A wonderful concert

Wow! River Singers was great Saturday night.  It was really fun to be in the audience and hear all four parts in balance, which you can't do when you are singing. And I did get to sing a bit  - for years I have led the group in There Are Angels Hov'ring 'Round before the concert and Mary Cay asked me to do it last night, which was very nice. There were also some singalongs with Kathy Bullock leading. So we had a great time. Our friend, Anne Hier (who was going to build next to us at Putney Commons) had  supper with us beforehand and came to the concert - her first River Singers concert- and she really enjoyed it. 

Supper on the deck with Anne Hier and our beautiful rhododendron in bloom.

Here's a closer look at the rhododendron - it's gotten huge!

Ellen made a delicious chicken Waldorf salad with fresh green beans. 

River Singers forms a big circle outside before the concert and I lead Angels. . .

        River Singers in concert mode

             Kathy leading a singalong

More shed work

HToday, I had a pretty lazy morning, had a late breakfast on the deck - a beautiful cool morning - did some puttering and then got ready for a Hallowell sing. Five of us met at the Outlet Center near the I-91 Exit 1, and drove into Guilford to sing for a woman in her 90's who has advanced Alzheimer's. Music is so important for her. One song especially, May You See Diamonds, seemed to touch her. Her daughter and a caregiver were also there. We always feel so privileged to bring music into a home like that.

I drove to the Outlet Center and back (about 16 miles round trip) as a scofflaw. The old Subaru that I'm using while Ellen is away is uninspected. Too much rust. Runs well otherwise. So I took back roads as much as possible to avoid detection. It worked. 

Then when I got home I did more shed de-construction and hauled what was in the shed that I want to keep down under our deck temporarily to get it out of the rain. A big part of what I've been doing is pulling nails out of boards so I can cut them up for kindling. Since we often spread ashes from the wood stove on the driveway in the wintertime, it wouldn't do for the ashes to be full of nails, now would it? 

I've been banging things apart with a maul, and pulling nails with a claw hammer, so I 'm a little beat tonight. I made myself a big "eggy rice" (a rice and chopped up veggie pancake) for supper and watched the Friday evening news programs on PBS. Ellen will get home around midnight, she said. I'll be waiting and so happy to have her home again. 

                 Some of the stuff from out of the shed

A break in the action

Last evening (Thursday ) I took a break from my shed work to go to a second Kathy Bullock workshop with River Singers. Kathy is a wonderful choral director, a passionate gospel pianist and singer, and a beautiful woman of faith and human being. She is a joy to be with and to sing with. The songs she chooses are all from the black gospel tradition, and are often very moving. This time I felt she had chosen them just for me. I just let myself cry, and I'm not the only one. One is called Even Me as sung by Patrick Lundy.  The lyrics are:

Lord I hear showers of blessing 

Thou art scattering full and free. 

Showers the thirsty souls refreshing 

Let some drops now fall on me.

Even me, Lord, even me. 

Let some drops now fall on me. 

As is typical of this tradition, this is sung over and over, building more and more feeling, and in addition to piano and chorus, and Kathy's solo soprano adding a kind of descant, there are instruments- a sax, trombone, violin and oboe! It's pretty powerful. Maybe the concert tomorrow night will go up on YouTube  - it has in the past. I 'll let you know . 

 Kathy Bullock at piano rehearsing the musicians before the full rehearsal

     River Singers in rehearsal last night

Since we missed so many weeks of rehearsal by being out west, we won't be singing tomorrow night, but we'll sure be at the concert! 

After the workshop I stopped by John and Cynthia's which is just a mile or two down the road from the church where River singers holds their rehearsals. I had seen John since we returned, but not Cynthia. We had a cup of tea and a nice visit. John has gotten very interested in electric guitars! He had bought one from a friend a few months ago, but something about it didn't quite please him, though he liked it ok. So he got another one online from Goodwill! A Fender Guitar, for $40! He wants to replace the pickups on it, but he likes it! He joked that he has "gas" - "guitar acquisition syndrome." I asked when I would get to hear him play it, and he said, "oh, in about ten years." I hope he can speed that up a bit for my sake. 

