life is full of twists and turns

I've been in a state of disbelief for the last 24 hours. Remember the girl down the road whom I ended up giving rides to school last winter? Her mom passed away last week. I don't know any more details. I didn't even know until last night, when Starflower wanted to spend the night with the girl at her grandparents' house, which is about a mile away from us. I was wondering why this girl was staying at her grandparents' house with her uncle. So I drove over there to check things out, and learned the sad news.

It's a double whammy. Her uncle was there because her grandparents were at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester; grandpa undergoing medical tests.

I don't know what's in the future for this girl and her sixteen year old sister. All I know is, I feel compelled to help out any way I can.

By the way, the mom was my age. Even had the same name: Deborah Ann.

finding delight

Boredom is not the same as having too much time on our hands. Its root goes much deeper...to what (can be described as) a failure to find the world and each other compelling or interesting. We find the world boring because we don't see very clearly why it is valuable and good or how and why we practically and beneficially belong to it. We are bored with ourselves because we don't think that what we do really matters much or is of life-giving interest to others. And so we become disengaged from each other, wandering about in a fog of diminished hopes and expectations. Not knowing what to do, and having become suspicious of what our society encourages us to do, we sit around, hoping to find some inspiration. What we have here are the ideal conditions for the entertainment industry to pump us up with artificial stimulation, excitement, and false hope...

If we remember that delight is made possible by our loving and deep affirmation and embrace of others..., then it is easier to see how our desire to possess or be entertained by others works against our joy in them...

-Norman Wirzba, Living The Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight

I realize my lack of posting lately may be due to being preoccupied with worldly matters and not taking the time to experience the delight that daily life has to offer. But without this sense of delight, we are the dead walking. Stay tuned for a renewed and refreshed sense of delight and wonder!!!!

we 'r Siamese, if you please

This may just be the cutest kitteh ever. Really.

I have always had a thing for Siamese cats. Even when I was not yet four years old, I guess I fell in love with a friend's Siamese and announced to my parents that I wanted a Siamese cat for my fourth birthday. Amazingly they obliged with Mittens, my first ever seal point Siamese. I was hooked.

We have a strange cat gene pool around here. There are a few outdoor cats that somehow showed up, and every year we get a few kittens. We have had a few blue eyed Siamese mixes over the years, including Puffball, a grey Siamese who died suddenly of a blood clot, and Boofy (a.k.a. Blue Flame), a flame point Siamese with the bluest eyes ever. He insists on sleeping with me every night.

But this year there was one litter, from a nondescript black and gray tabby, that included this very Siamese looking kitten. We brought it inside to protect it when it reached the exploring age. Our dog Togo would have had it for a plaything otherwise. We kept it in the rabbit cage for a while, to protect it from Sally and the adult indoor cats.

Originally, we were going to give this kitten to a friend of Starflower's. But as we cared for it, we somehow came to the decision we could not part with it. So Frisky, the Friskinator, whatever you want to call it, is our newest house kitty. Like we needed another one. But like I said, I have a thing for Siamese.

Welcome to the House of Color

I have spent my last 3 days priming and painting walls during one of Minnesota's rare hot and humid spells. I can't believe how much work it's been, and I can't believe I've done so much and how the house looks so different inside. But I'm done now, so I can sit back and enjoy the results.

This is the master bedroom, painted entirely in Budding Fern. Why so green? Because for six months of the year in Minnesota we don't see any green outside, so in January this will look really nice.
(The Taylor 512, sweetest sounding guitar ever, at least to me, is placed there just for effect.)

Here we have the monolith stair wall painted in Earthenware Orange. A daring color for someone like me, but I like it, and believe it or not it is a neutral color. I can't imagine any color that would not look good with that as a background. I plan to use a lot of blue accents in the great room for contrast. In the back hallway you can see a dark version of Peach Beach, which we used there and in the entry way. I could not get a good picture of the color in the light. In the kitchen you can see Lemon Balm, which again, I could not get a good picture of.

