On the Road Again

We hit the road last week for some concerts in Maryland. Friday night in Silver Spring was great - a big, enthusiastic audience. Saturday we had a bit of weather when we played in Grantsville. There was fog at 3:00 in the afternoon when we drove over the mountain from Frostburg, which is the big town in the area. Very few folks came over from Frostburg because of the fog and the threat of snow but we had a good concert and raised some money for the Friends of New Germany Lake.

As you can see, the threat of snow was not an idle one!

We had a house concert in Baltimore. This is the 8th or 9th time we have been hosted by our friend, Wendy.

The Long Road Home

We had planned on picking up the new CD on our way home. We left Baltimore 9:30am and boomed 'er up to Salem, NH. We got there about 5:15 and got the CDs. After stopping for dinner with our friend Clair, in Dover, we rolled up I-95 and got home before 11:00pm. During the drive home the old faithful Subaru rolled over 320,000 miles.

The new CD is available through our web site. It will be a few days before you can get it through CDbaby

Back to Work

The sheetrock is up in the studio and spackling is underway. With any luck we'll be painting sometime next week. The next step will be to do some sonic treatment to the space. I'm looking forward to working in an acoustically designed space. I found an internet forum hosted by some heavyweight Australian studio designers. There's a bit of a language barrier - and I'm still in Imperial measurement rather than metric - but there is a wealth of information.

We're still here - read on!


It's been a while since the last post. After the service meltdown a lot of friends opted out - who can blame them?

Signs of the Times

Here is a headline that caught my eye...


Make of it what you will.



Speaking of signs... this is what we have to contend with here in the midcoast- Gordon Bok worship!



Flower Report

The daylillies have peaked after three or four weeks of blooming. Julia has planted somewhere between 60 and 80 varieties of all colors (except blue) sizes, and habits. Every day is another flower parade.

House Report

There was FINALLY a break in the weather and I reshingled the roof on the old house. Its about 17 feet to the eaves and a 12/12 pitch, so it was pretty exciting. This kind of work isn't as much fun as it was a few years ago.

New Recording!
The new addition has been on hold for a few weeks while we finished up another thanksgiving CD. Going Home - Thanksgiving Music for Celtic Harp is already available for download at Amazon. We'll have physical CDs in about a week, if you want to wait and get them from us. These are all new recordings of some old favorite melodies. Some of the selections:Old Folks at Home, O'Rourke's Feast, Over the River and Through the Woods , Appalachian Holiday, and the title track. (Click on any title for a sample)

Damariscotta Pumpkin Festival
This weekend we were part of the Damariscotta Pumpkin Festival. We built a Harpsigourd using a few spare parts I had kicking around the house: a drum head, some harp strings and piano tuning pins, a few bits of wood and some sheetrock screws. We mounted it on a 300 pound pumpkin.









Julia played it on the street all day Saturday. We tried to take a video but we were defeated by our phone and camera. It only has 18 strings, so she couldn't do a lot of the tunes she usually plays. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to get something to post.


Tomorrow is the giant pumpkin regatta when they take the 700-900 pound pumpkins, convert them to boats and putt around in the river.

At some point they are planning to drop a 500 pound pumpkin onto a police car. I emailed Arlo about this: I thought he should know.

Whodunit - mysterious force creates multiple deliveries

First it was the octomom now it's the delivery service for the blog. I have has it set up with an RSS broadcast with a company that is either in Arkansas or India (it's hard to tell theses days)
The last blog notice was delivered about three dozen times over the course of three days until I disabled the URL. Not being totally savvy about how all this works I didn't do it sooner. It turns out that the script was sending out a notice whenever there was ANY change, including sytstem generated changes (like elapsed time, maybe). Anyway, I felt like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice - I couldn't shut it down.

So, no more automatic notices for awhile. I may dust off the old email list and try that.

House Report

The outside is done and work has started on the inside. Here are half of the stairs installed. We also have the electricity activated on the north wall, which is helpful. Running extension cords across the lawn can be hazardous in lawn-mowing season!





Harps R Us
The traditionally-inspired harp I built for Julia was not staying in tune so I swapped out the taper pins for piano pins. It not traditional, I know, but I already built the harp as a mirror image of the original so she can play it right-handed, so it's not like I am ruining the authenticity of the beast.

I have wood picked out for a new harp but haven't found time or space to start. Maybe in the autumn, when the building project (hopefully) winds down. I also have been studyin' on a design for a travel harp. It would be more two dimensional than usual.

Flowers of the Week
There is a field of extraordinary lupines near where we live. Now there are blue ones and white ones and even pink and yellow ones but this field has variations like we've seen nowhere else - blue with yellow spots, white with pink spots, I even saw one that was mauve*.








