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Good morning Blacksburg,
Friday is your golden ticket: partly cloudy, a high of 73, and not a drop of rain in the forecast. Enjoy it properly, because Saturday has other plans. Showers roll in by the afternoon (60%), the high stalls at 59, and Saturday night brings a 90% chance of rain that hangs around for a soggy Sunday at 65. Get outside today.
In today's Blacksburg Connect:
🏈 Hokies head west to Cal
🍽️ Radford Restaurant Week wraps up Sunday
🔦 Local Business Spotlight: Draper Provisions & The Library Café
Let’s get to it.
Friday, October 9
School's Out Horse Camp Day
9am-1pm, Precious Valley Farms. $65 for a day of riding lessons, horse care, and games.
Five Minutes in the Forest: Tulip-poplar Milling
12:15pm, online via Virginia Cooperative Extension. Bill Worrell gives a quick virtual tour of a tulip-poplar sawmill, streamed on the Virginia Forest Landowner Education Program's YouTube channel.
Cookies and Crafting
2pm, Christiansburg Library, 125 Sheltman St, Christiansburg. An afternoon craft session at the library.
MCPR Boo Bash
3-6pm, 390 Cinnabar Rd, Christiansburg. Free Montgomery County Parks and Recreation Halloween event: face painting, cookie decorating, and games.
SECOND Friday NRV Tree Rescuers Workday
3-5pm, Wong Park (new location this month). Volunteer workday: help rescue mature trees from invasive vines. Bring hand tools and gloves; extras available to borrow. Canceled in high winds, rain, or temps 38 or below.
Sinkland Farms Pumpkin Festival (Friday session)
4-8pm, 3060 Riner Rd, Christiansburg. Evening hours with hayrides, 5-acre corn maze, Kidz Zone, farm animals, food trucks, and beer and wine on the Terrace. $15 gate, $13 online; $14 seniors, military, and first responders; kids 3 and under free.
Empanada Nirvana food truck at Sweet Donkey Coffee
4-9pm, Sweet Donkey Coffee. The food truck is also at a girls construction event Saturday (venue unclear) and at Sinkland Farms Sunday 10:30am-5pm.
Pumpkin Splash
5:30-8pm, Christiansburg Aquatic Center. The 6th annual floating pumpkin patch: $15, ages 3 and up (2 and under free without a pumpkin), preregistration required. The facility closes at 5pm for the event.
VT Women's Volleyball vs. North Carolina
6pm, Cassell Coliseum, Virginia Tech. The Hokies' first home match since August 29, against a 9-3 UNC squad riding a 5-match win streak.
Silent Book Club
6pm, 125 Sheltman St, Christiansburg. Bring whatever you're reading and enjoy an hour of companionable silence.
Community dialogue: surveillance, Flock cameras, and data centers
6-8pm, Blacksburg Library Community Room, 200 Miller St SW. A community conversation on surveillance tech and data centers; flyer in the Facebook post.
Spoonfed at The Milk Parlor
9pm, The Milk Parlor, 211 Draper Rd NW, Blacksburg. Guitar-driven indie rock from Washington, DC, touring on debut EP Cheap Admission. (rock)
Saturday, October 10
Radford Highlanders Festival
Saturday, 9am, Radford University main campus. Free. Highland games, sheepherding demos, live Celtic music, the noon massed-band and clan march, and Highland cattle, drawing around 10,000 attendees.
Newbern Fall Festival
Saturday, 8am, 5125 Wilderness Road, Dublin. Hosted by the Newbern Volunteer Fire Department.
LewisGale Salem Half Marathon + Virginia's Blue Ridge 8K + Kids Fun Run
Saturday, 8am, Salem. Half marathon, 8K, and kids fun run through Salem.
Star City Ranch Horse Buckle Series Show #3
Saturday, 10am, 2961 Harborwood Rd, Salem.
Hokie BugFest 2026
Saturday, 10am-3pm, Squires Student Center, Virginia Tech, 290 College Ave. Free, all ages: live arthropods from the Hokie BugZoo, 30+ exhibitors, hands-on STEM activities, 4-H Insect Collection Contest, and a Bug Carnival. Early quiet-hour opening 9-10am for those with special needs.
Autumn Falls: Family Paint Saturday
Saturday, 10:30am, Paint 'n Fun Ceramics. Family painting session.
Virginia Trail Running Festival
Saturday morning, New River Trail State Park. Trail races along the New River during peak fall color.
Fall festival at Huckleberry Park
Saturday, 12-4pm, hosted by the Disability Resource Center of the New River Valley. Free admission and free food, plus kids' crafts, face painting, a caricature artist, local vendors, and raffles.
Tony Huddleston Trout Rodeo
Saturday, check-in from 12pm, Izaak Walton Park, Christiansburg. A family-friendly day of fishing at Izaak Walton Pond: check-in and same-day registration noon-2pm, fishing 2-4pm, kids 4-15, keep up to 4 fish. Pre-register by Friday at 5pm at the Christiansburg Rec Center or (540) 382-2349.
