Staff Writer

Faeries and farmers alike strolled the streets of Kennebunk on Saturday for its 12th annual May Day Festival.

More than 100 Little Leaguers and their parents paraded down Main Street, faeries ran up and down the lawn at Kennebunk Free Library and opening day at the farmers market brought out four-legged friends for the festival.

Vendors transformed Layfayette Park into another type of outdoor market filled with brightly colored painted glassware, pottery demonstrations and sea glass.

As bands played in the background and children danced with hula-hoops and faerie wings, Portland School of Ballet coaxed onlookers into participating.

The school showed the large crowd a variety of traditional May Day dances, including dancing around the May Pole. But the big hit involved the four elements of earth, wind, water and fire. Dancers pulled children and their parents into the middle of the spectator circle where they clapped like the sound of fire and moved in a circle like a river before running out of time in the song.

Janet Weaver, manager of the farmers market and a vendor herself, said 28 vendors are signed up this year to sell their fresh products in the open-air market.

Weaver said she’s still getting three or four phone calls a week from other vendors who want to join the market.

Weaver said Kennebunk’s farmers market is quickly becoming one of the largest in the state.

“This town gets it, they know how to support it,” Weaver said.

Cake Fairy by Tami York and Rita’s Wooly Batts by Rita Clarkson can still be found among vendor booths, but there are some new faces, too.

Weaver said they include a high school student who took his grandfather’s advice last summer and planted vegetables to make money. This year he’ll sell his produce at the market.

Also new is Blackrock Farm. Magan Deteso and Mike Nadeau manned the farm’s vendor station, stocked with vegetable seedlings, herbs and some flowers. The pair has been to the farmers market in the past as buyers and said they are “really excited” to be on the other side of the booth.

Some vendors brought along animals for children to pet, including a rabbit who sits on top of eggs laid by her best friend, a hen, a baby lamb that drinks water from a beer bottle and lots of chickens.

Jake Bickford, 12, walked around the market dressed as a potato carrying his pet chicken, bending down to allow other children to pet the bird’s soft feathers.

Next week the faeries and farm animals will not return, but the farmers market will be open rain or shine every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. until late November.

The market is located behind the former Mobil station in downtown Kennebunk.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.