It was a long job, but I found I actually enjoy painting. Next job is the flooring, which will probably have to wait until next payday. Enough time for me to recover.

summer days

Days filled with work...which means cruising around on a boat in lakes sampling plants, but also seeing pelicans, hawks, eagles, ospreys, ducks, obscene shoreline landscaping, and everything in between.

Gardening...peas are peaking, everything else is looking great thanks to the abundant rain in June.

House- projects are moving ahead. Drywall is up and mudded, and if everything is on schedule I should be spending my Fourth of July long weekend painting. Not just primer white mind you, but colors like Earthenware Orange, Lemon Balm, and Daybreak Fern for the master bedroom. We are living in color now.

But if I get a break from painting, I hope to be launching our family pontoon boat in a nearby lake, where we were able to get a dock slip at the golf course. We still have plenty of summer left to enjoy it. Although cruising around a lake in a boat sounds a lot like work to me...I'll be watching the aquatic vegetation closely.

Tomorrow is the first of July, and I somehow lament that fact. I love the month of June, and I wish it would never end. June in Minnesota is paradise, if you can handle a few mosquitoes. And sunrises at 5:30. And sunsets at 9:00. And intense greenness everywhere, punctuated with wildflowers. The other day I saw fireweed starting to bloom. No way, it's a July flower!

Wherever you are, enjoy the moment. It is, after all, everything.

This really ties the room together

My life is turned upside down for a few days, but we are finally getting drywall in the great room, master bedroom, and back hallway! When it is finished, this house will look pretty much finished inside. They just hung it yesterday and today, mudding and taping will probably start Tuesday.

It looks like a totally different house. Now I can envision what each individual space will look like, and I think I will make a run to Menard's this weekend to browse paint colors and maybe even price out kitchen cabinets.

Perhaps the most striking effect of the drywall is seen in the back hallway leading to the bathroom, utility room, and back door on the north side of the house. This space used to be so dark and undefined, now it is a space in itself that leads somewhere. We hope to add a deck outside this door yet this year so we don't have to bring firewood in the front door all the time.

It has been a long journey. To be honest, I would probably not do it again. Once in a lifetime is enough for a project like this.

a new approach, wildlife, and such

This is a look down our new, much improved driveway. Before, it was a mess of ruts and holes left over from the mud season, basically the month of April. Now the crushed rock and gravel should stand up to rain and spring thaws without us having to go mud bogging. And it's a lot nicer to walk down without having to dodge mosquito breeding puddles.

There are big things happening around here, finally. The driveway, and this week we're getting the drywall done in much of the house. That will involve much upheaval, like not being able to cook in my kitchen on my electric range for a few days, but when I think about the road we took to get here, a few days shouldn't matter much.

I am finally running again on a regular basis, as of this weekend. For the last month or so I had been suffering from a severe case of not wanting to run, maybe related to the too many thoughts running through my brain and the lack of capacity to process it all. But it's an interesting feedback loop: When I get it into my mind that I don't want to, or don't have time to run, I get into this strange apathetic state that makes excuses for not running. Which is sad, because I feel 100 percent better, physically and mentally, when I run. I need to run, period. I am also looking for the fringe benefit of weight loss, which, I have found, only happens when I run regularly.

So I went for my 4 mile run this morning, along my usual, beautiful route. It's so peaceful, I hardly ever see a car, and when I do it's usually nice people who wave. The only dogs I encounter are friendly dogs, from my kids' best friends' house. And I hear tons of birds; last week I came up with more than twenty species heard in three miles.

I was taking it easy this morning, having pushed myself yesterday with sprinting intervals, which was a form of self-torture. I just ran slow and steady. When I was approaching the point where I had decided I would turn around, I looked up and saw a doe and two fawns in the road ahead. I watched them for a while, but I did not want to scare them so I decided to turn around and begin the course back home.

