Smoked Country Jam 2012 - Festival Days

5 days of music, 5 days of camping, hanging out by the campfire, talking to friends.  The 9th annual Smoked Country Jam took place last weekend at the Quiet Oaks Campground in Cross Forks, PA.  We've been to 6 of them, starting when Gus was 2 and Huck was an infant.  This is where Gus saw his first fiddle and learned his first fiddle tune.  As soon as we arrived, Theresa handed us a copy of this newspaper.  Wow!  That's a lot of newspaper article!  I thought they just needed some quotes for an article about Smoked Country Jam.  I wasn't sure what to make of it at first.  In fact, I didn't get brave enough to read it until almost a day later.  I still feel a little bit sheepish about it, but I think some really good things came of it.  The article highlighted our family's 100 day, turned 450 day and still rolling, practice challenge.  I think there is a whole blog post lurking about that topic, so I'll save it for later. 

In the meantime here are some pictures of our favorite things about Smoked Country Jam 2012:

  learning a new fiddle tune,

relaxing and watching the music,

 cooking hot dogs on the campfire,

 warming up by the big fire,

 sharing our favorite festival with Grammy and Papa Fred,

 being disappointed to not win the Chinese auction, and then getting a gift from one of the Chinese auction winners,

 watching the music with a new buddy,

and staying up way too late every night.

This year Gus was honored to play on stage with Mama Corn, the Poe Valley Troubadours, and the Hillbilly Gypsies.  I'll post some audio files and video as soon as I get unpacked and find the video camera.
 

Winter Dreaming

What am I thinking about as I practice today?  What am I showing the kids to get them excited about their practice?  Why bother anyway?
The answer to all of these questions:  Summer music events 
That's how we got started doing this in the first place.  We attended our first bluegrass festival on a whim with two very small children.  It was a blast!  At the time, none of us played instruments.

This is a picture from our second year at Smoked Country Jam.  We brought friends!

When we got home, Gus ran a garden hose to his backyard playground.  It was his cord.  He proceeded to MC and perform his own bluegrass festival on his ukulele.    
The next year we brought friends, and added another festival, Remington Ride.  There is so much inspiration at festivals!  Not just music on the stage, but music everywhere:  around every campfire, at instrument workshops, backstage, onstage.

 

We set a goal of being able to play a couple songs around the campfire the next year.  I don't think we accomplished the goal, but the kids did.
The next year we finally picked up some instruments and by the end of the summer were able to play a couple songs around the campfire.
We've kept on going to festivals.   At the festivals last year we all went to jams and instrument specific clinics, and played around the campfire a whole lot. 

If you're lucky you run into the Hillbilly Gypsies Backstage

In addition to festivals, we attend some great music camps, but I'll save those for another post.  For today, I'm just remembering the festivals we've been too, and checking out web pages for some that we've never been too....and dreaming summer music dreams.