Did You Guess Diane?

I would suspect that you had prior information if you guessed Diane because she hasn't been part of my regular circuit until recently although we knew each other as children. We have so many interests in common that we became instant adult friends.

We packed the day just about as full as possible. It began with a puppy fix for me. The white puppy is Nola and the black lab is Tula.

Their owner is a man I also haven't seen since childhood. His name is Gary. He is younger than I am, but I was quite good friends with his older sister. We are no longer children as you can probably tell. (I think the last time I saw him, I was taller than he was.) He treated us to coffee and homemade lemon cookies. Yum!

Next up was a little hike. Diane has been able to up her mileage quite a lot since last summer. She gave me local choices and we walked to a place I've featured on the blog quite often, but I think the last time I did this particular hike was around 1970.

We walked up the Taughannock gorge. It's hard to get a sense of the perspective, but those rock walls are about 500 feet high.

This trail takes you to the base of Taughannock Falls. This is 215-foot free fall drop, considered the highest free drop east of the Rockies.

The walk in to the falls and back was 1.9 miles.

All the pictures I've shown on the blog before today were taken from an overlook that is along one of the edges of the bluff. I took another of those today, but I won't post it. The one I will share is that if you walk a short way along a different trail from that upper overlook you can get much closer to the falls. I think this shot gives you a better sense of the power of the water. It was really noisy from this vantage point. All the sound of the falling water and ice was rising right up the rock walls!

Then we went up to the museum. Diane is Village Historian. I gave them the quilt made by Frances Leary.

And she wanted to show me this. It's an accordion that was donated. I've never seen one like it at all, so I wasn't very helpful. But it was fun. A few of the buttons still play notes.

The day was not done, but I didn't take more pictures except the selfie. We listened to a web seminar about trails, we got chicken wings for dinner from the local Sportsman's Club (honey mustard), and then we looked at some more of my family's genealogy. She has discovered a few more things that I didn't know. She's amazing!

There is no clue for tomorrow, because it's so obvious it needs no clue except maybe this- who is my best friend in the universe? I'll head out first thing in the morning.

Miles walked in 2026: 51

Taughannock Falls SP, New York, gorge trail and part of north rim trail, 2.3 miles.

See Did You Guess Elaine?

Snow Mushrooms and Other Events of the Week

Today was nuts, but I got a whole list of uninteresting things done. I walked the property tax payment down to the town hall and found these snow mushrooms on the shoulder of the road.

They look huge, right? Nah- about 8" tall. This is the best one, and you can see other items for perspective.

I finished the jigsaw puzzle I'd been working on. It was an easy one; Churchyard Christmas by Charles Wysocki. 1000 pieces. (And started a new one that Om bought me last fall- it's 2000 pieces and pretty hard.)

His puzzles are always fun because they have so much going on with people and little details. There was a one-man band who had an accordion.

And speaking of accordions, there was even one in my game this week. Neither of these is a piano accordions (the kind I play).

Last Sunday had a beautiful sunrise. And the really deep cold is over for a while. I'm not sorry about that.

It took just about forever to get the things done that I had to accomplish today. I started the next page of Moose In Boots, but will have to finish it tomorrow.

Miles walked in 2026: 36.5
Road walk to township hall and back 3.0 miles.

See Accordion posts

Brave #3 - Skaters' Waltz

  Lest you all upbraid me if I suggest that it's possibly not ever my day to play accordion well, I will only say that today was not my day to play accordion well.

However, I didn't want to let all the practice of the last few weeks go by the wayside. So what you get is a digitally smashed up version with the various sections played tolerably. Not perfectly. It absolutely blows my mind that I played this piece in public and nailed it several years ago.

This is the Skaters' Waltz by Waldteufel, written in 1882. Listening to me play it, I'm beginning to think it's boring. But I think that's just fatigue from playing and playing and editing and editing. I usually love this piece.

Anyway, here you go.



In other news: This was my day to relax. No cooking. No extra family. No walking. I did a tiny bit of editing and played my game.

See Sleep, Holy Babe

Being Brave #2- Sleep Holy Babe

  Lots of you encouraged me to record another song, so here you go. This is Sleep Holy Babe. It was written around 1850 by Edward Caswell. Sometimes you can find nice accordion arrangements of songs. Sometimes not. I did this arrangement.

