This is WOTFA week in Kittitas, WA. That’s Washington Old Time Fiddlers’ Association. The summer camp brings several hundred fiddles, guitars, mandolins, and a few double basses. The town has a total population of less than 1,500. Many participants bring a couple of instruments and make a lot of music. It’s quite a show in a small town. John says the difference between a violin and a fiddle is that the first has ‘strings’ and the latter has ‘strangs’. I guess you have to hear that with a southern-mountain twang.
Sunday, July 21
Early morning, low sun, shade: — John plans to unload hay and maybe pick raspberries before it gets hot. He woke me because I wanted a photo of him with the ‘new’ truck with the horse trailer full of hay. His camera has a delay-timer but he got me up anyway claiming I could compose the shots better and then go back to sleep. Here’s my picture but do click for the larger image.
and the husky movers
So with only 6 hours of sleep, that’s my plan — an afternoon nap. Meanwhile, I need to get clothes to wear and things ready for the week in Kittitas. Early evening we are going to deliver our keyboard to Katrina (the daughter of my teacher all week) for her to use in her classroom. My teacher is Roberta (Bobbie) Pearce from Nampa, ID, and her daughter is Katrina Nicolayeff, a grand champion, teaching the Hot Shots class. (This group’s Friday performance was stupendous!)
And, while we are in Kittitas, I’ll take care of picking up my registration papers, notification to put on my dashboard, and buy a commerative tee shirt for the week. Also, must drive back through EBRG to get some meat for sandwiches this week to save the $6-7/day for lunch, and to deliver music to one of our group to give out Thursday, when I’m not there. John just picked 2 pounds of raspberries. At the price they are selling them for 6 ounces, he just got us $18.00 worth. Hmmm–that sounds high. Think I will go have a handful of cherries with a piece of Rosemary Olive bread toast. Strange lunch. Maybe I will nap (I did for almost 2 hours), and follow with a salad.
Back from going to deliver the keyboard, the music in EBRG and we got some food from the grocery. Totally forgot the roast beef on sale, but we had some ham in the freezer, and I used it all week. Now dinner is over, and I’m dead tired, ready to retire. Tomorrow I have to be out the driveway at about the time I normally start thinking about getting up.
Monday, July 22
Did come early. I wasn’t ready to arise at 7:00 a.m., but I did. Was finally ready to leave at 8:20, with my ham sandwich, chips, cherries, and crystal light. Boy was I happy to have it. The price for a sandwich went up from $5 to $6, and the all you can eat salad bar is $7. I heard the offerings on the salad bar weren’t as extensive as last year’s. Today was the first day of classes; beginning with an overall meeting in the gym at the elementary school, at 9:00 a.m. That lasted long and we didn’t really get started until 9:40 or so. I’m assisting with a class I have been a member of for 21 years. While helping I will learn the 18 songs she teaches us. Broke for lunch at 11:30, until 1:00 p.m. Then class went until 3:30. I didn’t stay for any mini-workshops, because I needed to come home and rest and go back in for playing for the Kittitas community, at the Gazebo near the library & community center there. I planned to leave at 6:30 to be there by 7:00 to start.
Just after 6:00, I received a call from a lady in the WOTFA for very many years (she’s from Ellensburg), and someone had called her to ask her to bring a microphone setup and amplifier for the players to use. She could not find her microphone, and called me to see if I had one to bring out. She knows I go out to play every year. Luckily, I do have one. So, I found it and took it out. We will use it two more nights this week. Good turnout, and the weather, while hot, wasn’t unbearable. [John says: We first drove through Kittitas in 1988 when looking for a house after Nancy came to CWU. The town looked like the fictional town in the Clint Eastwood movie ‘High Plains Drifter’ called Lago before it was painted red. Kittitas has improved in the past quarter century.]
Tuesday, July 23
Gee — did nothing happen today? I never wrote anything in my notes for the blog. Played at the Gazebo tonight, and went to class during the day. Oh, I just remembered an interesting event. There is a new violin repair shop in town from the west side, run by a fellow who is a bass fiddle player & graduate of performance at CWU Music School. He only is in town on Tuesdays, by appointment, in a little place on Main Street in the B.F. Reed Building located between the old ReCycle Bicycle Shop and the Daily Record Print Shop, down from The Palace. I learned of him from a friend who teaches violin in town. My bow is in serious need of rehairing, and I called him before the beginning of the workshop, knowing I could not get such fast turnaround, but to tell him about my needs and the workshop, where he might consider coming in a future year. He came by and I introduced him to the people involved in the WA Old Time Fiddlers organization, so he could plan to be a part next year, and bring his family for the whole week. While here, today, he took my oldest bow over to one of his Luthiers (In this case the person also would be a ‘bow maker’ or in French, an archetier),but the frog had been severely glued which would require repair worth more than the bow. (I just found out that Sunday morning from Bryce Van Parys, who is the general manager for Hammond Ashley Violins, based in Issaquah.) So, next Tuesday I will take my bow I have been using mostly for the past few years, into him for rehairing. I’ll just use the old one as a backup.
