<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0Ble3Q_1GrAGl6K00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0Ble3Q_1GrAGl6K00" width="2000" height="1333" ><figcaption>How fast can you read “Moby-Dick?” Photo: Shutterstock</figcaption></figure>Every year there are more and more festivals, fundraisers and fairs in the Hamptons. It’s just astonishing! Shall we go to the Artist-Writers softball game? The music at the Montauk Lighthouse? East Hampton Library’s Authors Night where 100 writers sell their books under a big tent? How about something celebrating the anniversary of a historic event?And there’s still more to come. Here’s a look at some of the new celebrations, festivals and events now on the drawing board for next year in the Hamptons.From August 5 to 12 next year, you’ll be able to attend Hedgerow Weekend in East Hampton. Friday is the hedgerow-cutting competition where workmen high up on ladders will trim 10-foot stretches of hedgerow from 15-foot-tall to nine. Judging in other competitions as the week unfolds will involve trimmers who shape hedgerows into animals or profiles of presidents. Awards will be presented to those who make these things the fastest. Sunday will be the cook-off where chefs prepare chopped salads and soups from hedgerow shavings.For more than 20 years, Sag Harbor has held a weekend-long reading of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick during the second week in May. The first chapter is read at the Whaling Museum, the next at the Rogers Memorial Library, the next at the Old Whalers Church, another at a bookstore, and so on. As many as 25 readers participate. Next year, a week after the Moby-Dick reading there will be a speed-reading Moby-Dick competition. Awards will be given to teams that read Moby-Dick the fastest. The winning team will be the honorees at a dinner at The American Hotel on July 4.The Helicopter Ballet. Drive down to the East Hampton Airport on June 19 to watch the two-hour sky ballet performed by helicopters from the five airlines that ferry passengers from Manhattan to the Hamptons. Music from the ballet Swan Lake will be broadcast over loud speakers to accompany the performances and the company with the most imaginative program is awarded a gold cup.That same day, The Deer Dodge will take place at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton and then the next day at East Hampton Airport. Each day, first at Gabreski and then at EHA, the fence surrounding the airport keeping the deer out will be opened at 10 a.m. In will come the deer. Then, 20 minutes later, entrants will drive their cars in and onto the runway to follow a predetermined series of loops, turns and straightaways marked off by street cones leading this way and that. In this melee of cars and deer, a winning driver will complete the course in the fastest time without having hit any deer.For many years, birdwatchers have come out to the Hamptons in early January to count the different kinds of birds in evidence here. You’ll see the birders on our trails toting backpacks, and carrying walking sticks and binoculars as they go about the Montauk Bird Count, as it is called. Usually about 125 different species of birds are observed in this annual count. Now, from March 3 to March 10, there’s going to be the Hampton Whale Count. Get your long-lens cameras out. Whales leap out of the ocean just off our shores all the time. Observe and photograph the different species. It’s going to be a very big deal.Aug. 20 and 21 will be Potato Day Weekend. The potato harvest at the Smith Potato Farm in Water Mill will be stacked next to the potato trucks ready for trips to the city. But during those two days, contestants will fight to win a potato-peeling race, a tag-team mashed-potato wrestling match and a competition involving artists with shears creating potato sculptures. Great fun!It is against the law to cut down a grown tree in your yard to get a better view of water without prior town permission, but what about simply ripping it out of the ground and replanting it at another location on your property out of the way? This is the 2027 Tree-Hugging Contest, taking place all through the Hamptons, where bare-chested men hired by property owners will on July 1 rip a big tree out of the ground with their bare hands and by the end of the day replant it elsewhere on the property. The efforts will be videoed and on Sept. 1, the men (and the owner) standing side by side with the tree will be videoed again. Judges will determine a winner based upon the height and health of the tree, with awards presented on Sept. 5 in front of the Southampton Town Hall on Hampton Road.The Largest Mansion in the Hamptons competition will take place on Sept. 22 and 23. Judges, escorted by homeowners, will take measurements of the square footage of each home. The owner of the largest mansion will have his image blown up to become a 30-foot-parade balloon leading 15 smaller balloons of family or company or staff he selects, to create the Big Mansion Parade on Main Street in Southampton at 9 a.m. on Sunday.The Huntington Militia, in full 18th-century uniforms, will take up positions on Sag Harbor’s Main Street on Oct. 8 and 9 to try to fend off attacks by other militias from Long Island between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. A winner will be declared. Stay indoors on those days in that town.There are 12 historic wooden 40-foot-tall windmills in the Hamptons. On June 9, sails will be put on the blades of each mill so that they can turn and cause grinding to be done inside the mill, with the electricity created stored on batteries. Judging the battery storage will take place at 5 p.m. at the Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton, where the mill with the biggest charge will be determined and the owner will receive a gold cup, to be displayed inside that mill for the upcoming year.Also in the works is the Worst Film Festival, the first of its kind in the Hamptons, scheduled for the entire month of November. This is the first such film festival in America. Don’t miss it.The Press Club of Long Island declared Dan Rattiner the winner of the First Prize as the Best Newspaper Columnist on Long Island.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0uik33_1GrAGl6K00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0uik33_1GrAGl6K00" width="1350" height="749" ><figcaption>Cartoon by Dan Rattiner</figcaption></figure></div></body>

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Every year there are more and more festivals, fundraisers and fairs in the Hamptons. It’s just astonishing! Shall we go to the Artist-Writers softball game? The music at the Montauk Lighthouse? East Hampton Library’s Authors Night where 100 writers sell their books under a big tent? How about something celebrating the anniversary of a historic event?

Next Year’s Festivals in the Hamptons

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Every year there are more and more festivals, fundraisers and fairs in the Hamptons. It’s just astonishing! Shall we go to the Artist-Writers softball game

Next Year’s Festivals in the Hamptons

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