         The first guitar John bought

   The recent acquisition from Goodwill

(John removed the strings and will replace them, and probably replace some of the electronics, but it's basically in good condition. Which is lucky because when you buy from Goodwill online, there are no returns.)

Shed clean-out

Today I spent much of the day clearing out the shed we're going to take down, and then deconstructing the shelving which I can use for kindling - perfect old, dry wood. This shed has a history. I am inordinately proud of the fact that I built it myself, and that at no time in the building process did I have the help of another person, or of any machinery or power tools . All done by hand. If you looked at it carefully you would say that's impossible, but it's true. I used a "come-along" a lot; in fact I used more than one. But that is a hand-tool. No other person or machine helped lift the large beams into place which form the skeleton of the structure. Did it myself. Did I say I was inordinately proud? You get the picture.

                      The shed 

These are the beams I'm talking about - the vertical one is a discarded telephone pole and the horizontal one is a tree trunk off our land. 

       Same deal on the other side

Ok, I'll confess that I used my truck to get the telephone pole from the roadside where it had been discarded by the power company up to the house. I didn't carry it by hand! I got permission from CVPS to take it, and I used a chain to tow it behind the truck for close to two miles! Yes! I did it very early in the morning when there was virtually no traffic. Actually, as I think about it, I may have brought one end of the pole into the truck bed and dragged the other end - like a traverse. Then when it was at the house I used a come-along to snake it up to the building site. Same with the tree trunks. I put the four vertical poles into sockets in the ground and pulled them vertical with a come along. Then I built a three- pole tepee over those posts and used a comealong suspended from that tepee to lift the horizontal tree trunks into place! No kidding!

To be continued! 

An omen?

We had a meeting of the music committee of the Dummerston church last evening - dealing primarily with the fact that our present organist, Frantz Robert, who is a teen jazz prodigy, an amazing improvisational musician, will be going off to the Manhattan School of Music at the end of the summer. He has a full scholarship there. It is unlikely that we can find another like Franz, which is too bad because the congregation has come to love his gifts. So, we need an organist, and the committee would love to find someone who has choir directing skills as well, especially with children. The church is growing and needs a re-vitalized and expanded music ministry. As we were finishing our meeting, someone noticed the light outside had changed and when we looked out, there was a double rainbow! We took it as a good omen for our quest for a new organist!

You can just make out the double rainbow !

There'll be some changes made

We're gearing up for some changes around here. We have an old shed that I built almost 40 years ago that's coming down. Our "front yard" has huge craters in it - it gets pretty muddy in the spring -  all that needs to be filled in and leveled. A swale needs to be made that will carry water off the mountain down away from the house. Some trees need to come down so our house gets more sun to reduce moss and mildew on the roof and walls. The turnaround at the top of our driveway needs to be graveled so delivery trucks don't make big ruts. So our neighbor, Zac, is going to do that in the coming weeks. I'll take some before and after photos.

I also am doing some deck repairs where a hole got made where the wood was rotted. I'm wondering how many years before we need a new deck ! 

Monday night we had a Dummerston choir rehearsal. It was great to be back with the choir. Tonight we went to a workshop with Kathy Bullock, part of River Singers. We aren't singing in the concert Saturday because we've missed  so much rehearsal, but we enjoyed singing tonight. Ellen leaves for a trip to Swarthmore tomorrow, and I 'm staying here, so after rehearsal tonight we went by John  & Cynthia's and picked up the old Subaru so I'll have a car while Ellen is gone. I'll start cleaning out the shed that is coming down tomorrow. 

I re-activated my pool membership today and got in a swim. I also inflated my bike tires, so now I can go biking again. And I got the mower going again. All these spring chores! As you can see, I've been a busy little beaver!

Dancing and singing

The latter part of today was devoted to dancing and singing - watching Morris dancers and singing the St. John Passion of J.S. Bach in rehearsal. The Morris dancing is an annual Memorial Day weekend event - the Marlboro Ale (gathering) - which draws about 18-20 groups from all over the U.S., Canada, England and sometimes Scandinavia. It always takes place in Newfane, which is one of Vermont's handsomest villages, with its court house, church and Grange forming a perfect backdrop. This was the 40th anniversary of the first Ale, and it had particularly fine dancing and a lot of humor (the "fools" who act as clowns in the group can be both incredibly talented and clever).

