everybody always seems to be concerned about not doing it during Fiesta. Fiesta starts on the 15th so why not do it on April 10th and 11th? Last year we did it three weeks later than that and it was too hot. The 10th would be the week after Easter and the week before Fiesta.
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It’s a playlist player, see the arrows pointing right and left? You can click forward from video to video. Some are long and some are short, I think seven in all. Be sure to click the HQ button because I was able to get it posted in high quality and it looks much smoother.
Brad did three walks down the more than half mile track that people were spread out on. I wish I could have edited it better to fit in his plan but YouTube has a 10 minute limit per clip. But just pay attention to what he’s saying and you’ll understand the time. We had an easy 350 last year (which bordered on too many although it was nice to have 100 people in front of the stage at a time) but this year it was in the upper 200’s which felt very comfortable. It was Swine Flu fears that trimmed off some regulars. It ain’t about the size of the crowd in front of the stage and any kind of responsibility to entertain them in a Woodziepalooza, it’s about having each family feel like they’re there with a bunch of other families in a tribe out in the woods entertaining themselves. That’s what we’ve been going for and we got it better than ever this year. FYI…. wasn’t too many people less than last year - we ate the same more than 200 pounds of bar-b-que, floated the same number of kegs and sold to within 7 shirts that same number of shirts as last year. So I think each Woodzie goer had the fun of 1.37 of last year’s campers. That’s a 30 percent increase! And a factor making Brad walk so far is that we extended the camping way down the ridge road and then discouraged people from camping in a crowd right near the stage and food areas. All we had to do to keep people out of there was call it the “quite camping” area and they all hightailed it down the trail to the “noisy camping” area. 
email2friend this is trippy. See the woodzie video a whole different way. It’s a site called YoooouuuTuuube and it’s the rage of the day. You can enter the URL of any video and it does it’s thing with it. You can paste this URL in and experiment with the block size, shuffle, etc.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nM3R_tJooc
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Brad playing the old Kingston Trio classic “Cat Scratch Fever”. I guess Jimmie’s right, it ain’t just a folk festival.
email2friend Our new friends Simon & Rebecca from England, The Rosellys recorded live by Chris Mackenzie from the main stage in the afternoon. He put his little video camera in my hand and I didn’t have a plan, I just walked around that picnic table area shooting, keeping the camera moving. I thought I had done a pretty poor job actually. I had thought about heading over to the other stage and then into the woods where lots of families were setting up their tents… I’m glad I didn’t. Chris took the “walkabout” footage and edited this very nice movie together and mated it up with the audio he recorded on a separate digital audio recorder. You’ll see that it’s live when the video comes up to them on stage. VERY nicely done Chris.
These very fine singer/songwriters will be at the Faust Hotel in New Braunfels playing with us on Thursday, come on out!
email2friend three or four people have already sent photos from their camera…. please get them to me in one form or another soon so I can add them all together to make the slideshow that we’re going to create and then leave up here all year. Here’s some that have come in so far.
Renee in the sunglasses (who drove in from Silver City, New Mexico), Ann/Mom (in the red hair) Grace standing and Deirdre… and their friends around them. 
Poppy Lungstuffing from Super Happy Funland in Houston. Lots of us, including me, are major fans of hers and I’m always honored that she comes to play every year. She and Dad played ukes together for a long time out in the woods.
Lots of people are just really, really, really into the spirit of The Woodzie and Robyn is one. It’s not just from a handful of organizers, it’s the energy from hundreds of people that The Woodzie runs on. Everybody adds their excitement to the air, and everybody’s is a little different. Besides the music and friendship and food etc…. she totally gets that part of it is the nature experience. You just feel alive out in the raw Hill Country.
When Taylor said that every shirt has a mate who needs to get to the t-shirt booth early and adopt it….. here’s proof. She came with this tent and was united with her shirt.
email2friend Everybody loved these guys who were doing the Henna tattoos. They had a big sheet to the left of the sound tent and were doing large works of art on people’s backs. I’m not sure where they came from but one of them danced with Ann/Mom for several songs and mother said they were “fine young men”. Now…. I think the guy wearing the kilt had his shirt off because he was waiting for a back tattoo but I never saw him get one. I’m thinking they didn’t want to let him get horizontal for fear he wasn’t wearing any tighty whities. I’m totally guessin’ here but I’m thinking they just didn’t want to risk it. 
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It was truly great. Lots of great talent, lots of food, lots of fun. We had a big crowd, felt to me just about the perfect number of people. The projection screens, the giganormus BBQ pit, the new stage setup: the Whipple Woodzie puts the pic in nic. Song circles went past 4:00 a.m., The Swindles, The Lavens, Thoze Guys, Stephen Inglis… the music all day was great. Actually Stephen Ingles was PHENOMENAL!! Casey did a great job on the stage. The wedding vows thing went perfectly… it was just wonderful. I think it surpassed last year as the best Woodzie yet.
email2friend Here is a rough “schedule.” All subject to change (except the midnight amplified music cutoff time).
