Loose Leaf Notes

Butterflies and boys (sons and grandsons) made my heart flutter at Floydfest on Saturday.

We lounged on a giant rubber duckie after watching a juggler swallow fire and balance a chair on his head.

Josh and Emily wore flowers in their hair from their Carolina Flowers flower farm in Marshall, NC. They’re getting married September 2018.

We couldn’t make it down the main drag without running into families of beautiful friends. Couldn’t have planned that better.

We made the traditional pilgrimage stop to Floyd’s own Phelp’s Pottery shop where we tried to find the ugliest face pot.

More Floyd family time was enjoyed at Staroot’s art booth. We had just come from winning some free T-shirts (like the one on Liam’s head) for the kids at the Virginia Lottery station where Joe played the lottery for a car.

Throughout the day I made a point to check out the local Floyd buskers music.  They played along the walkways and at the new Deshutes Beer Tent.  Here, our friend Will Norton (with Jody) made me cry with his song about two Toms. Floyd lost two Floyd icons named Tom in the last few years, Tom Ryan and Tom Phelps (stories HERE and HERE). The reason I got choked up, apart from Will’s lyrics, was that we were on the same ground (yards away) where their Floydfest booths always were. Phelps’ is still there (but without Tom and the legendary high rise viewing deck that he built).We met up with Dylan’s old Blue Mountain School teacher and family friend Susanna. “This is your dad’s teacher,” I told mini-Dylan … I mean Liam.

We all got a big kick out of  our new friend Gypsy Geoff’s skeleton puppet performance (short clip HERE), and the Children’s Universe was a great place to run into more friends.

For a while Bryce joined the circus, balancing spinning plates with Geoff and other kids.  Watch one of Geoff’s engaging performances with kids HERE.

That was after he had mastered the art of butterfly balancing in the Butterfly Dome.

Oh, and we met a horse.

In between smoothies, watermelon, bubbles and pirate ship play, we caught some hammock time in the Global Village. It was a dream come true Floydfest family tradition day. I wore flowers too.  – See you Sunday

Note: Read Not Your Grandmother’s Thursday at Floyfest HERE and Friday’s Floydfest Fans HERE.  _____Colleen Redman