Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown
Black Betty and I returned to our favorite harbinger of spring the Suwannee Springfest near Live Oak, Florida, last weekend. The weather provided a perfect stage for four days of music, fun, and camping with several thousand of our best friends. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and were joined in Gnometown by our daughter Becky, and friends, Marie, Nate, and Phil.
Gnometown
After setting up camp and reuniting with fellow Festivarians we headed down to the stages and caught kick ass performances by Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Scythian, and Greensky Bluegrass. As a special treat Larry Keel joined Greensky to rip it up on the jammy King Of The Hill.
We couldn't hang for the midnight show by The Motet, but we happily boogied in our sleep to their tunes.
Mark Schimick and Larry Keel
Friday the tough decisions had to be made. Who do we see? Worse yet, who do we miss? It's always a dilemma, I just try to limit the losses. So Friday we were fortunate enough to catch Trampled by Turtles. They were actually standing on stage and not sitting down (as we'd seen them before). As always they picked hard, fast, and precise. We also caught the unique Sacred Grass sound of the Travelin' McCourys with The Lee Boys. Now that's my kind of Praise Music, bluegrass meets sacred steel!
Ampitheater Stage
The Gnometown gang was especially excited about the late shows on Friday night. As everyone who knows us understands, we are BIG Greensky Bluegrass and Emmitt Nershi fans. Although we have seen Greensky Bluegrass numerous times, this was their first time playing Springfest. I knew the Friday night Meadow Stage show, which followed Cornmeal would be spectacular. They surely did not disappoint. Greensky ripped it up to a loving and enthusiastic crowd in the midnight hour. The highlight performance of the weekend had to be when Allie, Kris, and JP of Cornmeal joined Greensky on stage to perform the Grateful Dead's China Cat Sunflower/I know You Rider. What a show, what a show!
As soon as the Greensky show ended, we hauled it over to the Emmitt/Nershi Colorado Jam featuring Michael Kang and just about everyone else. There were too many fine musicians joining them on stage to mention them all. Suffice to say the tunes were awesome and Bill Nershi and Drew Emmitt know how to host a super jam!
Black Betty, Becky, Hometown, Marie with Greensky Bluegrass.
The big show for us on Saturday night had to be The Avett Brothers. Four years ago when they played Springfest we were among the few who had seen them before. We ran around telling people not to miss their performance, and I remember them tearing it up on the Meadow stage in front of a small crowd of about 100 people. Of course, now they return to their little festival roots in the big bus as conquering rock stars, hot off their Grammy performance with none other than Bob Dylan! Big time, big time! Their show was hot and inspired. I thought the sound was really terrible for the first half of the set. It was like they were trying to crank them up too loud and it resulted in a constant buzzing for at least six songs. After a LONG time they finally got the sound worked out. They played lots of old favorites, the crowd loved them. Oh yeah, did I mention that they have a drum set now?
A crew of happy Festivarians!
Sunday is always our favorite day of music at Springfest. We can't always stay but this year we could. The highlight of Sunday is always the Donna the Buffalo and friends jam. Once again it was spectacular. Donna was joined by Randy Judy, Galen Kipar, Verlon Thompson, Acoustic Syndicate (Big Daddy sang Rainbow Rollercoaster and the band tossed out Lassie Pops), Rushad Eggleston, Ralph Roddenbery, and, of course, Jim Lauderdale. Wow, each performance was spectacular to say the least. We spent hours smiling and dancing and once again you just can't beat a Donna the Buffalo show.
Bands we managed to see over the weekend: Acoustic Syndicate, Cornmeal, Danny Barnes, David Grisman, Donna The Buffalo, Dread Clampitt, Emmitt-Nershi Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Jim Lauderdale, Larry Keel, Ralph Roddenbery, Scythian, Sol Driven Train, Steep Canyon Rangers, The Avett Brothers, The Lee Boys, The Mosier Brothers, The Travelin' McCourys, Trampled By Turtles, and Verlon Thompson.
Jim Lauderdale
We were a little worried about the future of Springfest last year. I think between the poor economy and a huge 2010 Wannee Festival, the 2010 Springfest took a hit. They did manage to come back bigger and better this year, with the addition of a campground stage. Hopefully, Suwanne Springfest will be around for years to come!
Black Betty and Becky on the beach.
Suwannee Sweets: Reuniting with old friends, making new friends, Boogie Cat, Sweet Revenge's apple crisp, as always great vibes, killer line-up, the best primitive camping at any festival, my new solar shower, riding bicycles, the river, Jim Lauderdale's corny jokes, Larry Keel's guitar, Allie Kral's fiddle, and Dave McCracken's keys.
Bummers: Not a Peter Rowan in sight, nor did we see any configuration of The Duhks or Turtle Duhks at the Spirit of the Suwannee all weekend!
Our 28th wedding anniversary, the "super moon", and Town Mountain's CD release party at The Grey Eagle all came together this weekend to create a spectacular time of fun and music. Talk about planets aligning? We couldn't have asked for a better anniversary present than a night at our favorite music venue listening to one of our favorite grass bands. The CD is great, check it out, it's called Steady Operator. It's released nationwide on May 12 if you weren't lucky enough to grab one at the Grey Eagle last night.
Here's a quick and easy dessert that is delicious to eat. The dry ingredients can be mixed together and placed in a ziplock bag ahead of time if you want to fix this one while camping. To make things easier you can even prepare the apples before leaving home and put them in ziplocks in the cooler.
