Spinning Yarns and Winter News

Georgianne and I have been extra busy making Navajo spindles since the first of the year. Our creations have been finding their way into the hands of talented fiber artists all around the country and a few other countries as well. Here's a photo, taken by spinner Kiki Jukes, of one of our spindles resting on a bed of natural fiber in Wales, U.K.

This month we've gotten our first real taste of winter since 2011 as temperatures have stayed in the teens and twenties for the past couple weeks. Hopefully the cold weather will make the sap flow better because this year we are going to try our hand at maple sugaring. I've gathered up the supplies to tap six trees this year and if all goes well we'll expand our efforts next year. 

Not a lot of Homegrown music shows to report on this winter, but we should have some more spring, summer, and fall gigs to announce soon. Our next family band performance will be at 1:30 pm on Sunday, February 10th at the Suffern Free Library, 210 Lafayette Ave., Suffern, NY. 

Sheep and Fiber Festival

Hunterdon County Fairgrounds

9AM - 5PM  September 8 - 9, 2012

This weekend Georgianne and I will once again be taking our Homegrown Two show on the road as we assume the role of wandering minstrels at the Garden State Sheep Breeders 18th Annual Sheep and Fiber Festival. We will be entertaining the visitors, vendors, sheep, and alpacas as we roam from barn to barn playing acoustic American music on guitar, dulcimer, harmonica, banjo-uke, doumbek, and banjo. We did this last year and had a lot of fun; there is so much going on, including sheep shearing and sheep dog herding demonstrations, a parade of breeds, sheep and fleece competitions, spinning and knitting workshops, and much more.

Erica and Annalee won't be performing, but they will be there as vendors "manning" (womaning?) our tables stocked with Erica's hand dyed yarn and knitting patterns, Annalee's hancrafted soaps, Georgianne's copper, brass, and aluminum shawl pins, and my Navajo spindles, copper bowls, and wooden spoons.

Come on out and check out this wonderful festival. If you have any interest in, or curiosity about, animal husbandry or any facet of fiber arts you are in for an enoyable day.

Hunterdon County Fairgrounds

Routes 202 & 179

Ringoes, New Jersey

We had a great time at the NJ Sheep Breeders 18th Annual Sheep & Fiber Festival. A big thanks to all the peeps and sheeps who made it possible.

New Homegrown String Band Web Pages: Are we addicted to the Internet?

When we released our first CD (Blind Dog Thumpin' on the Porch) in 2000, we decided it was time for The Homegrown String Band to establish a presence on the World Wide Web (that's what we used to call the Internet). In July 2000 we registered our domain name and began selling CDs on Amazon.com. Our first website was a primitive one page html document built using Adobe Page Mill and posted using AOL's Hometown free hosting. Since then we have added an EPK, a Myspace page, (I've yet to heed the call of Facebook or Twitter), a Youtube channel, and this blog. Our website has grown to twelve glorious pages and I spend way to much time on the internet. Once these sites are established they have to be maintained and monitored. I do my best to keep our website and EPK current and up to date; Myspace and Youtube. . . ahh, not so much. A lot of bands use Myspace pages as their band website—we have had a page since 2005—but I've always thought of it as an add on to our website and have invited all our imaginary Myspace friends to check out our concert schedule, come to a show and become a real friend. A couple of weeks ago, while checking in on Myspace, I found some of the photos had been deleted by our photo hosting service due to the fact that we hadn't logged in for more than six months. Well, I couldn't remember the user name or password so I just deleted the photo links. Then last week, while checking the site again, I noticed that the music player was not loading. I made a comment about it and my daughter said "Myspace is so passe." I always found the long load times and ads on Myspace to be very annoying, but lots of people would ask about the site and go there to hear samples of our music even though it is all available in a more accessible form on our EPK. Now that Myspace is passe, (will the last person to leave Myspace please turn out the lights), I felt free to move the link to a less prominent spot on our website. So, last Thursday I decided to do some remodeling. I spent the bulk of the next four days adding three new pages—a photo page, a video page, and an Mp3 player, as well as updating and cleaning up the other pages. By Sunday night I had a most heinous headache, the wife (the lovely and talented "Mother Hen" Georgianne) suggested—no make that ordered me—to stay off the computer for a day. It was hard but I did it; 24hrs without touching a computer.  The little beast kept calling me (am I addicted to the Internet?) "check your e-mail," "track your packages," " see if you sold any buttons or Navajo spindles , "read some blogs," "It's Hot Stove time better check the MLB trade rumors." Well, guess what? My packages were delivered without me tracking them, the Mets didn't make any blockbuster trades, and most of the e-mail that accumulated in my mailbox was junk and the rest was not particularly urgent. Maybe I can live without the Internet..... Maybe. I did sell a spindle, which is winging it's way across the country, via Priority Mail, as we surf.