Farm Fest!!!

One of the great highlights of our Oregon trips is known as "Farm Fest". This is a yearly gathering of friends, both old and new, to eat good food, enjoy each other's company, camp out, and (especially for me) to play music! I think that this was the 12th annual one, and it is always one of the most eagerly anticipated parts of our year. Although we were missing a few important faces this year, Farm Fest still didn't disappoint. There were kids running around, tents sprouting up, and delicious food being eaten. And of course there was music!! Unsurprisingly, there was much folk music - lots of Dave Carter this year - but there was also a rousing Wild Thing, and even a very spirited Down By the Bay from Finn! One of the best parts though is when people play their own songs, and there are some very talented song writers and performers in this group.

Fred (shown here in his Sunday finery) is one of the real stars of Farm Fest. It seems like he knows every song ever written, and has added a few great ones himself. He had a beautiful new guitar, and one of my favorite things to do is to play along while he strums and sings.

A great part of this year's farm fest was my Uncle Jeff playing the banjo & singing -pretty well actually! He had written some good songs about monkeys, and had also brought the words and chords for the Leonard Cohen song Halleluja. The sing-along with that was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

We were also happy to see Em's cousin Jocelyn and her 3 kids. All of the kids running around and roasting marshmallows really adds to the fun of the night.