Thoughts

It's been too long and I haven't built this discipline of writing something every day.

Katie Henderson learns a fiddle tune a day and posts a video of it to a blog (http://newtuneaday.blogspot.com/) and YouTube. Awesome fiddler and talent!

Raking leaves to the curb for the city to pick put me to thinking about how we've managed to pollute our atmosphere so much that folks have breathing disorders and other maladies related to that. Now, because of that a part of fall, the smell of burning leaves, is banned in some communities. Also, with the noise made by leaf blowers, those that are too loud cause some communities to create a ban on them, too. Leaf blower manufacturers are responding to that by building blowers that stay under a certain decibel level. That's a good thing.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A week ago Saturday night The Hangfire Stringband played a barndance for Homewood E-Free's Church's Fall Festival. This takes place annually at the Urick Farm in Illinois. It's a great evening with very enthusiastic dancers dancing barndances in the Urick's barn that was built back in the 1800s. The clip shows about two or three minutes of the dancers dancing a Virginia Reel. It's such a long set - this reel lasted about 20 minutes - that it spilled outside the barn! What a kick! Thanks to Kathy Rexroat for videotaping this.

The Hangfire Stringband consists of Pat Walke on 5-string banjo, Mike Mumm on autoharp, jew's harp, and dance calls, and I'm fiddling. We played Forky (Forked) Deer for this reel. Couldn't find my way to another tune.

Saturday, Sept 24, 2011

Arrived home from Delaware early Friday afternoon. Had the Audio book, Life, by Keith Richards. Quite a work! Renewed an interest in The Rolling Stones. A definite worthwhile read/listen that provides an incredible insight into the world of Rock 'n' Roll through this citizen of the world's life.

Tuesday Sept. 20, 2011

Visited an Atlantic Ocean beach today. Watching the surf crashing on the shore is addictive.

September 18th, 2011

Cloudy weather out here in Delaware today. Recorded about four tunes in Garageband for Josh. Got to start doing more of that at home. Make myself learn the software. Being able to record with a metronome and listen back to the recording really makes practicing more exciting, challenging and humbling.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

In Frederica, DE visitng Josh and Brandye. Weather is cloudy and drizzly. Fall came to Delaware on Thursday afternoon. Prior to that the temps were in the 80s. Now in the 70s. Very pleasant temperatures but the drizzle not conducive to sightseeing. Not so bad though as it does afford one the ability to sit and do nothing but enjoy each other's company, draw, paint, play music, read, etc. Pretty relaxed time.

Yesterday afternoon went to UDel and spent the afternoon in the printmaking lab where Josh had monitor duties to provide student's assistance as needed. Made a series of four prints based (from memory) on the photo to the side of Wild Cat Creek. Plans are for it to be a mixed media in nature when completed. Quite a lot of fun as I've never explored screenprinting. (Image shown above is the raw print.)

Kath drew a feather using graphite. It appears to be a hawk or turkey feather. She placed a nice drop shadow to it. (Image shown above.) She does very nice work. Hopefully, she'll do much more.

What if...

...nobody voted in an election?

Is there a default back to the incumbent office holder?