26th Annual Long Island Apple Festival Sunday 9/15/15

Sunday September 20, 2015

The 26th Annual Long Island Apple Festival

Sherwood Jayne House

Old Post Road

East Setauket, NY

- Music at the 25th Annual Long Island Apple Festival -

Activities will include old fashioned games and crafts, traditional music, wagon rides, house tours, homemade food, sheep shearing, colonial cooking demonstrations, and apple relay races. The festival takes place on the grounds of the historic Sherwood-Jayne House at 55 Old Post Road in East Setauket, NY.

The Homegrown String Band will be sharing the traditional music stage with Larry Moser and Mary Nagin. Larry and Mary start the music a 11am, we will be performing two sets at about 12 noon and 2 pm.

The Long Island Apple Festival is co-sponsored by Homestead Arts, the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities & the Three Village Historical Society.

Tickets: $7 adults, $5 members, seniors and children

A Homegrown Weekend on Long Island

The Long Island Apple Festival - Sunday, September 23rd @ Sherwood-Jayne Farm in East Setauket

Just want to let folks know about a couple local (Long Island) Homegrown String Band shows coming up this weekend. On Friday, September 21, 2012, Erica, Georgianne, and I will be performing as a trio at the Levittown Library Coffeehouse Concert Series. The show starts at 7:30 pm. "Light refreshments served in a cabaret atmosphere" Call ahead to reserve free tickets.

Levittown Public Library

1 Bluegrass Lane

Levittown, NY 11756

(516) 731-5728

On Sunday, September 23, 2012, the full band (including "The Amazing Annalee) will be returning to Long Island's premier apple festival at the Sherwood-Jayne Farm in East Setauket. We will be splitting the bill with Larry Moser and Mary Nagin. The music, along with many other activities, will be going on all day from 12 noon to 4 pm.

Sherwood-Jayne Farm

55 Old Post Road

East Setauket, NY

631-692-4664  

A Thanksgiving Prayer - Thank You Song

We had a great time playing out in Montauk last night. I'd like to thank everyone for coming out to see us and we sure hope to see y'all again real soon.

Here's a little Thanksgiving prayer I wrote sometime around 1990. This was a totally unrehearsed moment captured on "tape" by Larry Moser. We included it in our 2004 CD release "Rock Hollow."

Thank You Song by Rooster Rick

Happy Thanksgiving from The Homegrown String Band!

Music, Apples, and Clean Living!

The Homegrown String Band will be busy this weekend with shows in NJ, PA, and NY. We have two library shows in New Jersey: Thursday, September 16, we will be at the North County Library in Clinton NJ; showtime at 7:00 pm. On Saturday, September 18, we will be  performing in the gazebo at the Catherine Dickson Hofman Library in Blairstown NJ at 6:30 pm.

We'll also be appearing at two festivals this weekend. On Friday, September 17, we will be returning to The Pennsylvania Sustainable Living & Energy Festival in Kempton PA where we'll be on the solar powered stage at 4:00 pm. We close out the weekend at The Apple Festival, which takes place at the Sherwood Jaynes House in Setauket NY on Sunday, September 19. We'll be there all day sharing the stage with our friends Larry Moser and Mary Nagin. The festival runs from 12-4 pm.

Maybe we will bake an apple pie in our solar oven when we get home!

 Global Sun Oven photo by Rick Jackofsky

Little House in the Megalopolis

Today three-quarters of The Homegrown String Band took a field trip. Rick, Georgianne, and Annalee visited the Old Bethpage Village Restoration, a 19th century living history museum here on Long Island, to take in the oldtime baseball and music festival. We watched baseball players (I don't think any of them were millionaires) playing without gloves and musicians (no millionaires here, either) playing without microphones. It was a beautiful day and a refreshing and relaxing break from the 21st century. Our good friends Larry Moser and Mary Nagin were set up on the green in the center of town performing 19th century tunes and songs on hammered dulcimer and fiddle. I especially enjoyed "Sackett's Harbor," a War of 1812 era instrumental. After a short break the duo provided the music for some community dancing as Chart Guthrie (with some help from Amazin' Annalee) called dances and led folks through some beginning contras. After the dance the string musicians gave way to a concert by a Civil War era brass band.

We visited a decoy carver, a tavern, a general store, several farm houses and a hat maker before settling down at the one room school house where fiddler Eric Martin was entertaining folks with bad jokes and excellent fiddling. He was joined by two young men; Sean, who sang in a powerful tenor voice, and Richard, who backed up Eric on harmonica. I wish I had my camera to capture the scene when Richard, a young teen, accompanied Eric, who is probably 40 years his senior, on a spirited version of "Swing Nine Yards of Calico" by tapping a rhythm on the fiddle neck with two wooden knitting needles (while Eric fiddled) and played the harmonica with no hands (and no rack).

I remember coming to the Old Bethpage Village the first year it opened in the early sixties. Sadly, it has been a constant struggle for local governments and historical societies to keep the site up and running. Unfortunately in this day and age of blaring music, flashing lights, and non stop movement, a quiet look into the past isn't a big draw. At one point during his performance Eric asked audience members where they were from. When one audience member responded Massapequa Eric asked if she knew the Native American meaning of the town name. When she responded negatively, Eric told her it means  "Let's go shopping." Ah, America's favorite pastime has ancient roots. So many things to buy and so little time to learn from our past.