Photo Courtesy of Sarah Ells Fish
I hope that we are always able to play at a farmers market the weekend before Halloween.
Playing for dancing dragons and dinosaurs and Alice in Wonderland and a tiny Elvis is an awful…

Jun 6 2022
Comfort and Joy at the farmers markets
After two crazy and tumultuous years, I am looking forward to the sense of community and reassurance I find at farmers markets.
Just thinking about the act of planting and growing food; the care that craftspeople take in designing…
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Jan 28 2022
Optimistic, uncertain -- and Jeremy Wilson's Foundation
We see that our last post was written during that little window we had last year in which we breathed freely, thinking that the availability of vaccines would bring life back to normal -- and bring music back everywhere.
Well…

Jul 6 2021
The Day the Music Lived
So much has been written about the last 16 months that it would be hard to find anything to add. We do want to post a grateful hooray for everything that has brought our communities back to life -- and…
Read moreMar 17 2020
Libba Cotten
I have been lucky enough to do some writing for an on-line bluegrass publication called Bluegrass Solutions. I was honored to be asked to write about Elizabeth Cotten. We all know her song Freight Train, but fewer know the amazing…
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Mar 19 2019
Community in the campground
Free Range went to the desert.
We were extremely lucky to have timed our trip to Arizona and California in time to see the beginning of the super bloom -- yellow and pink and purple and white flowers covering the…
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Jan 17 2019
On Sondheim and simple music
"If I cannot fly, let me sing." Stephen Sondheim
Singing is the best antidote for overthinking that I've encountered. Now I think that instead of checking my news feed compulsively throughout the day, I should take myself off to…
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Jul 8 2017
Columbia travels
We've set ourselves a goal of traveling the Columbia River from its headwaters to its mouth over a number of years. Last month, we started the journey. We drove to the town of Canal Flats in British Columbia and wandered…
Read moreFeb 5 2017
Love happens every day
I just read this great quote:
"February days are a marketing gimmick; love happens every day."
It was written by an Indian film star named Randeep Hooda. Now I have to watch Monsoon Wedding and everything else he's been in…

Aug 8 2016
A la Carts
One member of Free Range has a confession. She has long wanted to play music at a food cart pod.
And she got to fulfill her desire yesterday at the great Rose City Food Park at 52nd and Sandy.
In…Read more
And she got to fulfill her desire yesterday at the great Rose City Food Park at 52nd and Sandy.
In…Read more

Jul 25 2016
There's no place like home
OK, we're Portland-centric, but it seems to me that there's no place better to be during the summer than Oregon.
And if you happen to be in the city, the best place to be is at a farmers market. And…Read more

Jun 22 2016
Little girls in pink tutus
The first time we played at Fire & Stone was on Easter Sunday. Just a few families were there at 6, when we started playing.
One of the listeners was a little girl in a pink tutu, who wasted no…Read more
One of the listeners was a little girl in a pink tutu, who wasted no…Read more