Not 100%, but probably as good as it's going to get for this season. I was less nervous, but it's still a hard piece, and I don't manage to make it look easy. That would be nice. Maybe next year. Think I'll live long enough to be good? Not likely, because I don't practice enough. I practice enough to be mediocre, which is better than awful! (This is all said in a cheerful spirit with a wink and a smile- no lectures, please.)



Tonight's disclaimers: I wish I could get music to stick in my head so I could play these by heart. Then I wouldn't have to keep looking down at the music. (But I'm trying to keep the music low so you can see the keyboard and buttons.) Then I wouldn't have to wear the glasses which reflect annoyingly. I like the Christmas tree in the background, but I think it must be the lights on the tree that make the camera keep losing focus. I wish I could remember to smile. Instead, I just get my mouth half open, and I only look like an old lady about to start drooling! I wish I could play better. I know, I know... keep practicing.

In other news: I did errands, did editing, and took a long road walk.

See White Christmas

Being Brave, #1- White Christmas

  Well, here's that secret project I've been mentioning from time to time. I'm practicing accordion every day. Bell choir is officially cancelled until at least after Christmas, and I need music. I. NEED. MUSIC. Some of you have wanted to hear me play. You may regret that choice. However, this is a very simple arrangement of White Christmas. Even so, it took me seven tries to get a clean playing. That does not bode well for the more difficult pieces I'm practicing. So, here you go, for those of you who are up to it.



I'll try to get the background better next time. I didn't want to obliterate the Christmas tree, so instead I managed to display the messy corner. Bah Humbug!

And, in other disclaimers, the accordion has an issue. There is an air leak in the bellows that is making it difficult to play. That's not getting better. I've found someone who can fix it, but that will involve a trip to Chicago. Probably not until after Christmas. An accordion is like a big extension of all your personal hesitancies and emotions- you can hear every little uncertainty and jerk (at least I can). Maybe you'll help me become less self-conscious about it all. I tried to smile. Bell choir has been really good for me in this regard. OK, I'll shut up now.

The rest of my day was Project Tetris. I wrote a chapter and did my quota of editing. But then the rest of it was a big puzzle. I needed to take a shower and cut and wash my hair. But I didn't want to do that until I had clean pajama bottoms to put on. But the clean ones needed to be mended. And the back pad (that protects the bellows) on the accordion needed to be mended, and my bathrobe needed to be mended. I couldn't do the laundry until after I took my shower because I wanted to put the dirty pajamas in the laundry. And I couldn't try to do this recording until my hair was cut and washed, and I didn't want to do the recording without the mended backpad in place. But it all came together... and here you go.

See The Sound of Music (with no sound)

Another Puzzle, Another Bad Accordion Joke

 
I finished another jigsaw puzzle yesterday. This one is called "The Music Room," and it has about 100 different instruments on it. There were several I had not heard of. It was surprisingly difficult, but not frustratingly so.



I learned the long squarish one is called a Tromba marina. Yes, that means marine trumpet, but it was a one-stringed instrument played with a bow. The base is a tall hollow bell and it gives off a sound much like a trumpet that was used to speak from ship to ship. The string was only lightly touched to produce harmonics. It was used from the 15th to 18th Centuries. I'm going to just tell you about this one because is it SO interesting.


Here is a video of a modern recreation of one.



And here is a real piece of music played on one. The instrument shown in this video has two strings which was apparently a sometime variation. I like it!



And the bad accordion joke? The accordion is upside down! What the heck? I know most people don't like them, but the artist couldn't even picture it right side up?



In other news: I did errands (some will have to wait because it was Memorial Day), shopped for groceries, and worked on beta reading a book for an author friend. Tomorrow, I do the final little bit on the roof. (Had to buy one more bundle of shingles, and I treated us to a new wheelbarrow that isn't coming apart.)

See The Sound of Music

Intro to the 2020 Philadelphia Flower Show

 
Today was Flower Show day. This year's show was great. Well, they are all great, but after you go often enough even the best flower show in the world has some years that are better than others. I liked a couple of the displays a lot. This year's theme was Riviera Holiday. The entrance was a Mediterranean street scene.



There was live accordion music!




And a street performer. She juggled, and danced.