I had to leave before the dancing was over to get to my rehearsal, but it was worth it. Singing the St. John is fun ! 

           Morris dancers with church in background. 

             Morris dancers with court house in background.

              Characteristic white handkerchiefs . 

   

                               Doing leap frogs 

                      A "rag " group with sticks 

Rehearsing the St. John with our director, Mary Westbrook-Geha. 

               A bit of the Blanche Moyse Chorale

Incredible weekend!

What a weekend! Friday evening we went  to a concert of the Starry Mountain Singers doing songs and arrangements by Peter and Mary Alice Amidon which was absolutely stunning! Wish I knew how to put up an audio file on this blog but here is a photo:

                     The Starry Mountain Singers

Then Saturday we sang Bach Chorales at a funeral for Georg Steinmeyer, which brought together old members of the Blanche Moyse Chorale, which was great, and then in the evening we went to a highly unusual musical event, an opera based on the life of our dear friend, Tony Barrand ( who was there to enjoy it!) and that was just over the top wonderful. I had originally been slated to sing in it but had to give it up because we were away so long. Then this morning was Pentecost Sunday at the Guilford church and Kathy Bullock was guest choir leader and that was way over the top wonderful, joyous and Spirit-filled. 

              Kathy Bullock leading the choir 

               Guilford Church choir in Pentecost red

Now Katie, Savanna and Brendon are coming, we're going to see the Morris Dancers later and this eve I'll rehearse the St. John Passion! 

Plenitude

If we ever needed a reminder that our lives are full to overflowing with good things, these two days were it. Yesterday (Thursday), we drove to Bennington to meet our friend, Mary, have lunch and visit. Mary, her daughter, Erica, and son Mark, had met me in Boulder just a few weeks ago and now Mary is back home, Erica is home in Capetown, S.A., and Mark is in Denver. While we were talking with Mary, Erica skyped from S.A., so we had a chance to talk with her as well. Then we scooted from Bennington back to Putney for a Hallowell rehearsal, which is always wonderful, and this time Kathy Leo asked me to read the Mary Oliver poem "Evidence," to close the evening. Then we did some errands, believe it or not: pie shells to the Guilford church, copying music for choir today, doing email, etc. Then home to do dishes and finally to bed to watch a video - Olive Kittridge - which Julie had told us about - pretty heavy stuff!

Then today, up early for a dental appointment, for a cleaning (no cavities! Gums good!), pick up new ink cartridges at Staples, and on to a choir rehearsal for a memorial service. Our little choir sounded very nice - just six of us - but we did well for a 96 year old woman named Lois who loved music. Her family was very appreciative. Now this evening we're going to a concert by the Starry Mountain Singers singing arrangements by Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, which should be great! 

Tamar

Today (Wed) we went to Northhampton and picked up Tamar after school (Wed. Is a half-day). Tamar attends a charter school - Hilltown Cooperative School - a really neat school which used to occupy an old mill building, but last fall moved into new quarters in a more traditional school building. It's still a neat school.

          Entrance to Hilltown School

 Tamar's classroom which is fourth grade

Like a lot of schools, Hilltown has student art displayed in the hallway. Tamar had a self portrait, and a watercolor landscape she had done. Each child chose a photograph of a National Park scene and made a copy of it in watercolor. Nice!

                    Self-portrait 

        Tamar's watercolor landscape 

Then we went to lunch at a place we used to go near the old school. It was under new management but the food was still tasty. Then we went to get an ice cream treat at Herrell's, Northhampton's premier ice cream parlor. Next door is Left Click, a Mac computer store where Tamar likes to visit - they were very generous about letting us come in even though we weren't going to buy anything. 

Tamar enjoying the graphics on a desk-top Mac.

Then we took Tamar home because I had to get back to the Guilford Church for a meeting of the Pastoral Relations Committee at 5 p.m., which we managed to make on time. 

After that we came home, I puttered at various tasks while Ellen fixed supper, and we ate while we watched a Nature program about life in/on a sagebrush prairie which was both interesting and beautiful. 

