Thankful Thursday - Answered Prayers and FFF

It's Thankful Thursday, and I have so much to be thankful for.  Jem is recovering well from his retina surgery and the doctor is pleased with the results.  Praises to ADONAI and thanks to all who prayed for him.

Golden Cottage Garden is flourishing with all the rain we've had here over the past month or so.  Here are a few of our beautiful blooms.

And even though the painted and indigo buntings are gone, we still have daily visitors to brighten my day.

a thrush looking for food under the bird feeders

beautiful butterflies love Golden Cottage flowers

lizards - lots of them around here.  They are very friendly, but boy can they jump.  Now I know where the expressions "leaping lizards" comes from.  I stay back away from them because I had one jump right on the top of my head one time.  YIKES!!!!!!!!!

Look at this bad boy. . . he's HUGE!

Our neighbor's pet.  We named him "Yeller" due to his color, but also because he's a real scaredy-cat.  Not friendly like her other cat, Toon-Chee.

We had such a wonderful time at the Florida Folk Festival, and I promised you some photos from the event, so here you go:

I always enjoy the story-telling sessions.  This fun lady . . .

. . . and this gentleman are a married couple and told some tall tales to entertain us

My focus this year was learning more about the dulcimer, so I attended workshops:

I need one of these stands.

The dulcimer teacher, Laurie Alsobrook, was the best.  She also held a "petting zoo" in the children's area with twenty dulcimers for them to play.  Laurie is a great gal.  Very kind, helpful, and giving.  She even loaned me her own favorite dulcimer for this workshop.

I also attended a couple of jam sessions for dulcimer players.  Other stringed instruments joined in, too:

 We enjoyed all of the concerts by famed dulcimer artist, Bing Futch.  He's amazing and always entertaining.  His rendition of the old folk song, John Henry, was a show-stopper.  You can see his videos on YouTube.

Here's a video:

The folk dancing is always my favorite part.

This lively group did a dance with scarves.  I've seen it done in Israeli / Davidic dance, but never in folk dancing. 

This was a broom dance . . . great idea while doing housework . . . and much more fun, right?

This dance originated in the Netherlands, and the dancers wore wooden clogs.  Fun to watch and to hear.

This gentleman is at the festival every year.  I love to see him dance and admire him for continuing to practice his art even though he's missing his left arm.

I also fell in love with this lady's blouse.  I think I saw it at Cracker Barrell recently, so I'm on the hunt to find one like it.  If you've seen it anywhere, please let me know.

Here's a guy to admire!  He's not a spring chicken by any means, but I saw him limbering up before the performance, and he kicked his foot above his head several times!!!  I was amazed!  Dancing is good exercise, Gail-Friends.

The band accompanying the dancers was having a good time, and they were great!

 There were lots of beards and mustaches at the festival.  This was one of the favorites and I love the hat:

If you ever wonder what happened to the hippies from the 70's, you'll see a few of them at this festival, I'm sure.  There was lots of tye-dye, too.


It's wonderful to spend time way down upon the Suwannee River and be in the woods. This year, I was well prepared with Deet bug repellent and didn't get any ticks.  Here are some photos of the beauty in the park.  I highly recommend you attend this festival one day.  I know you'll enjoy it.

Nothing says Southern like moss-draped trees. 

I thought you'd like to see some moss up close. Don't touch it, though. It has chiggers, or redbugs as we call them down here in the South. 

Another big answer to prayer was the weather during the festival.  I prayed for good weather because a huge tropical storm was threatening to come our way.  It sprinkled a couple of times but never did rain on us.  I prayed daily, "Father, please let Your face, and Your sun, shine on us,"  and He did exactly that the whole time we were there.

On the way home from the festival, we rode along A1A and were sad to see all the damage from Hurricane Irma last fall.  I didn't take photos because it was raining, but a lot of the beach has eroded and many homes are close to falling into the sea. We stopped at a neat restaurant  in Palm Coast.  I was intrigued by these things:

All of the light fixtures were bait buckets turned upside down.  Neat, huh?

My favorite college football team -- University of Florida!  GO GATORS! CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP!

That's an alligator skin.  (I'd imagine an FSU fan, biggest rival of UF, would like to have one of those.  LOL)

I suddenly remembered we'd not taken any pics of us together even though we'd brought our selfie stick.  It was pouring rain, so the server took a nice pic of us.  Much better than any selfie we would have taken I'm sure.

