The Fourteenth Annual Margaretville Cauliflower Festival will be held rain or shine Saturday, Sept. 23 from 10 to 4 in the Village Park, Margaretville.

This free festival, sponsored by the Central Catskills Chamber of Commerce, is focused on the agricultural heritage of the region, once known for its outstanding cauliflower. The festival is a Catskill Mountain Scenic Byway annual event.

Callie, the Cauliflower Spirit, will again appear in the tractor parade, which rolls out of the Margaretville Central School parking lot at 11:30 a.m., headed for the festival grounds. Do you have a tractor you’d like to show off, new or old? Call Lauren Davis, 845-586-4661 to register and meet at the school at 11.

New this year will be two events for foodies.

A Cauliflower Cookoff will be sponsored by Home Goods of Margaretville on the morning of the festival. Contact Jessica Olenych, 845-586-4177 for details.

The Catskills Folk Connection will have a booth under the pavilion focused on “Catskills Foodways from Farm, Field and Forest.” Traditional family dishes will be showcased in “pop-up” presentations that will include cauliflower and/or cabbage, jams and jellies, cheese and milk-based desserts such as custard and bread pudding. Forest products like pickled leeks and wild horseradish will also be highlighted.

With your appetite whetted, peruse the food vendors who will serve everything from pulled pork to lamb burgers and of course lots of dishes featuring cauliflower, including soup, pizza and empanadas.

Mike Herman and Jason Starr, perennial crowd favorites, will return with their distinctive musical styles – Mike’s a blues man, Jason’s a folk musician — and they will perform alternate sets on the hour from Noon until 3:30 p.m.

Children will enjoy games like a cauliflower bean bag toss, crafts assisted by MCS art students, Woodchuck Hollow’s petting zoo and pony rides, a dress-up station at the History Tent and other fun activities.

“Before Belleayre: A History of Highmount,” the presentation that packed the hall in June, will be offered again Saturday, Sept. 9 by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM).

The program will begin at 2 p.m. at the HSM hall, 778 Cemetery Rd., Margaretville. Admission is by freewill donation. Come early to be assured a seat; there was standing room only when this program was held during Headwaters History Days weekend.

The program reveals tales of the rich, famous and forgotten of Highmount, a community that straddled two towns, two counties, two watersheds, and in many ways, two cultures: old, established families whose lives centered around farm, forest, quarry and stream, and wealthy city dwellers who created a Highmount of extravagant summer homes and opulent hotels where art and music reigned.

Several area elders provided first-hand recollections of early to mid-20^th century Highmount. Newspaper accounts, memoirs, family histories and other sources were also mined to create an informative historical tour that includes some 100 rarely seen images.

The talk will also feature two short film clips – a 1906 train ride around the famous double horseshoe curve on the Ulster & Delaware Railroad between Pine Hill and Highmount, and a 1930s spring outing by intrepid skiers who first had to climb up the Peekamoose Trail on Belleayre Mountain before schussing back down through the trees.

Meet Civil War soldiers and shopkeepers, artists and musicians, speculators and industrialists in this lively presentation. The talk will introduce viewers to wealthy summer residents like shipping executive John Munro, his fellow Scotsman and neighbor, physician Alexander Skene, newspaper publisher Herbert Gunnison, brewer George Jetter, and Manhattan real estate tycoon Harris Mandelbaum.

The fourth and last in a series of Sunday Cemetery Strolls will be offered by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown Sunday, August 27.

Participants will meet at 2 p.m. at the municipal parking lot on Bridge Street (opposite Freshtown) Margaretville. We’ll form a caravan (carpooling encouraged!) to drive a scenic 25-mile loop from Arkville, up Dry Brook and over the mountain to Mill Brook, visiting three small cemeteries to learn about some of the people who rest there.

The Woods-Avery and Lake Hill Cemeteries will be stops on the Dry Brook side, followed by a visit to the Gavette Cemetery in Mill Brook. Allow about two hours for the tour and return drive to Margaretville.

Admission is $5 per person; children 12 and under may take the tour for free. Reservations are not necessary. HSM’s new brochure, a self-driving tour of nine local cemeteries, will be provided to tour-goers.