It's Been Awhile

The studio, alas, is still not finished. All the rebuilding of the upstairs, overlaid onto the holiday season, set us back on the schedule. It didn't take a lot of time to cut and trim this little tree. The angel is less than 2" tall. I was looking for some silver string to use as a garland when I found a sub-miniature christmas light necklace - with flashing bulbs! The whole opreation, from harvesting the tree to trimming it out, happened in about 45 minutes on Christmas morning. We could never have gotten away with this when the kids were home!


Harvest Home
Then there was the apple butter story. We got a few bushels of apples, intending to make cider, but the schedule never worked out. During one of the earlier cold snaps, when we had the wood stove going, Julia made apple butter until she ran out of jars. The slow cooking is the secret.

However we did get enough of the great room done to have a ceilidh in the north half last Saturday. All told there were about 50 who came to our annual 12th Night Bonfire & Music Party. It ran from darkish until midnight or thereabouts.

Holly Morrison has written a great review on her blog.

I Get Stoned
Back in late November I went to the Restore in Bath for a bucket of ceiling paint and came back with a Majestic fireplace. This is a hazard of going into that store with a positive balance in the bank account. We used our own granite for the hearth base (Harper's Wood is built on the remains of an 18th century quarry).

I was looking on line at various fireplace surrounds to get some ideas when I saw a fireplace done out with polished stone. We were originally planning to use our own rough granite, but seeing how the light reflected on the polished stone, and realizing that a flat surface would be easier to put things on, i.e. coffe cups, potted plants, objects d'art, I cogitated on where and how to get some polished stone.

Have you ever wondered what the countertop people do with their sink cutouts and trimmings? Mostly they throw them away. I tracked down a company that had a dumpster full of stone that hadn't been dumped in their back 40 yet so we went on a cruise to Veazie and got as much as we dared. $10 per piece or $100 for a pickup load. If you have good springs this is an outstanding deal!

We got some black/white/gray granite and some yellow stone that looks like it belongs in a Manhattan men's room. This is piled up in the yard; what I used for the fireplace was black granite and African river bottom conglomerate. The African stone was about 10' long and 16" wide, waiting to be taken outside and dumped. We broke it to fit in the truck. The big piece was long enough for the hearth top and we used the rest for the top center of the surround.

I had originally planned on covering the rough edges of the surround with the mantle trim, but the longer I look at that edge, the better I like it. I looks sort of like a mountain range. I'm thinking of ways to retain that edge when I do the mantle.

Coming Attractions
We're gearing up for the annual Renfeast at the local high school. This is a combination concert and meal done by the choirs. We have been doing this for several years now. Early on there were only a couple of dozen kids involved. Last year there were over 80! Over the years they have accumulated a whole rack of resplendent costumes. The boys have figured out that if they sing with a choir they not only get to wear tights and capes, but get to hang out with girls in bodices.

The end of the month we hit the road for our winter tour. I'll do some posts from the road.

DETOUR!

First Snow
It had to happen sometime.






Construction Report
Well, I got the studio sheetrocked and a new subfloor down, added some insulation and was ready to move ahead when we looked at the temporary ceiling that was in the rest of the upstairs and decided to replace that. So all the projects, material, books, furniture, odd instruments is piled in the studio and guest room. The guest room bed has one of the most eclectic collections ever. There is a lute, biwa, cello and sitar resting peacefully, awaiting assignment to a more permanent location. In the meantime we had some music in the living room with our frien Claire. In this photo are are two cellos, a faux cello, a violin, several flutes, two harps, a didge and a bunch of recorders. And people ask why we are adding on!

We decided that it made a lot of sense to have the sheetrock delivered to the second floor. That meant ripping out a window, but it was clouded anyway, so out it came, along with some framing, and the sheetrock slid in slick as can be. One of the rules of working with a stack of sheetrock is that it is always in the wrong place. The right place changes as the project matures. So the stack has been moved 4 times (so far) It keeps getting smaller as we apply the stuff to ceilings and walls.

These attic stairs were an engineering miracle. Everything held up everything else but it was all in midair. It was a shame to tear them out, but our needs have changed since I built them twenty years ago.




This is only part of the debris. There was a huge pile outside as well.




Putting sheetrock on the overhead has never been easy - until now. I was considering renting a sheetrock lift and was doing some investigation on line when I found a video by a guy who goes by the moniker of NotNormAbrams. Inspired, I purchased four casters, recycled some leftover bits from the Harpsigourd and, voila! a sheetrock lift. It looks a bit like I imagine a dark ages rack might look. I only had five sheets to put up, but it was worth the three hours and $16 that I spent putting it together. I purchased 12x4 sheets and the rooms are about 10 feet wide so the sheets had to be cut to length, loaded on the lift and turned 90°, but all went well.

Here is Caleb lending a hand. He is back after a year raft guiding and diving in Australia, Thailand, Norway, and India.

With any luck we'll be painted out before Thanksgiving and I can get back to the studio project.




School Days

We had a songwriting residency at the Harmony School in central Maine last week. Julia had laryngitis, caught the week before in Bangor schools. I have the Harmony cold now. One of the risks of working with kids; they are regular germ factories. Sickness aside, this was the best songwriting residency we have ever had. Here is the song that the 6/7 grade class wrote*

Civil War Song - to the tune of Johnny Comes Marching Home
I am a Kentucky Mountain boy, my age is just thirteen
I enlisted with the rebels, a drummer boy to be.
I left behind my ma and pa to work the mine and farm.
Now men are marching to my beat and I'm sounding the alarm.

It was September 17, in 1862
At the town of Sharpsburg our brave boys met the blue
The cannons roared the bullets flew as we charged through the mud,
Scenes of horror, screams of pain, the sickening smell of blood

When the gunsmoke finally cleared the carnage came in view
Broken bodies of friend and foe, the crows and vultures flew.
I closed my eyes and limped away, tears of sorrow flowed.
My muffled drum beat all alone as I marched down the road.

I am a Kentucky mountain man, my age is forty-nine
Still the echoes of the war haunt my troubled mind.
When I visit my parents grave as the eagle soars above.
The sun sets on the ballefield and rises with the dove.

*Note: we guide the class in the process. The ideas and words are theirs. This was a small school and the sixth and seventh grade totaled less than twenty students.

Today we did a couple of sessions for the Midcoast Senior College called the Roots of Maine Folk Music. We got right back to the beginning with "New England Annoyances"(1640) and cruised on through to the "Fall of Cutler"(2007) , touching on Seba Smith, the Pigwacket Ballads, lumbermen's songs, and the usual complement of nautical fare. 'Twas a good time.

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?