What are you thankful for this week, Gail-Friends?

**There are some videos of the festival on YouTube to give you an idea of the different types of music performed. Just click on this  - Florida Folk Festival 2018

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ThankFul Thursday - Florida Folk Festival #3

One of my favorite parts of the Florida Folk Festival is the folk dancing.  There were cloggers, Irish Step dancers, square dancers, and more.  The video above is of  English Contra dancing, which Jem and I both enjoy doing.  We didn't join in this day because it was about 5:00 pm, and we were pooped by then.

This video is of the Morris dancers.  The art form originated in England in the mid-1500's, and the performers wear costumes and (sometimes) masks.  Some dances involve loud noises made with sticks, flags, and scarves.  In this dance, an evil fellow appears.  Quite entertaining.  The history of Morris dancing is pretty interesting, and you can read a very informative article at this Wikileaks LINK. 

I loved joining the Shape Note Singers.  This is an interesting workshop, and even though I play piano and dulcimer and read music well, I finally gave up and just listened.

Shape note singing is tricky because you not only have to read music, you have to understand which shaped note is yours.  I sat in the alto section, near the tenors and bases, who were loud and overpowering.  I could tell that most of the attendees were skilled in this type of music, but me. . . not so much.  I had a tough time keeping to my part, especially when not familiar with the piece.  This is the book used in the singing.

The movies Cold Mountain and Oh, Brother Where Art Thou have scenes that include shape note singing, and you can find wonderful videos on YouTube.  Shape note singing is hard to explain, so if you're interested, this article from Wikipedia details it very well.   All I can tell you is it takes practice.

We attended a fabulous jam session with Les Dudek (check him out YouTube) who invited anyone who wanted to play on stage.  Several did, and this harmonica player was well prepared, and really good, too.

I just had to video the people enjoying the jam.  Watching the audience was as much fun as listening to the musicians and singers.






The Festival is a laid-back, take-it-easy kind of event, and you never know what you might see.  Here are a few interesting things I captured on camera:

You know, I'll never understand why anyone would wear one of "these" hats made popular at this year's women's march.  Perhaps that's how she sees herself (shaking my head).  She's got to be from up north, 'cause girls raised in the South have more respect for themselves.  We also know that a real lady sets the tone for respect and gets it!!!

I've seen many different instruments at the festival, but this is the first time I've seen a tuba. :)

I admired a lady's purse and she graciously allowed me to photograph it.  She also shared with me that she bought it at a gun show.  It's specially designed to hold a gun. Handy, right?  I love it.

Had to photograph this lovely dulcimer.  Isn't it gorgeous?

The Florida Folk Festival is a kick-off-your-shoes kind of place, so this is a common sight around the park:

There's so much more I could share, but I think I'm done for this year.  I hope you get to attend one day because I know you'll have a hand-clapping, foot-stomping, and folk dancing good time.  We sure did.

 Now, as promised, I have to share about the angel wings.

On the way home from the festival, we stopped for lunch in Deland.  I'd heard about these angel wings and wanted to get our picture made there, so I Googled it to find the address.  It's a bit tricky because it's in an alley behind a business.   You can read about the angel wings, and the artist, Erica Group,  HERE.

We met a nice couple there who took our picture.  We got to talking and believe it or not, his name was Jim and her name was Gail.  Amazing, right?  They told us about a great place to eat nearby, so if you ever visit Deland, be sure to try the Boston Coffee House.   We enjoyed the great food and atmosphere.

I'm so grateful to have this wonderful vacation, and for our Ma'gen Da'vid family who helped to make it happen.   We are blessed beyond my ability to tell.

Here are the links to my other posts about the 2017 Florida Folk Festival:


Florida Folk Festival 2017 -  #1

Florida Folk Festival 2017 - #2

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I sometimes share my posts with these friends:
Spiritual Sundays     Kathy’s Return to Loveliness at A Delightsome Life     GRAND Social       Modest Mom Monday Link-up     The Art of Homemaking Mondays   BLOGGING GRANDMOTHERS LINK PARTYTitus 2 Tuesday     Share Your Stuff Tuesday    TITUS TUESDAYS @CORNERSTONE CONFESSIONS     Wordless Wednesdays    Classical Homemaking Link-Up    Judith’s Wholehearted Wednesday     Favorite Things Home and Garden Thursday at Delightsome Life  Paula's Weekend No Rules Blog Party Friendship Friday