Mix together: 6 cups tart apples, peeled, cored, and sliced. (I used Granny Smiths)
1/2 cup sugar.
Spread evenly over bottom of Dutch Oven.
Top with: 1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oats
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup pecans (I used halves)
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
Bake in 10" or 12" dutch oven using 8 briquets on the bottom and 14 briquets on the top for 20 or 30 minutes.
It's done when apples are tender and topping is brown. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
I've been thinking about throwing this one together for a few weeks and finally got it in the pot tonight. It's a tasty and easy to cook meal which will feed the hungry family. I used a 12" camp dutch oven.
Ingredients:
2 lbs. chicken breasts cut into 1" pieces
2 tbs. olive oil
1 pkg fajita seasoning
1 red bell pepper, sliced and seeds removed
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced with seeds removed
2 onions sliced
4 small zucchinis, sliced
3 tomatillas, diced
1 lb. mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
Preparation:
Start by firing up about 36 charcoal briquettes in the chimney starter.
When they are hot place a solid layer of briquettes underneath the dutch oven, heating the olive oil.
When oil is hot, lightly brown all sides of the chicken pieces.
Add 1/4 cup hot water and the fajita seasoning.
Add the veggies.
Put the lid on the oven.
Arrange briquettes so that about 12 are below the oven and the remaining 24 are on the top of the lid.
Cook for about 45 minutes.
Serving:
Eat them wrapped in tortillas or serve them over rice.
Some folks like sour cream and grated cheese with them.
We served them with salsa verde. Picante would be good.
The Verdict:
Pretty, colorful, and very good flavor. All the ingredients were perfectly cooked and tender. Black Betty and the kids liked them. I thought they were a little too wet. Next time I will omit the water.
We hiked to Ramsey Cascades in the Greenbriar section of the GSMNP yesterday. The trail is 4.0 miles long resulting in an even 8 mile round trip. We had rain showers on and off for the entire day but fortunately it was seasonably warm for the end of February with temps in the 60's.
The first 1-1/2 miles of the trail follows a gentle climb and smooth foot path along side the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River. The remaining 2-1/2 miles of trail climbs along the Ramsey Prong. Here is where the slippery roots and rocks join with a more aggressive elevation gain making the hike a little more challenging.
Several old growth giants line the trail, including some massive tulip poplars and eastern hemlocks. The trail is in good shape with lots of stone steps and a couple of long creek crossing foot bridges. It's evident that a lot of work has been done on this trail over the years.
At the top of the trail is the beautiful Ramsey Cascades. It is a 90 foot cascading waterfall and according to the little brown guidebook, Hiking Trails Of The Smokies Ramsey Cascades is the highest waterfall in the park accessible by trail. It really is a spectacular sight and I'm sure that it gets crowded in the summer. There is a huge flat rock in front of the falls positioned perfectly for viewing. We didn't eat lunch there because of the cool spray and wind coming off the falls but I'll bet in sunnier weather that would be the spot.
This trail gains around 2200' in 4 miles. Black Betty rated it difficult. I would give it 2-3 Snickers bars using Nimblewill Nomad's rating system. The rain did make the roots slippery and Black Betty fell on the way down spraining her knee. She was able to walk out so lucky for her I didn't have to tote her like a sack of potatoes.
We received a call this week from our friends at Slagle Farms informing us our spring lambs were ready, so I ran down to take a look at the freezer and discovered that we still had one leg of lamb left from last spring. I decided to take the plunge and try a 7 hour wine braise on this one. I can tell you that I now understand what all the fuss is about. This is absolutely the best leg of lamb I've ever tasted. I did end up cheating a little, and although I used my good old 12 inch Lodge cast iron camp dutch oven, I cooked it in the oven instead of outside with coals. This was due to several things (other irons in the fire) I had going on, and I didn't want to have to spend the day babysitting the dutch oven.
Ingredients:
bone in leg of lamb (4-5 lbs)
sea salt, black pepper, dried basil, 10 cloves garlic
olive oil
4 large onions sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 lb. bag of little carrots
6 potatoes peeled and cut into 1-2 " chunks
2 cans low sodium chicken broth
2 - 3 cups white wine (I used a Chardonnay)
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 300F degrees.
Stud the lamb with 10 or 12 fat garlic spikes.
Brush it with the olive oil and then rub in the salt, pepper, and dried basil. I would have used additional herbs but this was all I had in the kitchen.
Heat a few tbs. olive oil in the bottom of the dutch oven and brown the lamb.
Remove lamb from dutch oven and pour in wine. Heat to boiling and reduce. Meanwhile add remaining garlic crushed to wine. Add additional basil.
Add the sliced onions and carrots into the wine mixture.
Set browned lamb gently on top of onions and carrots in dutch oven.
Surround lamb with potatoes.
Carefully pour in chicken broth around the edges and continue to heat to simmer.
Add additional spices and herbs if wanted.
Place lid on dutch oven.
Bake at 300F degrees for 7 hours.
(After about 4 hours, I did carefully turn the meat over one time)
To serve:
This is a one dish complete meal. The meat is so tenderly braised that it does actually fall off the bone. I separated the meat from the bone and served it and the vegetables with the deliciously aromatic and flavorful juices.
The bottom line is that this lamb is tender, moist, and wonderfully delicious. As an added bonus, my house smelled heavenly all day while it cooked, and it was an incredibly easy one dish clean up.
Posts
