Friday, July 20 Sent out the blog early, but things still happened after it was published. John went back outside working on removal of the cross pasture fence. My accomplishment for the day was sorting, cleaning, and tossing 10 boxes of paper to be recycled, plus a box of used batteries (such as AA). It was mostly piled on the floor in front of the curved glass china cabinet in the den, in boxes with open tops. I had to clean out the dust, and dog hair using the vacuum, then pack the boxes full, taping them, and writing on the outside with indelible ink: Recycle Paper (or Magazines). The last box I opened had materials from my Urban Geography class. I sorted through pullng out books and materials to give to geography colleagues still teaching at CWU. I have already shared all my PowerPoints & notes & books with several for all of my classes, not just Urban. Tons more stuff is still packed. We didn’t get around to eating dinner till right before 9:00 p.m. It was a good stir-fry with pork, cashews, red peppers, onions, all cut up and fried, with cut-up toasted bread the size of croutons on top.
I took a break while John was in the back of the house either working on the computer or contorting his fingers into guitar chord positions. I spent time washing and picking through drained raspberries and giving them a sprinkling of sugar. We had a generous serving over ice cream and hit the hay. We have a resident doe with twin fawns – still with white spots. They just went by along the back fence about 30 feet away.
Saturday, July 21 John started the morning by picking more raspberries that I need to clean up and “fix.” Meanwhile, we had lunch and I have been cleaning out more boxes. I found a framed certificate of my standing record bowling at Bowlerama in Moscow, ID (when they closed). My friend Suzanne got it for me and gave it to me after I was in WA. It’s a nice memory. The framed certificate reads:
Award of Merit
Nancy Hultquist
bowled a series of 679 in sanctioned competition
at Bowlerama during the 1979-80 season.
This series stands at the highest ever bowled
at Bowlerama from 1958 through the 1996 season.
May 15, 1996
Once I got to WA in 1988, I quit bowling after many years. I had started in 1957 before I had a social security card and thus could not work for pay, except by bowling and for trade for merchandise or services (free bowling, bowling balls, shirts, and related goods carried there). It was across the street from my house in Atlanta, GA, in the Broadview Plaza Shopping Center. There were 32 lanes.
Today our day was full. We got home late (after 7:00 pm.) from the fun filled party across the valley. We played a lot of music and had a great audience. We had 5 very small children dancing and keeping time to the music and one little guy was completely entranced. I had the microphone for leading the singing and we had 5 fiddlers, 2 mandolins, 2 guitars, and a bass fiddle. They fed us and it was good. BBQ chicken legs, the biggest I have seen. Normally I’m not a leg fan. Then, salads of all types. Then a table full of desserts. I had my share, for sure. Then we played another hour and finished with a group National Anthem. No music. When we got to “the bombs bursting in air” there was a fly-over by seven Air Force B-2 Spirits (aka stealth bombers):
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/b2/
Okay, just kidding there, but it was a good picnic just the same!
John drove the truck and loaded in comfy plastic lawn chairs and my music stuff, plus a chair for me to play music in (my mom’s old kitchen chair with double fold-out steps). Had a nice little stool, for putting our drinks on, and a cooler with my lemonade and his Pepsi mixed drink (with soda water).
Tomorrow is a lighter day. I unloaded two more boxes of stuff today, but these required more thought and decision-making. Have one for recycle, one for me to put elsewhere in a filing cabinet, and a box of books and materials to take to school for my friends. It’s going slowly, but it will get done. Tonight I fixed the raspberries John picked this morning. During the day, a bunch more ripened. After we eat these tonight, we will freeze the remainder because of another couple of pounds being picked tomorrow.
Sunday, July 22 Morning included picking another pound of raspberries we shared with friends. We were away from home a lot today. Had to run to town and to deliver the berries, and while there, hit 3 yard sales. Nothing at the last two, and at the first, I bought several packages of some wooden sticks (all for 50 cents) that hopefully we can use as chopsticks on the Cajun fiddlesticks songs we will be learning with cross-tuned fiddles. I think they were meant for skewers–wooden things to BBQ veggies & meat on. Don’t know if they are big enough. We’ll see. (They turned out to be very usable, and I shared with everyone in the class who had not brought chopsticks.) I will explain the cross-tuning below. Also got some free things; one a large circular Christmas glass platter that will use for a potluck dish such as cookies or a pineapple upside down cake. We went to the school in Kittitas where the music workshop will be to sign in and signed up for some mini-workshops, held after class, later in the day (4:00 to 5:00). The other thing was to buy a tee shirt for me for the week, and we both picked up our name tags.