Settling in

When you've been away for six weeks, it takes a while to get back in the groove of living at home. Tuesday was a day for getting back in the groove. I went to the Post Office and picked up our accumulated mail, went to the computer shop to solve a back-up problem I was having, went to the Coop to get some things we were out of, and then when I got home I sorted the mail and found unpaid, overdue bills - things like that. I also had a long list of "To Do" items- emails to send, people to call, appointments to make, etc. So I tackled all that. In the evening we watched the news and some interesting PBS shows. The next few days are going to be pretty full.

A beautiful day

Today was just a perfect Vermont day. It was sunny, cool, a little breezy, a perfect day to be outside or inside. As it turned out, I spent much of it outside. First of all, we slept pretty late, then I got up and fixed tea and toast for Ellen and I to enjoy in bed (Ellen usually does this but today I did). Then I put out a load of wash to dry in the sun that I had run last night. I put it on a rack on the deck. A perfect place to dry. While I was at it, I brought out the deck table and chairs from the shed and set them up on the deck. The official start  of summer. Just on time, too, because John came by, and he and I sat on the deck and talked for at least three hours or even more. Ellen made some snacks for us to munch, but she enjoyed this time reading in bed- her favorite recreation. We covered a lot of topics: his favorite place in the world, Grand Manan Island, what's happening with Betsey, his workplace, what he's currently reading - a good talk. While we were talking, a wild turkey flew over the deck, wings fully extended, a rare and amazing sight.

After John left, Ellen and I went to the P.O., and then took a nice walk. Then we ate supper while we watched the PBS Newshour. A nice day! A beautiful day ! 

Home

We did make it on time for the Samson concert. Barely. We had time to turn on the frig, open some windows, change   clothes, and get to the concert. It was an exciting oratorio, full of drama and passion, aided by excellent soloists. We're glad we went.

Curtain call at the Handel Oratorio, Samson, in the Latchis Theater, Brattleboro. 

After the concert we had to do some grocery shopping at the all-night supermarket, and by the time we got home and had put the groceries away, we were ready to fall into bed. But it was a short night - we had to get up to get to a Guilford church choir rehearsal at 8:50a.m. Which we did, and then after church we came home, had a bite of lunch on the deck, and went to a Hallowell sing for a 104-year-old woman at a local nursing home.  Then Ellen and I split - Ellen went to a Yellow Barn concert of Schoenberg and Weill in Putney, while I went to Hallowell sing at Thompson House, another nursing home, their annual memorial service for residents who have died during the previous year. Then Calvin Farwell brought me home and I spent some time working on the  Bach St. John Passion. Yes, I have rejoined the Blanche Moyse Chorale after an absence of over a year, and I went to a rehearsal of the Chorale this evening. It was wonderful to be singing Bach again! So this was a full singing day for me! It was good because I had not used my voice for singing during our trip and I was worried that I might be losing my ability to  sing. But it came back. 

Ellen loved her concert. One of the top ten in her lifetime, she said. Wow! Sorry I missed it! 

Tomorrow, we're going to take it easy! 

A long drive

We left Bartlett at about 10a.m., Friday morning, but of course, that quickly became an hour later when we went into Indiana and the Eastern Time Zone. So by the time we got to South Bend, IN, it was already close to 2 p.m. We had decided to take I-80 all the way to Scranton, PA, and then go up through Binghamton to Albany and home. Google said that was a 15-hour drive, We were trying to get home in time to attend a concert Saturday night of Handel's Samson, a concert we had started to rehearse before we left for Boulder on April 6th. So we needed to get more than half way on Friday to make a fairly easy trip home on Saturday and arrive by c. 5:00pm. When I know we'll be going late, I usually make a motel reservation, so I somewhat arbitrarily chose Clearfield, PA as our destination for Friday night. I reserved a room at a Rodeway Inn, and I estimated we might arrive about 9 p.m. or so. I read aloud from Alice Munroe's Dear Life (a collection of short stories), and we listened to more lectures on the History of the English Language which are fascinating (we are up to the 18th century, and the rise of the dictionary, e.g., Samuel Johnson, and the whole issue of English as prescriptive vs. descriptive. That is, when you write about English, do you dictate a right and a wrong way to speak and write  English, or do you just describe what is happening as it evolves? This is a question which inevitably relates to social class, education, elitism, etc., as well as regionalism.) So anyway, the miles flew by and we decided to stop at our favorite restaurant, the Aladdin, in Oberlin, OH, for a suppertime snack, and of course we had to go to our favorite used book store, the Ben Franklin, next door, and before we knew it, it was 7p.m. and we still had a long way to go.

