Pickering Creek’s Harvest Hoedown offers super kids activities, hay wagon rides provided by Atlantic Tractor, boat rides on the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s Mr. Jim as well as a host of entertaining kids activities and local artisans.

This year Harvest Hoedown adds the Maryland Agriculture Education Foundation’s Agriculture Showcase sponsored by the Talbot County Farm Bureau. The Maryland Agricultural Showcase is designed to be interactive, educational and fun for all age groups. The Showcase highlights the important role that agriculture plays in the lives of all Marylanders with colorful displays and exciting interactive exhibits appealing to both children and adults. Interior displays demonstrate the myriad of ways agriculture impacts our lives from the soil we walk on – to the food we eat – to the clothes we wear.

This year’s fun includes a visit from the Phoenix Wildlife Center, showing off several rehabilitated raptors and who will visit for the day to educate people about raptors, there habitats and what we can do to protect them.  While looking for the raptors you are also likely to bump into Webster, the Waterfowl Festival Goose.  Webster makes his arrival from migration each fall at Pickering Creek’s Hoedown.  Make sure to greet him as he arrives for a winter of foraging on the Eastern Shore.

But there is also has a hidden secret.  Lots of great music for all ages!  The Harvest Hoedown features two stages, the main stage, framed by Pickering’s historic corncrib, broadcasts toe tapping blues and bluegrass with three acts throughout the day. The kid’s stage is just down the lane right next to Pickering’s beautiful gardens, surrounded by a bevy of fun educational activities led by Audubon Naturalists and budding volunteer leaders.  The musical artists featured frequently perform in their own right, but Pickering puts them all together for a wonderful fall day of music and fun.

The main stage kicks off at 11:15 am with Alan Girard and Meredith Lathbury.  Alan has been playing locally for over ten years and has been a staple at the Harvest Hoedown for many years. Performing a diverse repertoire of acoustic music including folk, Irish, and traditional tunes, the somewhat unusual combination of viola and guitar make this unique performance one you won’t want to miss. When not playing Alan and Meredith work hard making the world a better place through their conservation careers.

Up next is the Eastern Shore’s Rick Forrest.  Rick has opened concerts for blues greats John Hammond and Chris Smither at the renowned Rams Head On Stage; the listener can hear these legendary blues artists twist and turn throughout Forrest’s music. While paying homage to his blues heroes, Rick manages to deliver his own unique concoction of effortless blues with an easy front-porch, foot-tappin’ style comprised of smooth sultry vocals and masterful guitar work. Pull up a straw bale and relax for this one. Tracks off of Forrest’s CD, Things Change, are popular selections on many local artists’ set lists.

Headlining the main stage is the New and Used Bluegrass band, based on the Eastern Shore with members from across the shore. New and Used Bluegrass features Alan Breeding on banjo, Jim Bieneman on bass fiddle and vocals, Toby Price on mandolin and vocals, Ed Finkner on guitar and vocals and Jon Simmons on fiddle, mandolin and vocals. New and Used Bluegrass performs various flavors of bluegrass music, ranging from the traditional  – like the Stanley Brothers “How Mountain Girls Can Love” to “Eastbound and Down” from the Smokey and the Bandit movie, to “Caravan”, a Duke Ellington tune, as well as assorted banjo and fiddle tunes and songs.  They are well known locally for their excellent bluegrass pickin’.

The kid’s stage features a very accomplished act from Western Maryland. First Slim Harrison and the Sunnyland Band return for their sixteenth year.  The best thing about the Sunnyland Band is that it is you!  With over 40,000 members worldwide it may very well be the biggest band around. For over 25 years, Slim has performed at Schools and Festivals, Hoedowns & Throwdowns all over North America and around the world.  He is a “Master Artist” with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts and full-time “Artist in Residence” with the Maryland State Arts Council – Artists in Education, Touring Artists Program.

Slim’s solo performance titled: “Exploring the Roots of American Folk Music” teaches children about the many cultures that brought lots of different flavors to the American Musical Gumbo.  Kids are given an opportunity to join the “Sunnyland Band” and play along on spoons, jugs, washboards, skiffleboards, limberjacks, washtub bass, PA Dutch “stumpf-fiddles”, African tambourines, Cajun frattrois,  Native American whammy-diddles, Chinese gaos, Latin maracas, clave`s & quiros.

Alternating with and joining in with the Sunny land band for the Big Hoedown are the Rock Candy Cloggers.  The Cloggers have joined us for the last two years for some footstompin fun! Rock Howland and Candy Ranlet teamed as the Rock Candy Cloggers in 1994. Candy plays the string bass, concertina and jaws harp. Rock plays the fiddle. Both Candy and Rock are award winning cloggers that dazzle audiences with amazing footwork. Each is a winner of individual clogging competitions, including the National Clog and Hoedown Council East Coast Championships and Deer Creek Fiddlers Convention. They teach clogging at their own studios and also at Common Ground on the Hill Festival. They performed at the Kennedy Center and are regulars for the Washington Folk Festival and Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.
Joining both the Cloggers and the Sunnyland Band onstage this year will be Norman Hogeland who will be featuring songs from his album “Orange Kitty: Songs for Children and Fun Loving Adults”
This year’s Harvest Hoedown is made possible thanks to the hard work of our volunteer Harvest Hoedown Committee and our sponsors Atlantic Tractor, Bartlett, Griffin and Vermilye, Hopkins Sales, Johnson Lumber Company, Kelly Distributors, Tom and Susan Lane and Lane Engineering, Livingston Bros Septic, Meintzer Petroleum, Pepsi Cola, The Tilghman Family, Melissa and Stuart Strahl Family and the Pickering Creek Board of Trustees.  Without all their help the day would not be the same!

Harvest Hoedown means fun for all ages!  Music, hayrides, boat rides, local arts, and great family activities put smiles on every face. Mark your calendar, dig up your overalls, boots and hat and make your way out to Pickering Creek on October 10.  We will be having fun from 11 am- 4 pm.