The displays range from the vast...



...to the miniature,


with all of the neat stuff I usually share in between. I'll be in Philly a few more days, so I'll probably blog about that until I'm back home, and then come back to the Flower Show. Don't worry, I took my usual approximately 800 pictures, so you'll get a good sampling.

Although the international flower show last year had some spectacular displays, it took up a ton of floor space. I liked that there was more room for quite a few smaller exhibits on the show's actual theme.

And there were quite a few plants I didn't know, so that always makes me happy.

See 2019 Flower Show intro

Friday Night Live

 
I did something tonight that I would never do of my own free will (because it's all about crowds and noise), except that I had a purpose. Needed to scope out the Friday Night Live event in Ludington as a possible future venue of the book event that we had last weekend.

The entire downtown of Ludington is closed to traffic and there is family-friendly stuff all over. Here's some of what I captured. The Flipstar Gymnastics Club was doing a demonstration. I caught one girl in mid-flip.



I'm adding one more picture because I want to show you that all the girls, big to small, lined up and each did what they could in a run whether it was the standard two flip-flops and a roundoff or back flip, or just a roundoff or maybe one flop-flop. Most of the girls who ended with the roundoff were then spotted by the coach to add on a back flip.



The West Michigan Old Engine Club had a whole line up of antique tractors.



And an antique fire engine which kids could climb on.



I got there just after 6 pm, when it had barely opened, and it runs till dark. There was already a sign that said all the pony ride tickets for the entire evening were already sold out!



There are portable stages with live music at the deadends of each closed off street. This band was at the end of the main drag. They were playing zydeco. Of course, when I heard the accordion I was just pulled down to see the player. His keyboarding was very good, but that's what he is, a keyboarder, not an accordionist. He never played any of the left hand buttons, and that thumb on the frame of the keyboard is a no-no. Nevertheless, very enjoyable because he was good and also a good singer.



In other news: I worked half the day out at Shagway. Made a little progress on my computer restoration. Realized another batch of files I've lost. Found out some more things to try to get my phone reading its card again. Sometimes technology is the pits.

	See Lakeshore Arts Festival
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Accordion Throwback

 
I've been meaning to get these scanned for a Throwback Thursday. Just for laughs!

First is the accordion band I played in in 1963. The local teacher, Elma Thompson (standing far left), had a large number of students. She was an excellent performer as well as a good teacher. This must have been the first year after I got my 120 bass accordion. More about that in a while.

I've left the large version of the picture so you can click and maybe see it better. Can you find me? I'll tell you where I am at the end.



Here's the program for the event. Front and back. I don't expect you to read it too carefully, but I want to put it in with the picture just for the record. I'll tag a few people on Facebook that will appreciate this. My solo piece was "In the Alps," and the band played six songs.






Now, for the program that had to be of the last recital I had on the 16 bass accordion. I started lessons when I was four, and this recital was on my 7th birthday. At that point, I was ready for a 120 bass instrument, but even though I was tall and strong for my age, I still wasn't big enough to really handle the large accordion, so I took piano for the next seven years, until my grandmother gave me the accordion I still have. (The instrument was always her choice. I'm not sure I would have picked it, left to my own devises, but at this point, I'm better on it than I am on any other that I play.)

You can see examples of the small accordions, held by the younger children in the middle of the front row above.



With all this music training, you'd think I would be really good. I'm not. But I sure enjoy it anyway.

I see I played a piece called Horse Sense. Wonder if I still have the music for that. As far as I know there is no picture anywhere of me with the small accordion.

Did you find me? I'm on the far right, second row down.

	See The Sound of Music
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The Sound of Music

 
Don't even suggest that we should have made a video for you. This all comes under the heading of "make a joyful noise unto the Lord," rather than something of performance quality.



But, gosh! We had a good time. We sang and played until throats, fingertips, and arms were all done.



Chuck and Sylvia actually claim to enjoy listening to me fracture songs on the accordion. As difficult as this is to believe, they haven't thrown me out the door yet.

Meanwhile, Sylvia's secret pal gave her hyacinths. What a lovely whiff of springtime whenever we walked past the planter!



Now, I'm home again, and will head back to work in the morning, but much refreshed. Aren't friends great?

	See Time For Friends
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