I play with the Oceanside Jammers every Thursday, and whenever they have a performance, which will happen this evening.
Here are three clips of the Jammers in rehearsal. I’d be playing with them, but I’m behind the camera. This first one is called “Saltspring”, named after the island where my son and his kids live. I’m not fond of the melody, but I have to admit that the Jammers give it a lot of life.
This next one is just the tail and of “One Hundred Pipers”. I like this choon, but I wasn’t fast enough to get the tune that leads into it, “Cock of the North”, and could only catch the tail end of this one.
And here are two of my favourites. “Senneca Square Dance” followed by “Chattanooga”.
The little girl in the center of the group is named Kipling. She’s the daughter of friends and I take her to our fiddle sessions now, since she plays as well or better than most of the adults.
This is embarrassing. My last past was December 26 of 2013. My how time flies when you are having fun, and ignoring your blog. I hereby resolve to do better.
So much to report. First of all, here’s a little video that I’m very proud of making. It’s charming, heart warming, surprising, and is being very well received. If you love animals and people who treat them well, this is something you’ll enjoy:
My attempt to find an Internet distribution outlet for “Passion”, the Volksmovie we made before I went to China, has been disappointing. I bought a subscription to Vimeo and the film is currently on line, but it’s only generated about thirty dollars in rentals over the course of a year, so I probably won’t pay for another year. I’m sure another approach will be more fruitful, as soon as we find it.
I’m now also deeply involved in the creation of a web series called QUILTBAGS. We’ve got nine episodes up now, and are putting up two every month. The more it develops, the more interesting it gets and I highly recommend you check it out.
While on the subject of chickens, my friend Ingo gave me a pile of plywood trims from his renovation project. They turned into two new chicken coops, some assembly required.
The brass trim pieces came from the local Habitat for Humanity Restore, on sale for twenty five cents each. I didn’t much like the looks of the new coops until the trim was added. Now I’m proud of them.
It’s been a couple of creative years since my last post. Much of that creativity has centred around the house and landscaping the yard. The pond is now a fixture, with it’s magical electric river, foot bridge and tiny waterfall.
This is what the back of the house looked like in 2013.
And this is what it looks like now.
You can see the workshop, stage, and garden shed, all additions to the yard buildings once we got the ground raised a bit.
We tore down the old chimney, and Ruth used the bricks to make a nice little nook for the relocated small pond which sat beside the house.
But the big news is that we have just about completed the excavation of our full basement. We have two of the four walls in place.
Because we had to have someplace to put the dirt, we built a retaining wall and a driveway.
This is all just a tiny sample of the activity around what I am now calling Frog Manor. The koi which were only a three inches long when I bought them are now at least a foot long. Grass has come back to our yard.
A more complete pictorial history of our renovation work and activities can be found on Ruth’s Flickr site.
That’s all I’ve got time for right now. And there’s so much I’ve left out. Like my piano. I got one, and I’m slowly getting my Scott Joplin pieces back. And the Oceanside Jammers fiddle group has become a big part of my week.
I’m going to try to post more regularly from now on.
