Well, welly, welll... seems I'm not as good at this blogging thing as I initially thought... but I'm redeeming myself by adding a new entry!
A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a neat picture that a nice person took of of us while we were buskin' at the Pike Market, then digitally transformed into water-color art.
This summer has been non-stop musical adventuring... traveling to a variety of festivals, playing tons of concerts & events with our band, The Tallboys, and meeting more awesome people than we can shake a fiddle bow at.
Here are some of the highlights of this summer:
- Weiser 2008! This is the National Fiddle Contest & Festival held on the 3rd wk of June every year. This was my 4th year at Weiser - we don't really go to compete in the contest, we're actually more into the little camp of Stickerville that lives alongside the main contest grounds. I think everyone who camps at Stickerville is a bit nutty though (ourselves included) as it's a long drive to enjoy some rather unpleasant, hot, dusty camping... but oh, the jamming is awesome, and the exploits always the best... here's me clogging in a cow suit that I found at a Weiser rummage sale for $1 -
- 10 days after returning from Weiser, Charlie & I packed up our bicycle trailer with instruments and camping gear for our first bike tour! 55 mi to Port Townsend for the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes!! Amazingly, we made it in about 8 hrs, including time for the ferry ride and about an hour in Kingston to fix a flat tire. Luckily we ran into a buddy with an empty car on the ferry, so she took all our gear. If we'd had all our gear it would have taken us alot longer. Fiddletunes was tons of fun, we were festival parasites once again, and just camped & jammed in the campground. Our trip was somewhat delayed by a sick cat (who had a small infection that made him stop eating) and a raccoon family raid on our chicken house).
- After returning from Fiddletunes, I had to build a new, raccoon-proof chicken house ASAP. One lucky hen, Ginger, survived the attacks, but we were having to bring her inside at night to prevent her from being eaten. My neighbor, Jaime, and I built this amazing hen house out of recycled wood. Our good friends from Arkansas, Paul & Skye McGowen, who formed the band, Shout Lulu, with fiddle player Pete Howard, all visited at this time. We had tons of fun with these folks visiting Seattle, played lots of tunes and a couple shows with them, and partied!! I was also stoked that on their last night in town, we had a kick-ass square dance at the Tractor Tavern - with the original line-up of The Tallboys and myself calling - woohoo!
- We spent the rest of July hanging around Seattle playing lots of gigs. I turned 28 on the 19th, and had a refreshingly low-key birthday. Now, August is here, the garden is full of tomatoes! We had a very wet, but very fun time at the Subdued Stringband Jamboree near Bellingham - it rained buckets! Then our good pals Maggie & Patrick from Portland visited, along with Matt & Gretchen from Missouri. We just got back from the Centrailia Old Time Campout, where Matt, Gretchen, Charlie & myself shared a campsite and had a very laid back get-away. We met Matt & Gretchen through Paul & Skye - M&G are getting ready to go on a huge bike tour down the west coast. I'm in awe and inspired!