I had only gone back maybe 2/10 of a mile when I saw something in the road ahead of me. A large black animal. BEAR! I stopped dead in my tracks. I was thinking, okay, usually black bears are pretty harmless, but I didn't want to take my chances. It was about 5oo feet away, maybe more, ambling across the road, taking its time. I watched it as it looked around, sniffing. I wonder if it sensed my presence. If it did, it didn't seem to care. Finally I watched it walk down a side road.

I approached that road cautiously. Then I remembered some advice from somewhere that said, when in bear country, talk loudly. Clap. Sing. So I sang whatever came into my head, told the bear that I did not mean any harm, and punctuated it with hand clapping. It must have worked, or else the bear didn't really care one way or the other, because when I reached the side road there was no sign of the bear. I started running again, then a couple hundred yards later I came across the still wet footprints where the bear had come out of the ditch onto the road.

I am most surprised about how not scared I was. I reacted with a sense of "Oh wow! A bear!" more than anything. I guess that comes with living out here; you develop an appropriate sense of caution. I don't think it will be necessary to carry a can of Mace on any future runs; after all, I have been running the same route so long, and this was the first bear encounter. I still worry more about humans, but on my running route I don't even have to worry about them too much.

the summer look

I switched back to this header photo I used last year, because I think it captures a Minnesota summer better than any other photo I have ever taken.

Speaking of summer, it's coming by leaps and bounds here. The next three weeks or so will be the peak of daylight at 46 degrees north latitude, which means the last streaks of light disappear about five hours before they reappear in the eastern sky. I love June. I only wish I didn't feel so squeezed for time in my daily life.

now, this is LIVING

I just returned home from a wonderful weekend away from home. The Hermit, kids and I packed up our new 1968 camping trailer and the Suburban (yeah I know, gas guzzler but it is really the ultimate family truckster) and headed about a hundred miles southwest to a beautiful campground on the shores of a central Minnesota lake. This campground was the site of the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association's annual Homegrown Kickoff Festival. (Kickoff meaning, the beginning of summer and the music festival season around here) This festival features all local acts representing the best in bluegrass and old time music in the region.

I was in a band that performed at this same festival, different location, eleven years ago. It seems almost unreal to say this. To think I was actually in a bluegrass band, singing lead vocals on a couple of songs that I taught to the band. But then we moved to another state, the couple that formed the heart of the band broke up, and that was that.

Enough about the past. I'm writing to tell about how I had an absolutely wonderful time in the almost 48 hours we were at the festival. It was not nearly long enough. We arrived Friday afternoon, after much packing and all the worry that accompanies a family camping trip, when you have not done anything like it in years. But we got the trailer in place, set up camp, cooked dinner, and gradually relaxed. I started having a musical itch, and walked around for a while after dark looking for a music jam I could fit in with. But being inexperienced and rather shy at this kind of thing, I returned to our family campsite with unfulfilled musical urges. It had been way too long since I had done this festival thing, walking up to a bunch of strangers playing music and jumping in.

It turns out I was just walking around the wrong part of the campground, and the best music was within earshot of our camp site. The next morning, as I was returning from the bath/shower house located near our site, I ran into an old friend of mine, Dick Kimmel, a very accomplished bluegrass musician who happened to be camped out less than a hundred yards away from us. His RV was parked next to Lloyd LaPlant's RV; Lloyd built my mandolin, and he is about as nice of a person as there is. I walked over there with my mandolin that morning, into a music jam already in full swing. I was welcomed, and I overcame whatever nerves I had and joined in.

It was the best thing ever, musically, for me. At the start I had a hard time even moving my fingers to find the right chords, but about an hour later I was amazing myself that I could actually play solos! All I needed was to get together with other people.

The kids had a blast. There were several families camped nearby with kids, and they played wiffleball and soccer together. It rained Saturday into the mid afternoon, so Calvin discovered the fun of playing X box video games on the 19" flat screen TV in the camper. (The Hermit is fully responsible for this, not me!!!) And the kids made numerous trips to the beach.

