Reveling in Fall’s Festivals

Bringing in the sheaves

Bringing in the sheaves

We will come rejoicing

Bringing in the sheaves

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With sheaves in notoriously short supply around this county, we’re forced to figure out other ways to rejoice in the season.

For some good autumnal revelry, this weekend offers practically a sheave’s worth of choices. Ignoring the issue of how many choices make a sheave, merrymakers can choose from seasonal festivities including Arborfest at the Fullerton Arboretum and O’Neill Regional Park’s Acorn Day, or such ethnic festivals as Taste of India in Irvine and the multifaceted Crossroads Orange County Renaissance Festival in Santiago Canyon. Or you can raise your stein to the season at one of several Oktoberfests around the county.

What are you waiting for? Ditch the pitchfork and enjoy!

International Festivals

Diwali is an autumn festival of lights celebrated by several of India’s major cultures. It won’t go unnoticed in Irvine, either.

A Taste of India at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, though not a Diwali celebration per se, will give visitors a sampling of the food, music and dance of India. Guests will be greeted at the IFAC entry by an artist creating traditional Rangoli sand paintings, said the city’s fine-arts supervisor, Toni McDonald Pang. In the galleries and outdoor areas, classical and folk dance groups will perform.

Traditional Indian dress will be modeled, and there will be yoga demonstrations, craft workshops and a merchants bazaar. For a fee, guests can be adorned with elaborate, temporary hand tattoos in henna ink by a Mehendi artist. Food by India Cook House will be sold.

“A Taste of India” runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at IFAC, 14321 Yale Ave. Admission is $3; children under 12 are free. (714) 724-6881.

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Oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah, that’s how it goes at Autumnfest ’97. This benefit for Acacia Adult Day Services features a German-style dinner, children’s games, tastings of 24 international beers (or apple cider for nontipplers), silent auction and dancing to the Rhinelanders. German dress is encouraged. Proceeds support Acacia’s day-care and health-care services for elderly and disabled clients. From 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Garden Grove Community Meeting Center, 11300 Stanford Ave. $20. (714) 530-1566.

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Oktoberfest also is a very big deal at the Phoenix Club in Anaheim. So big, in fact, that its Oktoberfeste celebration overflows into September and November. Through Nov. 2 the club offers German bands, German dancing, German food and--what else?--German beer in its ballroom and bierzelt (outdoor beer garden).

The band Schwalmtal Musikanten plays this Friday and Saturday nights. Families can get into the celebration in a big way Sundays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., when the club opens its on-site carnival rides and offers a wide range of traditional food (including ox cooked on a spit) and drink, Bavarian dance groups and of plenty of musik, musik, musik. The Phoenix Club is at 1340 S. Sanderson Ave. Admission is free Friday, $6 Saturday and $5 Sunday. (714) 563-4166.

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But for a twist of fate, Southern Californians might never have known the joy of a good bean burrito.

According to Jerry Miller, administrator of Mission San Juan Capistrano, if the Russians, who were expanding into Northern California in the pre-mission era, had beat out the Spaniards in the colonization of California, “the state’s look, culture and history would have been entirely different. . . . We would all be eating borscht instead of beans.”

To drive the point home, the mission is holding a Russian Heritage Celebration from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. Festivities include performances by the internationally known Kaliman Dance Company, the Firebird Folk Ensemble, folk music by Yury Edelman and the Nightlight Ensemble, a Russian children’s performing group.

The event--which also includes art exhibits by Leonid and Alexey Steele (and other Russian artists) as well as ethnic foods--will be held at Mission San Juan Capistrano, 31522 Camino Capistrano. Admission is $4-$5. (714) 248-2048.

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Huzzah! Jolly olde England gets most of the attention at Renaissance fairs, but there’s one this weekend that invites makers of merry to set their sites a bit wider.

Beginning Saturday (despite this week’s fire) and continuing weekends through Nov. 2, the fifth annual Crossroads Orange County Renaissance Festival will showcase the culture, food and entertainment of some 200 years of the Renaissance as it affected key areas of Western Europe.

About 1,200 costumed participants perform in each of the three weekends, said organizers Tom Wilson and Pat Long of Riverside’s Crossroads Productions. Highlights include equine acts, music and dancing on five stages, “living chess games,” street theater, encampments and period foods. (What’s a Renaissance fair without a roasted turkey leg?)