I’ve been off working on both violins, mandolin, and tuning John’s guitar. I thought of taking a mandolin mini-workshop but decided my knowledge and chording ability was not sufficient to gain anything. There is an aging and arthritic fingers class (mini-workshop) John will be taking. I ended up sitting in on that one too.
I’m taking two violins for the regular classes.
Heard tonight that a woman who plays guitar with our group had a large spruce tree fall on her house in today’s high winds. It didn’t get above 52 mph at the airport, but the firemen told her there were several downed trees in EBRG and that the winds were 60 mph. She’s okay but her house is damaged.
Monday, July 23 Today begins the WA Old Time Fiddlers Association summer workshop in Kittitas, WA about 11 miles from our house. We are scheduled to be there for the organizational meeting, first thing in the morning at 9:00 a.m. in the Gym. Things got so busy I have forgotten to make notes on this blog. We both went to our respective classes, and John returned home after his was over at 11:30. I stayed till the end of mine at 3:30, plus then I went to a mini workshop at 4:00 to 5:00. John came back and picked me up. Then that evening I drove back to Kittitas to play in the city’s Gazebo
[Google Earth at: 46.98506, -120.41839 ]
Before zooming in to see the Gazebo, note the red-roofed building in the upper part of the image. This is the elementary school where the WOTFA meets. After zooming in to see the Gazebo – zoom out to see the green irrigated Kittitas Valley and the surrounding hills. Zoom out more and Mt. Rainier will show up to the west, 64 miles from Kittitas.
Anyway, back at the Gazebo, a dozen plus musicians from around the state play tunes for those community members (and ourselves) who showed up.
Tuesday, July 24 This morning started with getting ready to leave for the workshop. I had to take two extra fiddles today for use in class (to tune differently to play Cajun and an Appalachian tune we are learning in class). One was my old ¾ size fiddle I had from the 4th grade. The other was loaned to me from a friend in our music group who came out to play at our Gazebo performance. A young girl in my class borrowed my fiddle for the week. Took my own lunch and stayed till 3:30 when John came to retrieve me and take me to the hospital for a blood draw for my Thyroid test and my INR monthly test. We came home and John fixed an early dinner, and I drove back out for the Gazebo performance again. It was very special because a couple of friends from our trail riding club and a lovely lady and two of her family members came out to watch. The sweet lady was my roommate in 2010 when I was in the rehabilitation center learning how to walk again. She was such an inspiration to me. I sang a song just for her and dedicated it to her (You Are My Sunshine), and she was mine.
Wednesday, July 25 Wow, today was another very full day. We started by leaving home at 8:15 for Kittitas and the old time music workshop. I had my class from 9:00 to 3:30 and John took his from 9:00 to 11:30 and went home to take care of the animals. In my class today, we learned about playing with “fiddlesticks” to add rhythm to Cajun and Appalachian songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=PY2Z3EQzwGE
The fiddler has to hold one position so the partner keeping time on the neck of the instrument doesn’t have to chase. The tuning of the fiddle strings must be changed to something called cross-tuning. Normally they are tuned from low to high, G D A E, but cross-tuning is G D G B. The A string is tuned to a G an octave higher than the low G string, and the E is tuned down to a B. WHY? asks John. I will try to explain. We used an Open G Tuning. This allows a drone to happen on adjacent strings, and it is easier to play both strings at once. Say your melody is on the A string (G in this case), then you can bow the open adjacent string, usually D, and it will fit fine. If you want to learn about the term drone in music, look at Wikipedia, but shortly, here is an idea: a drone is a monophone effect (an accompaniment) in which a note (in this case an open string) is continuously sounded along with the tune on an adjacent string). That’s an explanation for a violin. Drones on a bagpipe are the 3 higher pipes over the piper’s left shoulder. On a five-string banjo the fifth string is a drone.
John returned at 3:30 and we both attended a great mini workshop on planning for shows in the community, and all the warnings about things to consider (is the instrument in tune?). We left there for town to meet my teacher and her daughter for a Chinese dinner. We had a great visit, and didn’t get home till almost 9:00 p.m. It was just before dark, so John could still see to feed the outside animals. I sat down for a 10 minute rest, but spent a lot of time instead on emails. Now I have to get up and put up raspberries that John picked this morning. Early morning picking is in the shade, it’s cool, and there are no bees or wasps.
