This is the perfect recipe for a folk festival in my mind and Shelter Valley does it like no other that I know of.
Showing up to work is like a family reunion with lots of great banter and playful conversation with friends from previous years as well as lots of stimulating conversations with new folks. And at some point everyone asks each other "so, how many years for you?".
Andrea and I have come to this festival for the past four years (this is the eleventh edition) and I've volunteered three times including this week. I feel like I know a little about what needs doing by now so I've gotten a few crews lined up to work and I think it's gone well. I know I make them work more than they want to but I know what all still needs to be done and I want to make sure we get to the end by Friday.
So my mornings are early (generally up with the sun) and after some tasty breakfast that starts with fresh farm eggs and becomes an omelette, I get the folks organized and away we go.
Sunrise over the remains of last night's campfire
At the other end of the day another fine meal awaits (and yes, there is a wonderful lunch in between). I think at this point there are around 50 volunteers to feed. The total will be closer to 300 during the event so it's no small task. And SVFF pulls it off beautifully. Here's tonights treat...
This extended week, from last weekend until the end of next weekend, is a break from photography and a shift to music. So far so good too!
The weekend behind was highlighted by the Greenbelt Harvest Festival which is the brainchild of Daniel Lanois. While only four years old it has a reputation for having some big names as well as local Hamilton area talent. And this year was no exception. I really enjoyed seeing and hearing Bruce Cockburn and Ron Sexsmith is another artist I really enjoy. The final act was Ray LaMontagne, a band I don't know much about but they were a treat. I'll have to look into their music a little more as they were really on top of it and performed brilliantly on stage.
We got to the Harvest Festival early... front row parking
<insert your caption here :) >
This week I'm at the Henkel family lavender farm, the site of the Shelter Valley Folk Festival. I've gotten one day of hard labour in (and my body feels it!) and three more days ahead of me as I volunteer to help get everything set up ahead of the festival which starts on Friday and runs until Sunday noon.
Headed out to SVFF. With a bike of course
It was a hot day with lots of sun and sweat so after we were done I headed down to the lake for a quick dip to wash of the day's grime. And then I drove up to the volunteer camping area on top of the hill.
Parked at the beach for a quick dip
This last shot is my view down over the festival site with the lake in the distance. And with that, I'll wrap up the blog entry as the campfire is about to get lit now that the sun is gone.
It's been a while since I've had a reason to use a sledgehammer, my body is reminding me of that fact today. The occasion was the start of my volunteer time for the Shelter Valley Folk Festival that I mentioned in the previous blog entry. The grass has all been cut so the field looks like a large empty canvas waiting for something to happen.
The Henkel
Family Lavender Farm
One of the early steps in the setup is to get the big-top tent setup. This is where the volunteer kitchen and dining area goes and next to it is the dish-washing station (another tent but much simpler to set up). There are hundreds of volunteers so this is an important part of the overall setup.
At about 80 feet long, it's no small task. The tent is made up of 5 large sections, about 30 side poles (each with a 3 foot anchor stake and tie-down) and three huge poles in the middle. Measuring it all out was a challenge and it took the team a few tries to get it right. This led to stakes being hammered in only to be pulled out and moved and hammered back in. Definitely hard work. Erecting the large center poles is also a challenge as they need to lift the heavy tent and get the poles centered correctly based on the sides and ends. All in all it was about 5 hours from start to finish. I didn't have much time to photograph the process but here's an early photo and the end result.
Last year some VW friends went on about how great the Shelter Valley Folk Festival was and I thought it would be worth checking out. Early bird tickets were gone and camping spots weren't available any more in the main area so I decided to volunteer. Andrea and our friend Liz bought tickets and came up a little later on the first day.
Turned out to be a good choice: it got us into a spot with the rest of the group, got me in free, and I got to meet lots of great people as I did my volunteer time in the parking crew. The one downside to it was that my volunteer time took place while the event was on so I missed seeing some of the performers. Still, I got to enjoy a bunch of amazing performances and took lots of photos plus a few videos last year. Here's one of Vance Gilbert singing "My Bad" (as Billy Holiday).
There are a few more videos on YT that I put up, it was shortly after I got my Rode mic for the DSLR and I was testing it out. The one of Luke Doucet singing Sundown is pretty good (I think). I thought I'd written a blog entry about it but seems I didn't. No gallery on my website, no photos on Picasa either... odd.
Anyhow, that was last year. The 2012 edition of SVFF will be happening the last weekend of August and this year I signed up early to arrange my volunteer time. I bought Andrea an earlybird ticket as a birthday present so she's all set as well.
I expect to have my volunteer time all done as part of the advance crew so I will get to enjoy the full time at the festival. It does mean I'll be driving to the Henkel
Family Lavender Farm "in the heart of Northumberland County" Wednesday to do my first bit. I will also be there the week before the event to see what I can do to help. And look for the town of VW-land if you're going to be there :-)
Looking forward to it! I'll definitely be bring all my camera gear to see what gems I come up with this year. And I'll be sure to post something here.