Reincarnated celebrities put in guest appearances, including Johannes Gutenberg (a.k.a. actor Corey Baham of Long Beach), inventor of the movable-type printing press.

Each weekend focuses on a different region. On Saturday and Sunday, the emphasis on Germany includes a royal beer festival hosted by 15th century monarchs King Frederick III and Queen Lenora. The Royal Spanish Court holds forth Oct. 25 and 26 (beware roving bands of scurvy but musical miscreants). Closing weekend has a Celtic flavor and features versions of ancient Irish games of physical prowess and skill.

The fifth annual Crossroads Orange County Renaissance Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Nov. 2 at Oak Canyon Park, 5305 Santiago Canyon Road in Santiago Canyon (enter via a private road one-quarter mile east of the entrance to Irvine Lake). Admission is $6-$8. For advance purchase, call (800) 946-3860; for information, (800) 320-4736 or (909) 943-5949.

Autumn Festivals

Hunt acorns, plant a sapling and take part in other nifty, naturalist-led activities Saturday on Acorn Day at O’Neill Regional Park in Trabuco Canyon. The annual event, which helps visitors understand the role of the California live oak in our landscape and history, also includes storytelling, music and exhibits. Runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the park, 30892 Trabuco Canyon Road. Admission is free; parking is $4. (714) 858-9365.

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Tucked in a corner of Cal State Fullerton is some local color a lot of folks have never seen. The 26-acre Fullerton Arboretum showcases a variety of natural environments from desert to coastal, including many deciduous trees just beginning their autumn display.

You can take it all in at this weekend’s Arborfest, a family-oriented festival offering pumpkin-patch tours, apple pressing, butter churning, candle making, horse-drawn trolley rides and nature and wildlife exhibits. Tours of the restored Heritage House and collections of antique cars and machinery are also featured.

“Bug Chef” Ron Taylor gives demonstrations of cooking with edible insects at 1 p.m. both festival days in the Ugly Bug Fair section, which also includes bug displays. Try to save a few minutes to roam the nature trails and to turtle-watch at the property’s large pond.

Arborfest is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the 26-acre Fullerton Arboretum, 1900 Associated Road. Admission is $5 for adults; free for youths under 18. (714) 278-3404.

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Westminster’s rich agricultural heritage will be celebrated Sunday at the 17th annual Pumpkin Festival. Entertainment includes Las Tapitas Spanish Dancers, the Huntington-Westminster Kitchen Band and the Country Strutters Line Dancers. There’ll be a 6-foot-diameter pumpkin pie, pumpkin decorating, biggest-pumpkin contests and games, plus tours of the Westminster Museum and other sites in Blakey Historical Park, 8612 Westminster Blvd. Free admission. (714) 891-2597.

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Fall homecoming doesn’t have to mean limos and corsages. The Key Ranch Homecoming in Placentia is a day of music and memorabilia that recalls the days when neighbors gathered at the old homestead to celebrate the end of the harvest.

The Tinker’s Own, which plays Irish folk music, the Cottonwood String Band and other groups provide homespun tunes at this family-oriented event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Historic George Key Ranch, 625 W. Bastanchury Road. $2-$3. (714) 528-4260.

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Still haven’t bagged that perfect Halloween pumpkin? At the Environmental Nature Center’s Fall Faire & Pumpkin Patch in Newport Beach, families can hunt for the quintessential squash to the strains of live bluegrass music. Children’s activities, nature walks, food and baked goods sales and a raffle are also featured. Proceeds benefit this pocket-sized nature center that serves thousands of local schoolchildren.

Festivities run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at the center, 1601 16th St. (next to Newport Harbor High School). Free admission. (714) 645-8489.

All-Purpose Fun and Games

No real ethnic or seasonal focus here, but Buena Park’s Silverado Days does rate high for sheer endurance. Now 41 years old, the festival offers four days of entertainment, rides, crafts, games and loads of food (a spokeswoman vows the “peach cobbler’s to die for”). Noon Sunday brings a chili cook-off with guest chef Jonathan Slavin of the NBC series “Union Square.”

Silverado Days runs from 3 to 11 p.m. today, 3 p.m. to midnight Friday, 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday (with a 7 a.m. pancake breakfast for early birds) and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday at William Peak Park, 7225 El Dorado Drive. Free. (714) 562-3560.