Julia found fresh moose tracks coming out of the little pond that is in the meadow. When we were there the frogs were tuning up for the nightly concert. They were pretty loud in the late afternoon, they must have been deafening when the sun went down.





*mauve (not a "guy word") = kind of a light yellowish/purple

Post & Beam Country

The east wall as it was May 30. Those pump jack posts are 24' tall. Those high jobs get to be less fun every year! I have about two square feet on the north wall to shingle. The game was called a couple of days ago for interference (hornets) and is now in a rain delay. If I can get a 30 minute break in the weather I'll have the outside complete.




In the meantime at the other end of the Upper Round Pond Road our friend Russ is putting up a frame. I'm in there somewhere, giving a hand.
The downstairs is for his canoe restoration business. Upstairs is for flyrods, chair caning, and hop drying. I'm not sure where the brewery will go, but he makes a nice IPA and a really good brown ale. Unfortunately I had to leave before he tapped the keg.

Flower Report


Inside the house the world's ugliest cactus bloomed the same time as the while amaryllis.


Here's another look at the cactus blossom.







Outside we have a few pink lady's slippers around the yard. Nothing like it was a couple of years ago when we had almost fifty! I think they go in cycles. There are still plenty of plants so maybe we'll get more blooms another year.



Back to the 18th Century

We played a reception on Saturday at a circa 1835 brick farmhouse. It was to celebrate the excavation of a 1735 tavern, so here we are in our 18th century duds.






Just for fun we did a video on our camera (the same one we use for photos) The tune is circa 1607.



Do you remember those tests we had in school before we could read? The ones where there we pictures of four objects - say a hammer, a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a nail - and you had to circle the one that doesn't belong? How do kids fare in these days when you can use a phone to take a picture, send a message or chart a course? We saw somebody using their cellphone as a flashlight last winter!

By the way it's official. Cell Phone Elbow has been recognized as a common malady.

The Road Less Traveled

We went up to the Alewife Festival today. They have done a lot of work on the fish ladder over the last year and some additional property owners have given permission for the path to run through their back yards. It is now possible to walk beside 70-80% of the ladder.

Julia got some great pictures of the fish. The light was just right. It is always amazing to watch these fish swim up the current.

As we were leaving we had to go through this junction. This is a tee junction: the detour signs point to the only two ways to go. Notice the "One Way" sign in the background. What does it all mean?

Avian Rescue

We have a wild cherry tree next to the new addition which is currently in full bloom. It attracts all sorts of insects and birds. Today a female ruby-throated hummingbird took a shortcut through the room: in the door and was then trapped by the windows. She buzzed the windows and the ridgepole for a couple of hours. I tried to entice her to the door with some lilac blooms, but she wouldn't come down. Finally she was tired out enough that I was able to catch her on the paladium windowsill. (It wasn't as high as the ridgepole, but I still needed a ladder)

I took her outside and in a couple of minutes she zoomed off, none the worse for the wear.

I did hear her vocalizing, so it isn't true that these birds hum because they can't sing. She had a wee bit chirp and when I captured her a long note.

More Progress!

First, the flowers

This is an incredible year for flowers. We had a riot of dafodills, now the tulips are coming on. I saw ladyslipper plants today. They shouls be in bloom in a couple of weeks. Last year we only had a couple of dozen blooming around the yard - the year before there were almost fifty!




The violets are everywhere. Our lawn has quite a few but there are some other places nearby where there are just carpets of flowers.








The ferns are jumping up, or maybe they're dancing. My sister tells me that the fiddleheads are ready.

(Note: fiddleheads are the spring shoots of the ostrich fern, which are considered a delicacy here in Maine. They are generally harvested when the blackflies are at their worst, thereby maintaining balance in nature.)

Construction Report




The front of the new addition is done, at least on the outside. Here is Julia finishing up under the windows.

Hand-crafted, that's what we like.







It was rainy for a few days, which slowed things down a bit. On the other hand we had a nice rainbow.







Yesterday the scaffolding moved around to the other side and today the soffits are done. I'll post some pictures of the other side next time.




Music Report

Julia has been working up some unusual arrangements of music for the Thanksgiving holiday. Our compilation Harvest Home was so well received we're doing a second recording. This one is new material.

Tentatively named Going Home, will feature Julia on the harp, front and center. Some of the pieces she's been working on include the theme from Dvorak's symphony number 9, Over the River, and Turkey in the Straw. We're nothing if not ecclectic.

I'll post some downloads on the Castlebay Newsletter when they are available.