Sweatin' to the hits at Grey Fox

Well it was another hot one at Grey Fox on Friday! Hot temperature and hot pickin! It is impossible to catch all of the cool things happening at once, but I will share with you some of the elements that made for another memorable day up on the Helderberg Escarpment (the mountains leading up to the Catskill Mountains.)

Upon arrival I came upon the amazingly large and focused yoga class in the Catskill Stage area. Leave it to Grey Fox to even have a live band playing for the morning yoga class. Rick Manning and his musical partner were playing soothing fiddle tunes to stretch by.

Then on my way to the vendor line to buy my breakfast, I passed an enterprising young lemonade entrepreneur, and then a few roads further on another fire lane, a young gal hard at work shooting the people with her giant water gun (if they asked for it), and with the heat we had this week she had loads of business. The festival does do its best to think of everything and accommodate so it does have those tents stationed throughout the festival that one can stand in and get a cool mist of water on them all day too, but having a little girl with a giant watergun can be a bit more fun sometimes.

I ate my breakfast to the fun at the mandolin workshop where Joe Walsh, Jenni Lyn Gardiner, and Akira Ostuka were answering questions and demonstrating how to shred a mandolin and amusing one and all. Mandolin players are just such fun people really.

The banjo people, of course, started hovering around by the end, as the banjo workshop followed and Ira Gitlin and Bill Keith took over and the banjo talk began. The family tent always was loaded with kids and had all sorts of acts from clowns during the day to movies at night that I would notice as I walked by.

Bands were working hard performing in different contexts and on different stages, and no big rigs were allowed up the hill to the main stage so heroes like Shelley Howard would come to save the day with their handy golf carts.