On October 17, Purcellville's Farm Tour and Town Festival Hand Off at 2 p.m.

What does a Purcellville Saturday look like when the county's biggest farm weekend and the town's own festival land on the same date?

On October 17, the free Loudoun Fall Farm Tour opens its first day with stops spread across Western Loudoun. The same afternoon, the sixth annual Celebrate Purcellville ends its week with a free Fall Festival in Dillon's Woods, from 2 to 5 p.m. On paper the two events compete for the same day. Their published schedules show something else. Nearly every timed event at the farm stops near town happens before noon, and the town saves everything that matters for after 2. The day hands off cleanly from one event to the other, with one real exception.

The farm stops do their scheduled events before lunch

The Fall Farm Tour is self-guided, free, and needs no tickets, though some stops charge for food, drinks or special activities. Every site is open rain or shine. Several stops with Purcellville addresses list specific times, and those times cluster in the morning:

• Danny's Dream Acres, 15876 Short Hill Road. Meet the farm's goats from 10 a.m. to noon each day. Java Etc. sells coffee, tea and lemonade on both days, and children can decorate a pumpkin for a small fee. Farmer Julie named the farm after her father, Danny Kirkpatrick.
• Breaux Vineyards, 36888 Breaux Vineyards Lane. A free educational hike through the vines runs from 11 a.m. to noon, with registration opening at 10:30. You can add a guided tasting along the way for $45. The estate covers more than 400 acres, with 90 acres of vineyards growing 13 grape varieties, and it celebrates its 30th anniversary next year.
• Abernethy & Spencer Greenhouse, 18035 Lincoln Road. At 11 a.m., Susan, the daughter of the nursery's founder, leads a history tour. She covers how relocated greenhouses made Abernethy & Spencer one of the East Coast's largest pansy producers in the early 1940s. Extra parking is at Lincoln Elementary.
• Blooming Hill Lavender Farm & Gift Shop, 19929 Telegraph Springs Road. A Fall Floral Workshop runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and requires advance registration.

The 11 a.m. slot is crowded. The Breaux hike and the Abernethy & Spencer tour start at the same time, so a Saturday morning fits one of them. The Lincoln Road tour has some history to it. According to the farm tour listing, Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, General and Mrs. George Marshall, and Mrs. Harry S. Truman toured the nursery grounds in 1949.

Other stops have no fixed times, which makes them easy to add on. At Blue Heron Farm on Yellow Schoolhouse Road in Round Hill, you'll find goats, a wool demonstration and free coffee. At Double 8 Alpaca & Llama Ranch on State Route 671, children can crochet a bracelet with Farmer Bonnie using alpaca and llama yarn. Double 8 asks visitors to leave pet dogs at home because working dogs live on the farm.

Why the afternoon belongs in Dillon's Woods

The festival's prize rules are what pull people back into town. The Celebrate Purcellville Passport gives you three ways to qualify for a drawing:

1. Collect at least 20 stickers from participating businesses and organizations, visiting during their regular hours from October 10 to 17.
2. Find the 12 markers spelling "PURCELLVILLE" around town and record at least six of the codes on their backs.
3. Answer at least six of the 10 nature trivia questions posted along the Chapman DeMary Trail.

Prize drawings start at 4 p.m., and you must be there to win. The turn-in deadline is less clear. The town's September 30 release gives 2 to 3 p.m. for sticker passports in one paragraph and 2 to 3:30 p.m. for all entries in another. The town's event calendar says 2 to 4 p.m., and it describes the trivia threshold as all 10 answers. To be safe, bring your passport by 3 p.m. and finish every trivia question. Passports with at least 20 stickers, six scavenger hunt codes or 10 trivia answers then qualify under any version of the rules. The festival also offers a few last chances to pick up stickers on site.

The setting is part of the appeal. Visit Loudoun describes Fireman's Field, at 250 S. Nursery Ave., as a 13-acre property in the historic district that holds remnants of Dillon's Woods, a significant urban forest. Visit Loudoun's festival listing gives the same 250 S. Nursery Ave. address for the Fall Festival in Dillon's Woods. The town's calendar lists music, carnival games, a dunk tank, face painting, glitter tattoos, and food and beverage vendors for the afternoon.