Saturday evening, after 24 hours of being there, I was overcome with a feeling of absolute happiness. All the nervousness about making this trip had disappeared, I had reconnected with some old friends and played music, just as I had hoped I would, the family was having a good time, the camper trailer was working out okay, and I was reclining in my new super lounge chair with a cold beer. I was even seeing some good birds: catbirds, phoebes and pileated woodpeckers around the camp site, and the pair of loons on the lake had two babies.

Sunday before we left, I played music again with my friend and a few other good musicians. As I was leaving the jam, Lloyd came up to me and said "You're sounding great on that mandolin!" Coming from him, that is a compliment I will cherish. And I believe it. I sounded better than ever, and it was just the effect of playing with other people. I am more ready and willing now to seek out every opportunity to play music. Aside from my family, music is what I live for.

But this isn't all about me. This is about my family, finally going out and doing fun things and living life in the moment! It's about letting go and living. And we had not done nearly enough of that for the last few years. Now I know we will.

Nettle/dandelion beer tasting

The beer has been in bottles for a few days, so today was the time to taste the finished product. I imagine, as with all beers, it will only get better with a little aging in the bottles, but I don't have the patience of a wine maker, or a Scotch maker. As long as there is a little yeast sediment in the bottle, it's ready in my opinion.

I poured a well-chilled bottle into one of our best beer steins. Two things came to note right away: one, the beer is not clear. I'm not too particular about that, but some people are. Second, there is no head. The beer was carbonated enough, but it didn't have the proteins from malted barley that produce a head of foam. I have had home brews that are hard to pour because of all the foam, so I don't necessarily consider the head to be everything.

The first thing that comes to mind when tasting a home brew for the first time is: Is it drinkable? Drinkable meaning it is anything better than Budweiser. And yes, it was very drinkable, although if your taste buds are expecting a watered down malted beverage, this would be a shock.

The flavor is very complex. I don't know if my taste buds are sophisticated enough to know what the nettles or dandelion greens contribute, but there is a green depth there I cannot describe. Also a definite tartness from the lemons and lemon zest; I might cut back on those if I make this again. And the ginger shows up in a good way. So imagine drinking a spiked lemony ginger ale with green earthy undertones.

Alcohol content? I didn't go the scientific route and take a hygrometer reading before and after. So I can only guess. It is there, but not overpowering. It was like an average beer.

All in all, it goes down more like a champagne than a beer. It was very fizzy, which means I added enough sugar before bottling. It is very light bodied. It is a beer to be enjoyed in the shade after a hot day's work tilling garden beds (which I did). It was very refreshing, with probably less aftertaste than a Diet Coke. I would definitely make it again. I have plenty of nettles and dandelions around.

bike ride

I bought my bicycle in 1989, the year I graduated from college. I had had a succession of bikes before that, of course, but this was my first Serious Bike that cost around two hundred dollars. It's a Raleigh 12 speed with upright handlebars and semi-rugged tires.

That bike stayed locked to the porch outside my small apartment in a historical Classical house in Brookings, South Dakota where I attended graduate school. Except when I rode the bike daily to campus, a mere six blocks away, or took it on more adventurous outings, up to twenty miles and more.

Then there was the time in 1992 when a recently married couple drove nonstop from Minnesota to Telluride, Colorado for the Bluegrass Festival, and upon arriving in town, sleep deprived, 8500' altitude, hopped on the bikes and pedaled through town to festival headquarters. Major lightheaded rush!

Then I had kids. And it all kind of stopped there, with short interludes, much like my music playing. I am happy to have hopped back on the bike today, after getting it tuned up at a local shop. I rode a bit less than five miles, and found out bike riding is not much like running. I'll know more when I ascertain which muscles are sore tomorrow.

broad winged hawk?

Sometimes a bad picture is better than no picture at all.

I saw this raptor two days ago when I was out on a lake about 20 miles north of St. Paul, MN, doing a vegetation survey. The trash barrel the bird is perched on is about 100 feet from the water's edge at a campground/marina. At first I thought it was one of those owl decoys people sometimes put on their docks to keep the gulls away, but a look through the binoculars confirmed it was a real live bird! I snapped this photo with the office camera, which only has about 4x optical zoom. Even so, the photo turned out good enough with some zooming and cropping.