Thursday, July 26 Supposed to be warm today (lower 90s) with no wind. It’s another long day with a performance tonight in the Gazebo, all day classes, and the mini-workshop for “aging fingers, etc.” at 4:00 to 5:00. John’s been trying hard and practicing each night but it is still a very hard “reach” for him to get his fingers on the chords. He is using small-chords, such as fretting the first string (on the 3rd fret) for the G note and then using just the 4 strings as D G B G — not doing the low (5th & 6th) strings; those on the left in this diagram:
http://www.play-acoustic-guitar.com/images/GMaj-Free-Guitar-Chord-Chart.png
Well, the workshop on aging was nothing like we expected. It was a little weird, actually. Mostly people were sitting in a circle sharing stories about things wrong with the body that affect music playing. John and I BOTH expected something entirely different–such as simpler ways to finger a chord if your hands were stiff and arthritic like (as the above explanation). Nothing like that. I don’t even think I will try to describe it entirely. I guess a few people there enjoyed it and shared some similar dietary and pain control items, but many of them were into the need for no caffeine, no sugar (yet they all ate fruit in some form, so John and I both wonder how they rationalize the natural sugars there). Also, we were advised to avoid red meat and even chicken, maybe allowed some fish. Nothing from the “nightshade” family that includes potatoes and tomatoes. Yikes!
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=62
We weren’t convinced. We got home about 5:30, did the usual chores, and fixed a late dinner of stir-fry “red” meat (beef), red peppers, sweet potatoes, and toast. It was wonderful. I went back in to the park Gazebo tonight and had a really nice time. Several of our friends were there, and we got to visit a little before and a little after. John stayed home to take care of the animals. Tomorrow is our last day of the workshop. We’ll have morning classes, and then the all week class recital will occur starting at 1:00 p.m. Those are always fun.
Friday, July 27 Well we both made it through the week. Hard to keep up with the 10-yr old hot shot in my class, but I made it and memorized our play tune medley for class. It was very well done, but I failed to start the video on my camera. I turned the camera on, but didn’t hit the button– duh. So I did not get our performance on video. Dang. I had a great place set up on the table out front with the sound controls that would have captured the whole group. I did get one in the classroom on our last practice session. So all is not lost, but I failed to get the recital and Roberta Pearce and her daughter Katrina Nicolayeff played the Cajun cross-tuned fiddle piece together, Fiddlesticks, with Katrina hammering on the strings with the “fiddlesticks” (chopsticks). I had hoped to put this out for folks to see, and because that is not possible, the one linked to above will have to do. That will come later when I get some of them out on You Tube and fix up a web page linking to them. All that takes time I do not have a lot of. We didn’t get home till 3:30; gone since 8:10. The dogs and Rascal (cat) got along fine without us. All of them go in and out of the house through the “doggie door.” That was good. John took them for a run soon as we got back, and I went through the mail. Our building permit (for a pole building) was delivered, but with restrictions (two) to the design criteria. I would have never thought to call and be sure that a copy had gone to the contractor, but John said I should call the County and ask. Sure enough. Ours was sent and there was a copy in the file, but the contractor was not sent a copy. Wouldn’t you think? We certainly cannot revise and resubmit the specs about the height of the building (above 16′) or the Truss plan change. Jeez. I got on the phone to the County and reached the contractor on his cell before 5:00 p.m. so I could tell him about the required changes. The county had sent him a copy of the letter although they said they had not. The reviewer apparently did not turn the pages over because what he wanted had been submitted (truss plans and specifications, properly stamped) – he just didn’t “see” them. And we were wanting an 18 foot clearance but must have an architect review and stamp plans for heights over 16 feet. That used to be 24 feet in the code. Nothing much would be gained to have the extra 2 feet but it would cost a fee and delay of about 3 weeks. No thanks. [Unloading hay from a Harobed with 18 feet is easier, but can be done at 16.]
Then we turned around and went back out to the evening performance. I had not signed up with anyone, because I didn’t expect I would have the energy to return, but right before 7:00, John asked if I felt as if I wanted to go. I had invited some friends and I thought, well, why not. We did, and it was interesting. I carried my violin, and I could have joined a group at the end for the last two songs, I’ll Fly Away, and Red Wing, if I had had a clue they were going to do that. By the time I realized it, they were well into the first song, which I thought was the last. It wasn’t — so next year I will know to put together a small group of friends for our own performance, and then play at the end with others. Live and learn. We got home late but before dark so John could feed the horses and the cats, but we hadn’t eaten dinner. He fixed a frozen pizza – after a week of running back and forth to places the fridge was depleted of fresh food. Nothing special is happening with us for a few days, but we have plenty to do around the house, yard, and garden.
It is Jazz in the Valley weekend, but I am not interested.
http://www.jazzinthevalley.com/
Several years ago my friends and I would perform in the Kittitas County Historical Museum, but they have gone to more commercial groups being brought in. It’s not our cup of tea, metaphorically. Other drinks will be abundant in EBRG these 3 days – a good reason to stay out of town. They are going to have nice weather – well, out-of-town visitors may sense some wind, but for EBRG folks, gusts under 30 mph go unnoticed.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan