We just spent a week at the Clifftop Appalachian string band festival, which is definitely a highlight of my year. Clifftop is in Fayette County, West Virginia and is basically a weeklong, round the clock jam. People camp for the week and play music nonstop. Hard to beat that. This year's festival was no exception for good times, a chance to see a bunch fo old friends, and time to play as many tunes as I could squeeze into a week. It was especially welcome to get to play so much old time music after a year away from festivals. Playing Korean music is great but nothing beats the singular perfection of old time music. Couple that with the fact that best old time musicians in the country flock to Clifftop and there is music-making constantly in all directions and it is really an ideal, perfect experience.

Lark had the good fortune and good timing to be born during Clifftop last year, which means she turned one at the festival this year. She camped out for the first time and did great. We dressed her in a special one-eyar old hanbul (Korean traditional dress) for her birthday party. (At least we were told it was for a one year old, it was a bit big).



We kept her in the hanbuk looking cute so we could sing her happy birthday and then we freed her. A bunch of friends came over and we played some old time Appalachian songs for kids and some fellow travelers-- tunes like "flop eared mule", "What will you do with a baby-o", "skip to my lou", "say darling say" and a bunch more.



Lark had a good time, she played along on a ukelele that some friends of ours gave her for a gift.



Now the summer is winding down, only a couple more weeks before classes start. I am going to go hiking and get another section done on the Appalachian Trail over the next week and then will be back finalizing things for the semester. So, no postings for a week or so but then back to what passes for regularity around here.

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