taking temperatures like whenever it’s a freeze. And I will do all of that. I will turn on the water, I will turn off the water. I can drive a sprayer. I can do all of that. But you don’t want me to be solely responsible for that. That’s a bad, bad idea.
Lisa: It’s a lot of work.
Kathy: It is a lot of work. And we have a lot of peaches. We’ve got 12 acres of peaches. We are finally fully planted after five years. So we have 12 acres of peaches, nine of wine grapes. I can’t tell you acreage on plums, but everywhere we have like a spare row, we put in plums. And then we have a quarter acre of apricots. Because we put in, I think even in that quarter acre, like six different kinds. And so we watched. Okay, who was the last to bloom? Okay, that was the last to bloom. We like that one. So when we go put in more. Let’s put that one in. Cause we got the hailstorm.
Lisa: Right.
Kathy: Was it like last week? Yeah. Apricots aren’t looking very good right now. They’re kind of sad. They’re gonna taste great, though. They’re gonna taste really, really great.
Lisa: Okay. You think you still will get some?
Kathy: Yeah. If they were on the top and they weren’t under a leaf, ours got a big hit. If they were toward the bottom and they had something over them, they’re okay. According to Ted, our farmer, Ted Ruckman, he said they will continue to grow. They just won’t be very pretty. So there’ll be a lot of seconds this year.
Lisa: That works for me.
Kathy: But you know what? They make a great jam. They make a wonderful jam.
Lisa: I mean, they still taste absolutely delicious.
Kathy: They do. I like to do a mix. When I make a jam, I like to do a mix of apricot and peach because then you get that really vibrant color and that extra little bit of tang from the apricot enhances the peach. But that I can do. I can can like crazy. Just don’t ask me to do all 40 acres. It’s a bad idea.
Lisa: I mean, it’ll be, it’s a full time job. Right?
Kathy: It is a full time job. It is very much a full time job.
Lisa: So you’ve got a couple other of those too.
Kathy: And we, we just absolutely, we love the Ruckman family. They, they’re family now. They’re family now.
Lisa: Tell me about some of the family-friendly stuff that is planned, like the kids activities.
Kathy: I’m so excited. I’m so excited. My grandma, former preschool teacher, has come out to play. we are doing lots of hands on activities. We have a water wall that the kids are gonna pour the water in and see how it goes to. Okay. This is how we get our water. It goes in the irrigation canals and then it goes through a head gate. And so we’re gonna let the kids play with that. And I don’t know if they’re gonna understand, but they’re gonna, gonna have a blast.
Lisa: Like, I wanna play with that.
Kathy: Right? It’s gonna be actually really, really fun. I’m excited about this one. I’m like field testing it with the grandkids. All right, kids, do we like it? And they do. And then we’re doing, we have for the younger ones, we have sensory bins. Just sensory bins. Here’s like, here’s how you load up the corn, go feed the animals, so forth. And then we will have plant your own little terrarium garden. Because how can we teach kids to save the world and the environment if they don’t know how to take care of their own plant? So we’re going to teach them that. And then like a fun little science thing we like to do is it sounds simple but they love to watch this one is you plant a bean in a bag with a wet paper towel and then they watch it sprout and they get to see the whole root system.
Lisa: Oh, that’s cool.
Kathy: And then we’ll be making butterflies and talking about how important butterflies are as pollinators. Monarch butterflies will only lay their eggs on milkweed. They will only lay their eggs there. And the monarch butterfly population has taken a big hit with the fires. We do have some natural milkweed here. If you ever see any and you see the pods bursting, go grab some seeds and plant them. Because the coolest thing, once a mama butterfly lays her eggs and those babies hatch, that will be forever in their genetic memory. And they will come year after year and you will need more and more plants year after year and it’s so cool.
Lisa: Plus it’s really fun to spread the milkweed seeds.
Kathy: It is, it is very, very fun.
Lisa: I used to feel guilty. I feel like at one time people were like, oh no, it’s a weed, you shouldn’t spread it.
Kathy: Right? It was treated like a weed.
Lisa: Little did we know.
Kathy: And I, I find around our farm we have a couple of patches where it’s just still kind of like kind of naturally. And I find the milkweed there. And so I go and I take the seeds and we put them in our pots because we have we have a lot of bees too. We have tons of bees on the farm. We have got one, my daughter in law’s doing I think six hives right now. So I’m like, oh, that’s a good excuse to plant flowers. More pollinators. Because pollinators are important and except for wasp, I just. No, no, they’re gonna die.
Lisa: So the day of, are you just gonna be kind of. What are you gonna be doing? You told me once you were gonna be wearing an awesome outfit. You gonna be running around?
Kathy: I’m be gonna running around like a crazy person. Pretty much. I will be running around like a crazy person. But, hey, if you volunteer for Palisade Farm Fest, you get a moderately attractive T shirt. I, I. Yeah, it’s moderately attractive. It’s cute. It’s just like, huh, okay. That’s all I get? No, no. I’ll give you food and drink, too.
Lisa: And you get to be a part of a really fun experience. The inaugural farm fest.
Kathy: It’s honestly fun. Everybody’s happy to come out. A lot of times they dress. You know, festivals, they dress the kids up in cute stuff. And it’s going to be exciting.
Lisa: Are you trying to encourage people to dress up as anything in particular?
