Many thanks to all the volunteers, trustees, and staff who made the 11th annual Punkinfiddle Family Festival and National Estuaries Day Celebration here on Saturday "one for the books." (I know, I used that for the Crafts Festival, but this was a really good "other big festival" too.)

Observations & Numbers

• Weather: Sunny, high 70's, blue skies
• Attendance: About 1,200 paying adults versus 2012's 800 or so. With a possible average of 4 people per family, we're estimating that "more than 2,000 people were here" on Saturday, making it the largest Punkinfiddle since the first one in 2003.
• Gross: This year likely saw the greatest gross profits for a Punkinfiddle in a decade.
• Sheepherding, returning this year after a hiatus, was the unanimous favorite activity from informally polled visitors. Let's get that Joe Grady from Two Coves Farm back.
• Uncountable happy (some painted) faces, good music all day long, bunnies and alpacas and green crabs to pet, almost exactly the right amount of food, and a good steady flow of people through a well-run and mighty comfortable family festival — that was Punkinfiddle 2013.

Many more words can and will be written about Punkinfiddle.

These two sum it up for me, though: thank you.

Thanks to Sue Bickford for this nice set of photos…

1. Richard Dearborn at the butter churn. Dick's been the butter man since the first Punkinfiddle.
2. A little girl wearing an estuary crown gets tips on catching a green crab with a dip net.
3. Face painting — always a popular activity, both for the artists and the recipients.
4. The Nor'Easters made the most of a fickle breeze.
5. A cozy chicken from Mud Meadow Farm.
6. A miniature hobbit house with intricate stonework by the Adinolfis.
7. Carving the giant pumpkin.
8. Keeping the scarecrows company.

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