I didn't have a field guide with me, and my first thought was Cooper's hawk. But after looking at the photo, and comparing it with Sibley's, I knew it had to be something different. The facial markings did not match those of a Cooper's, and although the size was within range this bird seemed chunkier, not very accipiter-like. For size perspective, those seams on the side of the barrel are probably 15 or 16 inches apart.

I didn't even think of looking at the broad winged hawk in the field guide; I had only seen them in flight. But when I saw the illustration in Sibley's I thought, "That's IT!"

What do you think?

By the way, the weather was just as sunny and gorgeous as it looks in the photo. It's 80 degrees today. I just put the snow shovel away last weekend. That's Minnesota in May!

radical simplicity

Life has been interesting this last week or so. I was going through a crisis period where I found myself wishing I had me a sugar daddy, that money would just fall out of the sky, and then BAM. We got what we needed, and I realized my longing for money, which I had initially dismissed as inherently evil, causing even greater tension within myself, was just a normal human thing, nothing to worry about.

I mean, I was chastising myself for wanting things like a house that looks somewhat finished! Hot and cold running water indoors! Money to pay off the last propane tank fill so we could get the next one! And maybe, just maybe, new running shoes. I'm a materialistic, greedy wench! ;)

It doesn't help that my spouse and I have entirely different attitudes towards money, and the handling of it. By most standards we should have been doomed a long time ago. But somehow through our differences we still see the value that lies within our family, and it is precious. But it ain't easy.

In the midst of it all I started reading Elaine St. James' book, Simplify Your Life. It came in a box of books I received from a local Facebook/Blogger friend (not the same one who brought the yeast; social media has been very good to me locally!) After the first few hints, I was almost laughing hysterically, while I realized "How could I simplify my life any further? If simplicity means getting rid of high heels and frequent restaurant dinners, I'm already way beyond there!"

I realize there are people out there living an overbooked, overly materialistic life. And the book was written in 1994, long before the bubble burst. But still...The Hermit and I were discussing the other day about bathroom plans, and we both decided why bother with an indoor toilet if we can get by (as we have, for seven years now) without one? Why defecate indoors? Why waste water flushing waste to a septic system? (we still will run washing and kitchen water to a graywater system)

I know, it sounds radical. But would it have sounded radical less than a hundred years ago, when outhouses were the norm and $20,000 mound septic systems were not required by law? Who decided we should not be able to make that choice? (Our township is one of the few where you can still make the choice in some circumstances)

Life as we know it is bound to get "simpler" whether we like it or not. For many of us, it's a paycheck away from involuntary simplicity. I don't have much time for magazines that preach simplicity but devote pages to expensive interior design and gadgets designed to help us "simplify" things. Real simplicity comes from living without, and making hard choices.

Nettle/dandelion beer

WHAT?!

She's crazy, I tell ya,

Beer from NETTLES? And I've heard of dandelion wine, but BEER? From the GREENS?

I did it. Today, because I was fascinated with the idea that in other times, other cultures, people (especially women) brewed beer from ingredients other than malted barley and hops, I brewed a beer from stinging nettles. And dandelions.


Of course, dandelions are in no short supply. And on my 40 acres, I have a couple reliable sources of stinging nettles, one of them being a flower bed right outside the house. Why nettles choose to grow there I do not know.

I did add a few non-locally harvested ingredients, among them lemons and ginger root. I also added some lime basil, because I had it, and because I thought it would add a good flavor.

Nettles, dandelion leaves, dandelion root, ginger root, and lemon zest were boiled for about half an hour, or until the leaves barely retained any leaf structure. Meanwhile, two pounds of brown sugar (that's one whole bag), and cream of tartar and the juice from the lemons (4 of them) were mixed together. When the whole mess was done boiling, I strained the liquid into the pot with the sugar and stuff, and let the sugar dissolve before pouring it into the fermenter (the 5 gallon glass carboy in the top picture). After a couple of hours, when it had cooled to slightly warm to the touch, I added the yeast.