Punkin' Chunkin' at Sinkland Farms
Saturday and Sunday, 3060 Riner Rd, Christiansburg. The trebuchet-and-catapult pumpkin launching competition, moved to this weekend, Oct 10-11.
Sinkland Farms Pumpkin Festival (weekend)
Saturday and Sunday, 10am-5pm, 3060 Riner Rd, Christiansburg. Full weekend schedule adds live music 1-4pm and vendors to the patch, maze, and Kids Zone. $20 gate, $18 online.
Blacksburg Master Chorale: "Songs of Love and War"
Saturday, 7pm, Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. A program of love transcending hardship, with music by Pulitzer winner Paul Moravec plus Bernstein, Copland, Moses Hogan, Rosephanye Powell and more; guest soloists include Danielle Talamantes, Kerry Wilkerson, Brian Thorsett, and Jason Crafton. Tickets $20, $15 seniors, $10 students. (classical)
Metal Night at The Milk Parlor
Saturday, 8pm, The Milk Parlor, 211 Draper Rd NW, Blacksburg. Four bands: Lost Fragments, Saintuary, Revolt, and Roanoke's Split Earth. $10 entry. (rock)
Sunday, October 11
Blacksburg Vintage Market
Sunday, 10am-5pm, Market Square Park, downtown Blacksburg. The 2nd-Sunday vintage market: vinyl records, clothing, jewelry, books, housewares, oddities, antiques, upcycled crafts. Free to attend.
Playful Kids Yoga (ages 5-12)
Sunday, 4:30-5:30pm, In Balance Yoga, 1512 N Main St, Blacksburg. $21 single class, $80 five-class pack.
Chris Thile at the Moss Arts Center
Sunday, 7:30pm, Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, Moss Arts Center, 190 Alumni Mall, Blacksburg. Grammy-winning mandolinist (Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek), MacArthur "genius" fellow, and former host of Live from Here performs a program of Bach alongside his signature blend of classical, folk, and improvisation, drawn from his acclaimed Bach recordings including the new second volume. (folk/bluegrass + classical) Virginia Tech News
🏈 Hokies head west to Cal
Virginia Tech football makes its longest road trip of the season on Saturday: at Cal, 3:30pm ET on the ACC Network. There are some fresh storylines on both sides. Coach James Franklin used Wednesday's post-practice session to address O-line shuffling and the injury outlook ahead of the Berkeley trip, while the Bears may be without starting quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, who is in concussion protocol, and changed playcallers mid-game last week. After the heartbreak against Pitt, this is a get-right opportunity. SI / Gobbler Country
🍽️ Radford Restaurant Week wraps up Sunday
The inaugural Radford Restaurant Week ends Sunday, and it is your last call. Seventeen restaurants across the city have been running deals and specials since Oct 2, from BOGO offers to limited-release menus, in a Chamber-backed celebration of Radford's food scene that also supports the ACCE community college program. Whether it is 10% off a full menu or a fall drink lineup, there is an excuse to eat out this weekend. Radford Chamber of Commerce
🔦 Local Business Spotlight: Draper Provisions & The Library Café
Downtown Blacksburg just got a whole lot more delicious. Draper Provisions & The Library Café soft-opened Saturday at 409 Draper Road, right across from the Blacksburg Library, and it is three businesses in one: a high-end gourmet food retailer with a specialty cheese and charcuterie counter, a grab-and-go Middle Market for coffee and prepared foods, and The Library Café, a rustic European-style restaurant with an outdoor patio.
It comes from John Boyer and Katie Pritchard, the team behind Blacksburg Wine Lab, who turned a worn-down building on the fringe of downtown into an open-air market with an Italian-market feel. Coffee runs 8am-5pm daily; the café and bar go 8am-8pm with wine and beer pouring now and a full cocktail menu on the way. Menus are live at draperprovisions.com.
📰 News Around the NRV
⚽ Hokies beat UVA 2-1 in Charlottesville. Virginia Tech men's soccer won Friday night, the program's first win at UVA since 2005 (Patrick Nyarko scored that game-winner). Inside HokieSports
🗳️ WHRO on the 9th District race. Can Democrat Joy Powers move rural voters against incumbent Morgan Griffith? The story features VT political science professor Karen Hult on turnout dynamics in the district. WHRO
🗳️ Radford City Council candidate forum, Oct 22. Cardinal News hosts a forum at the Radford Public Library, 30 W Main St, moderated by associate editor Todd Jackson. Doug Kanipe, Bill J. Kovarik, Charlie Meeks, and Jonathan Stewart have confirmed; it is free with audience questions at the end. Cardinal News
📌 Community Board
🐛 Spotted lanternflies found in Roanoke. Egg-laying females were spotted Oct 7; the post urges removing egg masses before laying season. FB post
🍽️ The Emerald Table is newly open at Uptown Christiansburg. A mall store owner welcome post drew 115 reacts. FB post
💻 City of Radford investigating a cyber incident. An internet outage knocked out city email and phones Oct 1; systems are being restored but some services are still disrupted. breach tracker
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