Saddle up for annual Horse Trading Days
ZELIENOPLE — The 47th annual Horse Trading Days are just around the corner, bringing three days of food, fun, music and contests.
The festival will be July 15 to 17 along Main Street in both Harmony and Zelienople.
Organizer Arlene Krava said the event will include some new "down home" activities.
A farmers market will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 15 and 16 and will include Mazur's Greenhouse & Farm, Yellow Dog Farm and the McGinnis Sisters, selling fruits and vegetables, flowering plants, yard items and jellies and jams.
"We're also trying to work more closely with Harmony with this year's activities," Krava said.
New this year is a car cruise July 17 that will line up at Connoquenessing Valley Elementary School on South Beaver Street and parade down Main Street in Zelienople, before parking in downtown Harmony.
Seventeen car clubs will participate, and more than 150 cars will be on display.
Many of the old standards of the festival will return, including the horse parade, the karaoke contest, sidewalk sales, historic tours, the crowning of Little Miss and Mr. Horse Trader, and the wooden nickels redeemable for discounts and freebies.
The Zelie Round-Up Horse Parade will begin at 7 p.m. July 15 and feature horses, teams and wagons.
Children are also invited to march down Main Street astride their stick horses.
Anyone wishing to participate or volunteer should contact Mary Anne Kristophel at sunrisecommercialcontracting@verizon.net or call 724-355-9071.
A number of new activities for children and their families are planned. A half pint hoedown is set for 5:30 p.m. July 17 in which children and their parents can learn square dancing.
The traditional children's July 17 events at the Walgreen's parking lot on Main Street will include a rodeo at which youths will round up the "doggies" —balloons — in a pen with their flyswatters.
Youngsters can jump around at a Tiger Bound opposite Walgreens on Main Street.There will also be a spoons workshop that members of the musical group Simple Gifts will conduct. Parents and children can learn to play the spoons at 2 p.m. July 17.Other favorites are the frog jumping contest, baby races and rodent rage.An array of musical groups will perform, including several acts at the Strand Theater.The Softwinds will play doo-wop the evening of July 15. The Simple Gifts will perform ethnic folk music July 17.There also will be musical entertainment on the Spring Street stage at the corner of Main and Spring streets at 7:30 p.m. each of the festival's three days.Groups set to perform there are: Higher Vibe playing music spanning more than 60 years on July 15; Duane Davis School of Guitar students age 10 to 18 performing July 16, and the Ray Ryan New Orleans Riverside Band playing blues blended with traditional New Orleans music on July 17.