The week before the festival fills the passport

Twenty stickers is a lot to collect in one afternoon, so the town spread the events across the full week. You can pick up a passport starting October 9 at Purcellville Town Hall (221 S. Nursery Ave.), Bush Tabernacle (250 S. Nursery Ave.), Purcellville Library (220 E. Main St.) or Loudoun Valley Community Center (320 W. School St.). Participating businesses have copies too, and you can download one from the town's Celebrate Purcellville page.

The first Saturday, October 10, has the busiest schedule of the week:

• A town-wide tag sale from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., hosted by Nostalgia at 142 E. Main St.
• The Purcellville Library Book Sale, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• The Purcellville Garden Club Wreath Showcase & Sale at the Purcellville Train Station, 200 N. 21st St., from 9 a.m. until the wreaths sell out
• A Purcellville Volunteer Fire Company open house at 500 N. Maple Ave., 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• A volunteer morning at the Purcellville Mini-Forest on S. 20th Street, between Makersmiths and the town wastewater plant, 10 a.m. to noon

On Sunday, October 11, a ribbon cutting at 2 p.m. opens the Storybook Walk at the Suzanne R. Kane Nature Preserve, 312 N. 21st St. The Loudoun County Department of Health provides the walk. From Tuesday through Friday, Town Hall shows a sneak peek of the Purcellville Artisan Tour Art Show from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. On Tuesday, the Station Stitchers hold an open house at 201 N. Maple Ave. where visitors can make a quilt block. On Friday night, Bush Tabernacle Skating Rink hosts Teen Skate Night from 7 to 9 p.m.

The Chapman DeMary Trail trivia and the scavenger hunt markers are up all week. If you work on them on weekday evenings, Saturday morning stays free for the farms.

Where the two schedules overlap, and why Sunday helps

The one event that collides with the festival is at Blooming Hill. Its Mocktails in the Garden with Loudoun Valley Herbs runs from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, a $12 flight of four nonalcoholic drinks with no reservation required. That matches the festival's turn-in window and drawing exactly, so you can't do both. Blooming Hill's own schedule offers the best workaround. The mocktails have a rain date of Sunday, October 18, and the farm hosts a free "Ins and Outs of Lavender" talk with owner and grower Cyndie that Sunday from 11 a.m. to noon. Lavender oil and hydrosol distilling demonstrations run both days, and the fields hold 1,000 plants across 90 varieties.

Brookfield Dairy Farm on Harmony Church Road in Leesburg runs into the same squeeze from the other direction. Its milking demonstration is at 1:30 p.m., half an hour before the festival opens, and it happens on Sunday as well. The Abernethy & Spencer history tour and the Breaux vineyard hike also repeat on Sunday. A farm stop you miss on Saturday can usually wait until Sunday. A festival drawing can't, because winners have to be present.

Here is one way the weekend can fit together, using only the published times:

1. Saturday, 10 a.m. Goats at Danny's Dream Acres, with coffee from Java Etc.
2. Saturday, 10:30 to noon. Register for and walk the Breaux Vineyards hike.
3. Saturday, 2 to 3 p.m. Turn in your passport in Dillon's Woods.
4. Saturday, 4 p.m. Stay for the prize drawings.
5. Sunday, 11 a.m. Take the Abernethy & Spencer history tour on Lincoln Road, or hear Cyndie's lavender talk at Blooming Hill.
6. Sunday, 1:30 p.m. Watch the milking demonstration at Brookfield Dairy Farm.

Printed farm tour lists are available at Purcellville Library and the Bluemont Community Center, along with other county libraries and community centers. The Loudoun Farms tour page has the full roster of stops. It includes Catamaran Hills Vineyard on Wenner Road near Lovettsville, which is new to the tour this year and is still finalizing its activity details.

One stop farther north focuses on a subject close to our own work. At Cool Spring Distillery on Nicewarner Lane near Lovettsville, the property is permanently protected by a conservation easement, and the farmers will talk with visitors about the benefits and challenges of putting agricultural land under one. If that conversation leaves you with questions about your own acreage, The Local Group works through easements and land sales across Western Loudoun every season, and we're glad to talk through what your property is worth today. Get Your Home Value whenever you're ready.