MAINSTAGE MUSIC: 2:00 PM TO MIDNIGHT
A wide variety of performers
throughout the day and evening
2ND STAGE MUSIC: 5:00–9:45 PM
From 5:00 to 9:45 pm, a second stage with a
self-serve PA will be running by the Boneyard.
Any musicians are welcome to play (stage will be
equipped with 2 mics and 2 instrument inputs).
Listeners, please support the players by visiting
the 2nd stage.
STEPHEN INGLIS SLACK-KEY GUITAR WORKSHOP:
4:00 pm on the 2nd Stage
SUNSET RIDGE WALK:
Begin gathering in front of the mainstage at
6:30 for the en masse sunset ridge walk,
which will occur just prior to, well, sunset.
DIG FOR ARROWHEADS IN THE DRY POND:
Beginning at 3:30 pm. If you find something
extremely cool, you might consider donating it
to the Woodzie permanent collection. John will
thank you if you do.
KIDS’ CRAFT AREA: Self-serve all day
THE WEDDING: 9:45 pm on the mainstage
STEPHEN INGLIS, FEATURED PERFORMER:
10:30 pm on the mainstage
AMPLIFIED MUSIC CUTOFF IS 12 MIDNIGHT. Song circles and jams (away from the quiet camping zone) go all night long.
email2friend this bad boy is off the hizzy… I’ve never had the pleasure of cooking on any pit this cool. Take a look, this is where your bar-b-que heaven will be coming from on Saturday. Please feel free to visit the meat market on your way to The Woodzie - we have room to cook any and everything. Tell your butcher, “two of these and three of those”.
email2friend this rain has been a Godsend. The ground drains so well here that there’s no mud or any problems from it, on the surface you can’t even tell there was a rain. But it was just right for making all the flowers and trees bloom and it’s filled the whole area with a glow of happy plants. Things were a little drought stricken before but it’s all healed for the time being. And just exactly in time for the event, we’re so lucky. Again…. bring your camera. I took these yesterday afternoon.
email2friend Jimmie’s been all over the Internet searching for the facts. It really looks like the risk is low. Going to The Woodzie would be equivalent to a trip to HEB in terms of risk. We’re talking with everybody, if they’re not feeling well or know that they were exposed we’re asking them to stay home. That won’t be many. We’re putting together a list of rules pertaining to how to keep it safe which is totally possible. We’ll have some special supplies. We’re full ahead on The Woodzie - get outside into the big, healthy outdoors!
This is from Deirdre on the subject:
Over the last 3 years I’ve attended a dozen Pandemic flu conferences and the major thing every epidemiologist I’ve met focuses on is basic infectious disease control over widespread panic. Now, while it might seem pretty intense to close schools - that’s smart and there’s lots of good evidence to show that early closure of the most common vector sites is a good idea. All we need our Woodzie attendees to do is be conscientious:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/habits.htm
http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/pubs/videoresource/t5avoidflu.pdf
- Stay home and take care of yourself if you have any signs of infectious disease. We’ll be here again next year.
- I will bring lots and lots of germ killing supplies - please use them liberally
Love you, DAP
email2friend People often ask me about doing the music events and just the various efforts in music between family and friends. The question is always some version of “why?” This is why. Thanks so much Brad, I love every note and every word. Thirty Years by Brad Svoboda:
email2friend this is basically how they’ll look. Only in 200 various colors and styles. Advice, each is different… hit Taylor right away when he sets them out. There’s hoodies and tye-dyes and special shirts of all kinds but just one of each. You don’t want to be a late comer and then see somebody else walking around in the shirt that was obviously meant for you!
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Please help take photos on Saturday, we need help catching it from all angles. I have an idea - I had it last year but didn’t have the chance to try it because I didn’t have time to get the projector set up. But this is a new year AND we will definitely have big screens this year. They’ll happen compliments of Malcolm and Toni Myler who, as good luck would have it, are in the business of setting up outdoor projection setups. So combine the availability of projectors with the fact that The Woodzie is very photogenic and with the fact that that lots of good photographers come to the Woodzie and it makes me think that we should do a photo slideshow at the end of the night. And, I left out this factor, we need content for the projector. There’s every reason to try it.
How it could work is that people could bring their camera and dump their photos into a common folder on a laptop. If we have same file names I have a fix for that. Could be Taylor’s laptop at the T-Shirt booth - whichever we use, we’ll announce it. Then at midnight or whenever, we connect the a/v out of his laptop to the projector and just sit back and let them all play as a slideshow on the huge screen. Bring your camera to the The Woodzie and give some thought during the day to taking some shots to have be a part of the group slideshow. After the big showing Saturday night we’ll put them up on this website and on Flickr for people to look at the rest of the year.
email2friend Bring toys! Bikes, balls, Frisbees, kites…. any and everything. There’s a kid’s playground area, they can bring their toy cars and army men. Bug catching jars are pretty mandatory.
This is a picnic, in addition to your contribution to the main feast table bring a cooler of picnic type snacks and drinks. It’s all communal so offer it to people around you. And bring a blanket to spread under the trees or in front of the stage.
Bring any decorations you want to lay around or hang in the trees around your picnic and/or campsite.