The yeast is a story of its own. You can buy bread yeast in any store, and it might work for brewing beer, but if you want the kind of yeast that works best for brewing beer, you generally have to buy it from home brew supply stores. Being short of cash and not wanting to drive 100 miles to a brew store last week, I made an appeal over Facebook to see if anyone in my area was keeping any yeast cultures and could spare some. To my great surprise, a local Facebook friend and musician, whom I had only just recently met in real life in a chance encounter in line at the grocery store, contacted another friend of his, who had a packet of yeast to spare. Say what you will about social media, but I have gotten to know a few people locally through Facebook whom otherwise I would not have met.

A few hours later, carbon dioxide is happily bubbling through the air lock, a sign that fermentation is well on its way. We'll see how this experiment tastes in a few days. I don't expect it to be like any beer I've tasted before, and that is part of the fun of this whole project! I like that I didn't spend about 30 bucks on a pre-assembled beer kit. This is far more adventurous.

Wildlife at Target Field

Thursday night's Twins game against Baltimore wasn't the most exciting game to watch on TV. A light rain was falling, and Joe Mauer was out of the lineup with a bruised heel. The Twins just couldn't seem to come through with hits when there were guys on base.

But there was one unlikely star of the show that night: a kestrel. Right in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. This bird decided the right field foul pole was a great place to hang out. After all, there were lights, and where there are lights, there are moths. And that means EASY DINNER!

The announcers and camera operators caught on to this spectacle in the middle of the game, and soon close ups of the kestrel were shown on the scoreboard and broadcast on TV. When the bird caught a large moth and started eating it (shown above), the crowd went wild.

Of course, birds and baseball are two of my favorite things, and I was thrilled to see the attention being given to an avian guest at a ball game. Actually, I am intrigued by the phenomenon. Maybe it's part of the novelty of outdoor baseball for a team that has played over 25 years indoors, under a dome on a sterile Astro Turf field. Baseball was meant to be played outside. People were meant to be outside. And if a small falcon can cause so much excitement, there is hope for humanity.

national day of...

warning...semi rant ahead...

First of all, I will make myself clear. If you spent today in prayer, alone or in the community of others, I respect that. And in the U.S. and a lot of other nations, we are fortunate to live where the act of prayer is allowed, even encouraged, and not driven underground.

That said, I do not feel it is the business of our government to go about promoting prayer. As much as I feel it is not the business of our government to promote meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, reading "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books, dancing naked around a bonfire, or any other practice that suggests spirituality.

I am not a praying person. I always felt strange petitioning some father figure Up There, who already was supposed to know my needs and have some Divine Plan for me, with my own needs and wants of the day. I learned at an early age that we do not always get what we pray for. So why pray? But if it brings you peace, that is good.

I would rather see a "National Day of Reconciliation". "National Day of Talking To Your Neighbors". "National Day Where Hate Is Forbidden". "National Day of Tearing Down Walls". Prayer is easy. Action, not so much.

You may say I'm a dreamer... but am I the only one?

surreal...

Mr. Attitude called me outside to see this extraordinary scene this evening.

spring metamorphosis

The big burst of spring color is happening. I love this time of year perhaps even more than fall, because these colors represent new growth and rebirth. In the spirit of personal growth and rebirth, I convinced myself to go for a run this morning, and I even made it over four miles. I had not been running for a while; for some reason I was not excited about it this spring and the excuses were flying everywhere. So instead of fighting it I gave myself a break, with the promise that I would return to running...when I was good and ready.

It was one of those dramatic skies. Morning had dawned clear and blue and sunny, but the clouds started rolling in about the time I decided to go running. If I had waited ten minutes, I may have decided the wind was too much...which is of course another excuse. As it turned out, I had a great run despite the wind, and I even put up with holding the camera in one hand the entire way so I could take pictures of the ever changing skies and the spring color. These tamaracks are definitely a bit wind-tossed.

