The Summer of Turtles

This footage is from our summer living at what we affectionately dubbed Turtle Hollow in Peachtree City, Georgia. We lived there with some of our best friends. The Hollow was small, crowded and oppressively humid. But it was there that JoAlison and I learned a deeper sense of what community is — sharing meals, bathrooms and walks to work. It’s also where Sleepy Turtles wrote most of its songs — some that were never recorded, unfortunately — and it’s where we recorded our second album right in the living room. The images really sum up all my memories from this period of my life: young children, a tight-knit community, adventurous spirits, and lots of songwriting! The track on the video is our earliest recording of “Dear to Her.” It’s very raw — just a phone set up and recording in the middle of the band. When we recorded this we were still working out parts and words.