If you suffer from them, please leave your singing inhibitions at the gate. The song circles are for universal joining in.
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The Woodzie site is ancient Indian grounds. David Webb and I were Injun ghost hunting this morning. No luck. Then Hillary came out and we found these two treasures. Indians must have juuust been there. One is a spearhead with the tip broken off, exciting but fairly standard…. but the other is actually more unusual, it’s a point from what looks like a very long piece of some kind. Can you see it?
You can look and if the energy isn’t with you you won’t see an arrowhead laying on the ground right in front of you. Hillary is a massive believer and that power pulled that spearpoint out of it’s burial ground. Kim and I have been talking about holding an archaeological dig with the kids at The Woodzie….. but kids you gotta get your believin’ mojo workin’. It ain’t nothing to do with believing in them and the artifacts, they’re here without question; the power you need is your belief that you can see.
email2friend from the “aerial”. 
See the “email 2 friend’ link below? You can email a link to these instructions to anyone who needs them.
Getting here is so easy, it’s two or three turns off the Interstate. See the detailed map in the “main control center”. In a nutshell, off I-35 take exit 191 which is Hwy 306 to Canyon Lake. Go west in the direction of the lake (turn left under the bridge if coming from S.A.). You’ll go over the railroad tracks at about 2 miles. Turn RIGHT at the FIRST STOP LIGHT which is FM 1102. There’s a Sac N’ Pac ice house on the corner. About another 2 miles after turning right on 1102 you go over a second set of railroad tracks; start looking for the Storage Haus sign and building on the right and then immediately to the left for the entrance to The Woodzie. This little aerial map shows the driveway into the storage place - what you’re looking for on the other side of the street is just a open farm gate and a big long spray painted Whipple Woodzie sign. Turn in right there to begin your adventure. If you see the street sign for Hoffman it means you just passed your adventure and need to very adventurously turn around.
On this map here I’ve marked the length of the dirt road you go down just so you’ll have an idea of what’s going on. Up and down that road there’s places to pull into the trees, that’s where you park. Try to position your car however you can so that we can fit the most cars in there.
You see the ridge on this aerial photo - you can see why we try to get everybody to move out there. For one thing, that’s towards the view. Another is that one edge of the property is near some neighbors and the ridge is the furthest point away from them affording the most privacy for everybody.
That edge of the treeline has tons of the best camping spots and you can walk over and have a view of the little valley below. I expect we’ll see a cool long line of twenty or more family tents spaced out up and down that area. When you come in to setup camp, ask people to show you to The Ridge and stake your claim there!
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Brad and I went shirt recycling in Austin today, up and down the ladies isles. Mother and Sandra hit San Antonio. With what Brad and I came home with, with leftovers from last year, with what we squirreled away during the year and with what mother bought today…. we have over 350 shirts. And each handpicked based on it’s cool value; no two are the same. Taylor’s been the man on this project for years. Here he is doing an inventory of the blanks; inspecting them, dividing them up and making sure we have enough of each size.
email2friend Seems to hold a bar-b-que pit up just fine. Seems to offer ample shade. Kids seem to love it. I think it’s in working condition. Brad took these photos a couple of weeks ago when we had a song circle going. This can be the test, click on the photos once and then again and they’ll enlarge to full screen. See if you can picture yourself and your kids in that frame. What you’re seeing here is one campsite in the area we call “The Boneyard”. There’s enough space for a hundred family campsites like this, all equally as Texas Hill Country sheik. Then we all share the central “town square” main music stage and open meadow area to meet, greet and eat at.
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Hi!
Is anyone up for a plant exchange at the Woodzie? I have some volunteers that need good homes! Katy Ruellia, Mexican Heather, Donkey Ear, Christmas Cactus, perhaps even a few Shrimp Plants…
email2friend This is a very small, simple and unique 24 hour long music festival on 32 tree covered acres in the Texas Hill Country. It is not commercial in any way, not associated with any business motive; it is just for fun. Ours and yours. There is no admission cost and the food is commumal, meaning we eat what everybody brings. Great music, lots of food; a great time for those relaxed enough to appreciate a fine day out in the country. It is all word of mouth - if you and your family are peaceful souls, you are welcome. Kids and dogs as long as neither bite and fight are welcome. Please bring a covered dish to help feed everybody - this is a singer/songwriter event but also very much a potluck bar-b-que dinner and nature experience. Setting up little campsites, stringing hammocks and playing guitars out in the woods is pretty hard to beat. Try to get here by early Saturday afternoon and yes you can drive out on Saturday night but please try to camp over - that is part of what makes this thing unique. If you are lucky enough to be able to make the time to get out here you will never forget it.
I have a couple of extra, too. 
But Jana called and it belongs to one of the NESA music genius kids. I hope I didn't just out him on the Gershwin. The next lost and found item is easy: red feathered maracas. 
We'll all post pics and vids when we recover.
Relax--the rain will cease at 1600 on 1 May, and the burn ban will be lifted from those juicy acres at 1700--but how to keep the pond from filling with gators? ...hmmm... Victory to the Fire Angels! 
... like you're logged you don't have to resolve the operation (nor to display it) 
