Seven oddly specific local events we absolutely need to discuss
Local event calendars contain multitudes. Yes, there are concerts and lectures and perfectly respectable community fundraisers. But keep scrolling. Eventually you find the event where people make their own butter. Or the one where farm animals run for office. Or the two-day class devoted entirely to constructing a stone wall by hand.
That is the November calendar we want.
We went looking for one event in every town that made us stop scrolling and say, “Wait, what? These are the winners.
CHURN YOUR OWN BUTTER | GREENWICH
It turns out November 8 is your opportunity to stop buying butter like a normal person.
Greenwich Historical Society’s Better with Butter! Family Sunday lets visitors shake their own jar of homemade butter, then add flavors like cinnamon, honey or maple syrup.
Once you have personally churned the condiment you usually retrieve from the refrigerator without a second thought, you can tour the Bush-Holley House and learn more about colonial cooking.
This is either an educational lesson in 18th-century foodways or an excellent opportunity to become unbearably smug the next time someone puts store-bought butter on the Thanksgiving table.
Possibly both.
WATCH A STORY FESTIVAL THAT REFUSES TO PICK ONE MEDIUM | WESTPORT
Most festivals choose a lane. Planet Female Global StoryFest does not seem particularly interested in doing that.
The female-centered storytelling festival returns to MoCA CT on November 7 with work from creators around the world spanning short narrative films, documentaries, experimental films, series pilots, spoken-word poetry, music videos, live storytelling and stage and screenplay readings.
Basically, if someone has figured out a way to tell a story, it has a chance of appearing here. The festival runs for five hours. Attention spans, prepare accordingly.
GIVE YOUR PUMPKIN TO A COW | NEW CANAAN
Your decorative pumpkin had a good run. Now it can become lunch.
The weekend after Thanksgiving, Planet New Canaan collects unpainted, uncarved pumpkins at Kiwanis Park and transports them to local farms, where cows and pigs take care of the rest.
There is something deeply satisfying about this as the final chapter of a pumpkin’s seasonal journey.
September: decorative. October: festive. November: livestock snack.
Just make sure yours has not been painted, carved, glittered, shellacked or otherwise made inedible in the name of porch aesthetics.
VOTE FOR AN ANIMAL | STAMFORD
Election Day is stressful enough. Stamford Museum & Nature Center has chosen to make democracy significantly cuter.
On November 3, its Election on the Farm asks visitors to choose a new Head of the Farm as the current “Otter administration” wraps up its term. Guests can meet the animal candidates, vote, make crafts, head out on a trail scavenger hunt and end the afternoon with s’mores around the campfire.
We do not know the candidates’ positions on zoning, taxes or agricultural policy. Frankly, that may be for the best.
MAKE A TRICORN HAT ON ELECTION DAY | DARIEN
Voting done? Excellent. Now make a Revolutionary War hat.
The Museum of Darien is hosting CRAFTLAB Tours and Tricorn Hats on Election Day on November 3, inviting kids and accompanying adults into the museum’s 1736 Bates-Scofield Homestead to learn how children lived 250 years ago.
After the tour, everyone makes a revolutionary-era tricorn hat using construction paper, ribbon and stickers.
Is a paper tricorn hat necessary for modern life? No. Is that precisely why we want to make one? Yes.
BUILD AN ACTUAL STONE WALL | WILTON
Not a miniature wall. Not a decorative craft. An actual stone wall.
Weir Farm National Historical Park is offering a free two-day dry-stone wall workshop November 12 and 13 with master craftsman Neil Rippingale.
Only 12 participants can take part, and they will spend both days learning the fundamentals of building, restoring and repairing traditional dry-stone walls using native stone.
This is a genuine hands-on workshop. Participants should come prepared to lift, kneel, bend, wear sturdy shoes and bring lunch.
You will not leave with a cute little project for your mantel. You may leave capable of repairing New England.
PUT AI ON TRIAL | FAIRFIELD
Finally, Fairfield would like you to report for jury duty. Sort of.
The Jury Experience: Death by AI: Who Pays the Price? comes to The Warehouse at Fairfield Theatre Company on November 15, putting the audience inside an immersive courtroom drama involving a fatal accident caused by a driverless car.
You hear the testimony. You examine the evidence. You vote.
And ultimately, the audience has to decide where responsibility belongs when technology is involved in a death. The programmer? The passenger? The machine?
You wanted something different to do on a Sunday. Here you go.
There are plenty of normal things happening in November.
We deliberately skipped them.
Go make butter. Elect an animal. Feed your pumpkin to a pig.
The calendar gets much more interesting when you scroll a little farther down.