Marsh marigolds are blooming in profusion, a week or so earlier than normal. These were just up the road from my house, in an area where there are flowing springs in the ditches. I was wondering if that was watercress next to the marsh marigolds.

I have been feeling the spring metamorphosis in another aspect of life--my music. In the past month or so I have played my instruments more than in perhaps the last six months total. Sure I have talked a lot about my musical efforts on this blog, but until now something was missing, that personal commitment to make music a part of life rather than just a hobby I participated in once in a while. I always had reasons/excuses why I wasn't making it happen. But for whatever reason, that has changed. Yesterday I took the day off work and played guitar, banjo, and mandolin from about 9 AM-3 PM or longer. I worked through some fundamentals on guitar, learned some new chords and scale patterns, and learned another Greg Brown song (Billy From the Hills). I don't know where I'm going with this, but for now I don't care. I'm finally breaking down the personal barriers to doing what I love, and I think good things will happen with it.

springtime in the woods

This lovely island woods on a lake in east central Minnesota was where I spent my lunch break today. Alone. I like it that way.

The spring beauties and anemones were in bloom. Too bad the work camera wasn't focusing the best, but you get the idea.

And I found just what I had hoped to see. Trilliums were just coming out. I don't have any of these white trilliums in my woods, so it is nice when I can find one to photograph up close.

Adventures in overdubbing

Before you read any further, if you have a high speed connection, please open a new browser window, go to my new MySpace page, and listen to the uploaded song while you read the rest of this post.

Today was one of those wonderful musical days when one thing leads to another, and before I knew it I was in the midst of my biggest recording projects ever. It started innocently enough, with some intense arpeggio practice on mandolin. Then I happened to turn to the page in my music notebook that had the lyrics to a Bob Dylan song I really like, "Tomorrow Is A Long Time". I put down the mandolin, picked up the guitar, learned the chord pattern, and decided to do an impromptu recording of myself singing and playing the song on guitar, just a rough draft so I could work out a mandolin accompaniment later. My arrangement is based on Nickel Creek's recording of the song, and I did my best to sound somewhat like Sara Watkins. :)

The rough draft came complete with Sally's toenails on wood floor, and even a rawhide bone drop in the last chorus. But the guitar playing was pretty even, and I liked what I heard in the vocals. That's a rare thing; usually I have a hard time appreciating my own voice. So I kept the track. Then, in the early afternoon, I moved out to my new recording studio:

The Hermit traded for this camper trailer that's nearly as old as I am, and in almost better shape. Since Mr. Attitude was watching TV in the house and Calvin was video gaming in the cabin, this was the only choice for a quiet place (the flickers and sapsuckers were making way too much joyful spring noise outside). And quiet it was; with the door and windows closed it blocked out most outside noise.

I set up inside with my flute and mandolin, a glass of iced tea, and my Tascam GT-R1 portable recorder, on top of the cabinet in the middle. I spent a lot of time practicing flute with the base track, recorded one take, then found out I had set the input level so high the flute was overpowering everything else. So I adjusted levels, did a couple practice takes of about ten seconds each to make sure the levels were right, then I recorded the flute track. Right after I turned the recorder off, Mr. Attitude appeared and wanted to be my sound man. :)

The mandolin track took a lot longer, due to the need for iced tea refills, and interruptions from Calvin and Starflower. Not to mention my own developing sense of perfectionism; even if this was purely for my own recreation, I wanted this song to sound somewhat professional. So I practiced the mando with the dubbed guitar/vocal/flute track until I had an idea where I was going with it. I noticed the battery on the recorder was getting down a bit, so I hoped I could get something good recorded in one take. The first take sounded good enough for me.

I can now appreciate the process of audio recording. While this is a rough demo by any standards, I have learned what it takes to put a song together. My inner perfectionist would still be out in the camper, going for the perfect mix, and I know this song will evolve a bit as I work with it. But it's a big step for me, putting it up on MySpace for the world to see!