With tin men and tractor rides, tattered wallpaper, old ice tongs, and a turtle-gone-TikTok star, the Homer Fall Festival teemed with life, filled with relics of the past and the stories that go with them. Returning for the annual event, attendees shared their homemade hobbies beside displays of antique farming tools.

The Homer Historical Society hosts the fall festival every year as a fundraising event. On Sept. 24, festivalgoers both young and old had the chance to shop for homemade items, hear live music, view antiques, and tour 19th-century buildings.

Out in the fields, volunteers displayed old farm equipment. The field, lined with tractors, hummed with the gentle whirr of a nearby sawmill cutting logs. 

Terry Crandall and his grandson 11-year-old Hunter Crandall showcased the tools people used to use when cutting or shaving ice. Crandall said he had gotten a block of ice for the festival from a nearby Amish community.

“When I went down to the Amish to ask for a block of ice, they kind of looked at me funny,” Crandall said. “I said to them, ‘You don’t realize most kids and some adults have never seen a block of ice? They see bags of ice in a gas station but never a block of ice.’”

Hunter demonstrated how to use most of the tools, including ice tongs.

“Here’s an ice shaver. You can make pretty much like a snow cone, like this. Right here is ice tongs. You pick it up. Over here we have a horse-drawn ice saw.”

“Boy, your grandpa taught you a lot, didn’t he?” one festival-goer interjected.

Hunter ran off to another part of the field to meet Snappy, a large turtle surrounded by a group of children. According to his owner, Bill Martinson, Snappy is a 30-year-old, 60-pound snapping turtle.

“Well, he was this big when I got him: just bigger than my thumbnail, like a nickel,”  Martinson said. “He’s super-duper friendly, as you can see. He has big dogs lick his face; kids ride on him. He just puts up with everyone.”

Snappy gained internet fame after Martinson posted a video of him going to the vet on TikTok. So far, Snappy has accrued about 25 million views.

“I took him over to the vet and had the girl grooming his claws,” Martinson said. “We put it on TikTok and everybody said, ‘Oh, he was gonna bite her! He was gonna bite her!’ I said, ‘He wasn’t going to bite her–he was in love with her.’”

Martinson first found Snappy on the side of a road in Lake George, when he was riding in a pickup truck with his son. 

“I looked down and there he was, a tiny little thing. About the size of a little beetle, you know? I said, ‘Hey, stop! There’s a little turtle. I’m gonna get him,’ and picked him up,” Martinson said. “I took him home, leaned back in my chair, set him on my chest, and he went right to sleep.”

Another major attraction at the festival was the historic Blair House. 

The interior  of the Blair House was filled with the smell of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. A melody playing on an Aeolian self-playing piano drifted through the small, antiquated house.

“Visitors can walk the nature trail and tour the Victorian-era farmhouse that was once the home of Albert and Ella Blair and their daughters Maude and Bessie Blair,” according to the Homer website. “Albert was the son of Homer pioneer Dr. George Blair, who was Homer’s first doctor.”

The home included a black couch made out of horsehair, frayed wallpaper patterned with flowers, and an old wooden baby cradle. A basket of worn-out dominos rested on a wooden table, which had been made with wood from the property.

A portrait of Betsy Blair, posing stoically, hung on the wall of the piano room. One mother stopped and pointed out the picture to her children.

“They didn’t really smile for pictures,” she said, while the children looked up at the photograph.

A few minutes later, an older couple walked by the same picture.

“Look how grumpy they look,” the woman said.

In the yard outside the Blair home, vendors set up booths and sold wares like doll clothes, framed photographs, and honey. 

Arlene Kinder displayed her line of handmade doll clothes. Her collection featured doll outfits in a wide variety of sizes, as well as other items like baby bibs. 

“I have sewed since I was probably 12 years old. I’m 80 now,” Kinder said. “My mom couldn’t do anything more than sew a button on, and she said, ‘You will learn to sew.’”

Kinder said she was inspired to make doll clothes after her granddaughter was given an American Girl doll. Kinder also sews doll clothes for other brands, because she said she knows not everyone can afford the expense of an American Girl doll.

“I like watching the little girls come in who can’t quite make up their mind which dolls’ outfit they want,” Kinder said.

At another booth, Sarah Sechler displayed decorative men made out of tin cans. The tin men, strung on metal poles, came to life with a variety of hand-painted patterns, pictures, and slogans.

“My mother-in-law brought one back from Arizona 25 years ago and we just ran with it. It was held together with twisted wire and we just improved upon it,” Sechler said. “My husband and I have built them for 20 years now.”

Sechler, a Coldwater resident, has sold her crafts at the Homer Fall Festival for several years. The tin men are made from recycled materials, which Sechler collects from her friends and family.

“At first I painted them solid colors, and then I got brave,” Sechler said. “If you screw up, you just spray paint it and start over.”

Sechler said she often gets her ideas for designs from T-shirts and other items she sees in daily life. She said she even felt inspired by items she had seen at the festival that day.

“This lady over here has got some really cute sayings on cups, and I’m probably going to steal a couple of those,” Sechler said, laughing.

She pointed to her favorite tin man, one with,  “It’s 5:00 somewhere,” written on his hat.

“That is one that really excites a lot of people,” Sechler said. “There’s another really cute one that says, ‘Everyone brings joy to this place: Some when they enter, some when they leave.’”