Wednesday, July 24
The two people I normally play at the food bank with today will have to go it alone, and another friend with a guitar will join them. My schedule this week is much more intense than I am used to, but I’m managing to go from 9 to 3:30 with the lunch break, and am skipping the afternoon mini-workshops at 4:00 to come back and raise my feet to relax. Then I have turned around and gone back (10 miles) for evening gigs (Monday & Tuesday night, we played in the Gazebo in the park for the community, and will again on Thursday). I am off tonight, and not going to the dance to play either. Friday at 1:00 is our recital. There are 372 people in classes this year (including mandolin, guitar, fiddle, and banjo). Pretty cool. All the classes get a couple of songs to play with the total not exceeding 5 minutes, and the teacher plays one too. It is always the highlight of the week.
Thursday, July 25
The Fiddlers and Friends group I play with will have to go it alone today, too, because I’m in Kittitas all day, and the evening too. Normally we play at a different nursing home at 2:00 every Thursday of the year. They had a relatively good turnout, considering conflicts. I received a report from two members. My day was crazy, as usual. Off at 8:20 for Kittitas, and found a place to park on the road, away from other cars, and not too far to walk, as the day before, when I was a long block away. Day went all right, just very tiring. I drove back the 10 miles to the Gazebo to entertain the community with others from the workshop. Considering only two of us (the bass player and me), ever play together, it was a true jam session and went amazingly well. I came home to a lasagna dinner with homemade brownies for dessert. John takes good care of me.
Friday, July 26
Phew, I made it to the end of the week. The workshop is held at the Elementary School in Kittitas, WA (a very small burg east of Ellensburg 6 miles), with a bunch of musicians (banjo, mandolin, bass fiddle, guitar, and fiddle coming with their families from all over the state and some adjacent ones. This is my 21st or 22nd year. Yes, I am totally exhausted, so I came home to my recliner. From 1:00 to 3:30 today, was our full classes’ recital for the week (with most of the 372 students playing from 20 classes, as follows, playing, organized from beginning to advanced players:
11 fiddle classes (from very beginning, 4 years of age) to Advanced Hot Shots. Actually, ages of participants went to people in their 80s.
4 guitar classes
3 mandolin classes
2 banjo classes
John and I both laid down for a nap at 4:30 and were fast asleep an hour later when a neighbor called. I picked up the phone and said, “Good Morning! This is Nancy.” Laughter ensued on the other end with repeating the greeting time, “morning ?”. I did not have a clue it was still Friday evening/afternoon. Onward, John took the dogs late for their evening run, after it cooled off some, ending about 8:00 p.m. Dan disappeared during the trip. We worried all night, kept going out and calling, leaving the front gate open for him.
Saturday, Jul 27
Still no Dan, when we awoke. About 11:00 a.m., we got a call from our neighbor (Ben) that Dan was at his house (his property backs up to ours on the southeast side), that Dan had spent the night there. Finally, they checked his collar, and happily, he had one on with our name, address, and phone number. Not all our dogs do. John was in the process of making a large sign to post at the end of our driveway. He copied images of a quail and a Brittany from the web and was in the process of making them very large prints – he had the quail and one/quarter of the dog done when the phone rang. He took off and met the neighbor who came toward our pasture, with Dan, two of his dogs and two of his children. John asked him if one of his 5 or six dogs was in heat, and he had earlier, but she was out, and he thought she had brought his black lab into heat. Dan was still interested in her. Therefore, we cannot let him run free for another week or more. John is always with the dogs when he exercises them in the morning and the evening, so it’s not like they run free unattended but their normal path is separated from Ben’s place by only 75 feet of woods. We’ve seen Brittanys point birds from three times that distance. Still our local air mostly flows from our place toward theirs – not 100% of the time, apparently. So, I am finishing this blog up for John to add to and post late this afternoon. Meanwhile, he’s been cutting a few tree limbs encroaching on the driveway and watering squash and strawberries. I took this photo on the way back from the early morning trek mentioned for Sunday. [Click on the image.]
Hope your week was sunny too.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan