PICKENS — Music in the Mountains 2012 will continue this Saturday with the Hagood Mill hosting a special “Sugar in the Gourd, Dancin’ on a Board” concert with the Weasel Creek String Band.
The free event will feature a performance on the mill’s outdoor stage beginning at noon, and will include a “learn to square dance” workshop called by the Weasels’ fiddler, Marion Boatwright. There will also be dancing boards set up for any willing cloggers or buck-dancers.
Those in attendance don’t have to dance to enjoy the music, though. Attendees can bring a lawn chair and plan on staying a while for some great old-time music. Visitors are asked to bring their instruments too, as there are usually a couple of jams going on around the site.
The old gristmill and other demonstrations will be running from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
At 11 a.m., Hagood Mill’s 1890’s cotton gin will be ginning cotton that was that was grown last year on-site.
The old water-powered 1845 gristmill is one of the finest examples of 19th century technology in the Upstate and operates just as it has for the last century-and-a-half. The mill will be running throughout the day. In the old mill, fresh stone-ground corn meal, grits and wheat flour will be available, as well as Hagood Mill cookbooks and a variety of other mill-related items.
The Hagood Mill hosts a variety of folklife and traditional arts demonstrations each month, including blacksmithing, bowl-digging, flintknapping, chair-caning, moonshining, broom-making, basket-making, pottery, quilting, spinning, knitting, weaving, woodcarving, open-hearth cooking, metal-smithing, leather-working and more.
There promises to be lots to do and lots of fun.
Visitors can show their support for the Mill and the Pickens County Museum by joining them at this monthly Third Saturday event. The Hagood Mill operates, rain or shine, the third Saturday of every month and is located just three miles north of Pickens or five and half miles south of Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway 11 off S.C. Highway 178 at 138 Hagood Mill Road.
Hagood Mill is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., to tour the buildings and grounds and to visit the Mill Site Gift Shop.
“Music in the Mountains 2012” is sponsored by a private benefactor. The Pickens County Museum of Art & History is funded in part by Pickens County, members and friends of the museum and a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. 
For more information, please contact the Hagood Mill at (864) 898-2936 or the Pickens County Museum at (864) 898-5963.