Kathy: I mean wear your best overalls. I don’t own any right now because I ripped them. But I would say, what is the Duluth. Duluth Trading has got some styling ones, some truly styling ones. And Seraphina from the farmer’s market, she has some, and they’re lightweight, so I might have to order some because they’re pretty styling. They’re pretty sassy. They’re like, sassy. What girl doesn’t want a good pair of overalls? Possibly a crinoline skirt. Not necessarily together.
Lisa: Yes. Yeah, I’m more the skirt one.
Kathy: I do like the skirts.
Lisa: Just functionally. While I have you. Do you want to say anything about the property by the high school? Any update? There’s a lot of work going on. Fast progress.
Kathy: There’s so much going on there right now. I’m excited because we are going to strike stripe the parking lot tomorrow. So I’m very excited by that. So we’ll have a real parking lot. Palisade Kombucha is in the warehouse. They are up and running and we will be having stuff in the front of the warehouse. We’re running the front half. Palisade Kombucha is running the back half. We’ve got a shared seating area. We will be doing some food and other things that will be revealed shortly and everyone can come take a peek.
Lisa: Now, do you have, like, a specific Facebook page for that or a specific website set up?
Kathy: I haven’t. I think what I’m probably going to do is just hook it up with the Milky Way, because we’re calling it the Cygnus Crossing Launch Bay, because we’re kind of space nerds. Can’t seem to stop that. And it’s taken a life of its own, so we are leaning into it. And I’m kind of going for, since Palisade Kombucha is definitely that 70s hippie vibe going, we’ve kind of gone into 70s sci fi, a little a la Logan’s Run vibe, because, you know, that is just truly classy. Also, it turns out I didn’t realize this because I hadn’t seen the movie since 1979. The really bad Disney movie the Black Hole. Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa: I don’t remember that.
Kathy: Oh, you should watch it. You might want to get drunk before you watch it, though. It’s so, so bad. It was during the dark Disney time when they were like, we’re going to do serious movies now. And that was a huge mistake, because they almost went bankrupt. But it turns out the evil ship. I didn’t know. But the evil ship in the Black Hole movie is called the Cygnus.
Lisa: Oh, no way.
Kathy: So now when people go, why did you call it Cygnus Crossing? Oh, because I was like, a huge fan of the movie Black Hole and it was formative in my formative years. Yeah, it actually wasn’t, but.
Lisa: Okay, so follow Milky Way for updates.
Kathy: Follow Milky Way. Yep. And we have an official address over there. Okay, we are 808 Shiraz Drive is the official address.
Lisa: How about the front half of the property?
Kathy: That is such a good question. We kind of have an idea of what we’re doing. It’s not a Cracker Barrel. I know that the rumors are flying.
Lisa: It’s not a 7/11.
Kathy: Oh, my gosh. There were so many. No, there were so many rumors. Some of the best ones were drive thru Weedery. Another one was strip club. That was a rumor. My favorite one was that it was a parking garage for festivals only. When they were doing the basement and they were doing the whole structure thing down there.
Lisa: For, like, two cars?
Kathy: Yeah, we could. We could fit, like, six cars in there. So I think if we charge, like, 20 bucks a car in 400 million years, we might make our money back.
Lisa: That’s a good business plan.
Kathy: It’ll be fine. The engineering was fine for that. So it will be a restaurant. Exactly what it will be. Can’t say yet. We are. We’re leasing it out. At least part of it. We’re leasing it out, it is a huge, huge space in there. I’m so excited. I’m so excited. I just. We’re not quite sure what it’s gonna be. We know what it needs to be, but I also don’t really want to do it because I’m already doing two things and I’m tired.
Lisa: Yeah. That’s fair.
Kathy: Actually, three with the farm. It’s fine. It’s fine.
Lisa: Right! Well, I’m really excited for that, whatever it may be when it opens.
Kathy: We’re very excited. Everybody’s like, what’s the timeline? Honestly, only the Lord knows. Because, yeah, we can say it’s gonna be done by this. And then this, this, this. And then you wait for this one part that’s holding everything up in. And that’s gonna be an extra three months. I’ve learned to quit asking. Cause I don’t know. It will be open when it’s open.
Lisa: It’s in progress.
Kathy: And if I sit and I worry about it, it will stress me more.
Lisa: Yeah. I hear ya.
Kathy: It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be.
Lisa: Well, thank you so much, Kathy.
Kathy: Thank you for having me.
Lisa: Yeah, I appreciate it. I’m really excited about the farm fest.
Kathy: It’s gonna be fun.
Lisa: It’s gonna be so much fun. It’s such a cool way to honor Palisade. The heritage.
Kathy: And people need to. Yeah. Okay. So a lot of girls come here and get drunk on the weekend. Oh, it’s wine fest or wine. It’s all wine. No, no, it’s actually farming.
Lisa: There’s a lot.
Kathy: It’s actually farming. And when you see a tractor. Slow down. Don’t try to.
Lisa: Wave.
Kathy: Don’t try to. Always wave at the farmers. Thank you very much, you guys. They’re feeding us. The farmers are what feed us. So.
Lisa: Absolutely. So cool. Well, thank you so much, Kathy.
Kathy: Thank you.
Lisa: OK, so. Go get yourself some styling overalls and head down to Palisade Farm Fest in downtown Palisade on Saturday, May 2nd. I’m so looking forward to seeing what this awesomely energetic group of people can do. It’s so great to see locals stepping up and finding creative new ways to honor Palisade’s agricultural heritage. So come on down and join in the celebration!
The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend, by Geoff Roper.
Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.