Our friend Ted Lehmann celebrated his third anniversary as a blogger on December 24, during which time he has provided coverage of bluegrass music and events all across the US. Along his wife, Irene, Ted has documented dozens of festivals in photos, and shared his impressions with his readers about shows, recordings and the general state of our music since December of 2006.

In his official 3rd Anniversary posting, Ted shared that…

“During the year we attended about fifteen festivals and twenty other kinds of events from New Hampshire to Florida to western Kentucky, and Tennessee. We visited many new venues, including the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY and the Kentucky Opry in Benton, KY, both new venues for us. Our trip to Bill Monroe’s childhood home on Jerusalem Ridge represents a real highlight as well as an important learning experience. We went to Randy Wood’s Guitar Shop near Savannah as well as Guy and Tina’s Pickin’ Parlor in South Carolina. We met musicians, luthiers, promoters, curators, and people from all walks of life who love bluegrass. We almost always felt welcomed into this rich and varied community. I wrote seventeen book reviews, many about bluegrass related books, and reviewed ten CD’s, the hardest part of doing this blog.”

As part of his year-end musings, Ted has also put together some galleries of his photos from their travels in 2009, collected around three themes:

• Merlefest 2009
• IBMA Fan Fet 2009
• Winter 2009

See these and all Ted’s posts at tedlehmann.blogspot.com.

Here’s a quick sample of photos from Ted’s 2009 archive.