               Aladdin 's Eatery in Oberlin, OH -  It has the best lentil soup ever ! 

        For some reason, this is a bookstore where just about 

            every book on display is one I would like to read! 

Back in the car, on I-80, I read some more Alice Munroe, and we listened to more lectures, but it was after 11p.m. before we got to Clearfield, PA! Now, after some sleep,  it's almost 8a.m., Saturday morning, and we should be able to get a good start and be in Brattleboro in time for the concert.We'll see!

More family photos

Jerry forwarded the pictures he took with his camera yesterday:

Gretchen wanted to raise a toast to Betsey and have a sign that said, "Here's to you, Betsey" So Ellen made the sign in her fine calligraphic hand

The completed sign

Raising a toast at lunch with Susie (who wasn't able to come later in the evening with the rest of the gang)

Hanging out with Susie

"Here's to you, Betsey"
l. to r., Jerry, Gretchen, Marc, Becky, Peter, Larry, Ellen, Daniel

Family time

Today we saw family in two sessions - Susie came for lunch and after lunch we went out to some garage sales in Bartlett. Then this evening, Peter,  Daniel, Becky and Becky's friend, Marc, came for pizza. We met Marc for the first time and liked him. Didn't have my phone handy for pix but Jerry took a couple. I did get one of Susie. 

 Susie McQuen. Dennis couldn't make it. 

Dennis lost his job but immediately got a new one doing the same thing. Similarly, Tristan's company folded but he immediately found a new job too!

We'll leave in the morning for the last leg of our trip home. 

What a quiet day!

This has been a really low-key day! Not a lot to report unless you love quotidian details - like, I had oatmeal for breakfast, talked with Carol Plagge on the phone, read about the Obama presidential library coming to Chicago (big news in the Chicago Tribune), read about the folly of Tax Increment Financing in the village of Bartlett (don 't ask me to explain it), I napped on the living-room couch, ate a bowl of soup and a turkey sandwich, Ellen and I went for a walk in the bright sunshine and brisk air, we got an ice cream and went to a used book store, we came home and met Rick, Jerry's boat buddy whom he had been helping today over at Lake Michigan- stuff like that. That kind of a day. 

From Crete to Bartlett

Crete, NE is home to Doane College. Doane is a college I have known of since 1949 or so, because I considered it when I was applying to colleges as a high school senior, and that's because it was a "Congregational college." My father was a Congregational minister, and the Congregationalists had founded some of the best colleges and universities in the country, e.g. Harvard and Yale. So why not limit one's search to that cluster of institutions? Doane was one of them, but in the end, I did not apply to Doane. I applied to Grinnell (IA) and Drury (MO), was accepted by both, and chose Drury - sight unseen -  mostly because it was half the cost of Grinnell - $750 a year, room, board and tuition, as opposed to $1500 a year at Grinnell.

But back to Doane. I was curious to see the campus of a school I had heard about for decades. It turned out to be a very impressive school which has a beautiful campus. Not what I was expecting in Crete, NE! The campus is large - 350 acres, rolling, wooded, with a large number of handsome buildings, many of them quite new. We took a short walking tour and I took some photos:

                      Entrance to Doane College

            The Bell Tower and administrative building .

The main academic building where faculty and students can mingle.

    The "Con" - originally used as a conservatory, dating back to the late 19th century. 

         Swans on a campus pond

       Boswell observatory, the oldest building on campus.

If you're looking for a college, check out Doane!

 

We left Crete at about 11a.m., and headed east on Rte 2 into Iowa, and worked our way up to I- 80. Along the way we passed some wind farms: 

We stopped in Sidney, because Ellen's friend Bonnie has a grandson named Sidney (these are for you, Bonnie):

Crossed the Mississippi at Savanna, IL: (another family name! ) 

            The bridge at Savanna 

                     The Mississippi at Savanna

While we're into family names - we went through this town yesterday:

    

    

I don't ever expect to go through a town called "Larrimore."

We got to Bartlett at about 8:45 pm. Great to see Maggie and Jerry.