Concert at St. Joseph's 2023

Tonight was the big concert at the St. Joseph's Church in Hart with the West Shore Choir and our handbell choir. The church is always packed, so I took a picture of the choir practicing ahead of time. Usually, the choir is up in the loft at the back of the church. It was really crowded with all of us in the front, but it was nice because I really like to be able to see the singers. It was also easier for the people who are in both choirs!

What with Covid, and then me being gone the last two years, it's been since 2019 since I was there for a concert.

Om took a few pictures of the bell choir playing, but with the full church there are a lot of heads in the way. At least in this snippet you can actually see that I'm playing a bell!

They always have this large nativity set up.

I helped load all the bells and equipment up, unload it, and then load it up again. It's a lot of work to make these concerts happen. Not very many of the people can actually lift the bell cases, and I can, so I like to be able to do what I can. At least we didn't have to go unload the stuff yet tonight. The people whose cars are filled with drop the bells off sometime tomorrow.

They are making a DVD of tonight's concert. And it was a really good one, so I'm hoping the recording turns out good.

Other than that, mostly I concentrated on editing today. I'm trying to finish a project.

See 2019 St Joseph's Concert

To Reclaim a Trail?

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about the property next door. I still haven't asked the new owner if I can walk there (he had a deer blind up for gun season), but I got his phone number, so I'm going to ask. Meanwhile, I'm skirting the edge of it along the railroad tracks or the shoulder of the road to get to the cemetery.

Yes, I'm contemplating cleaning up "my" loop enough that it's not horrible walking. When I did it almost every day it was in pretty good shape. It currently starts (or ends) by going through my other big flower garden that hasn't looked like anything except an autumn olive grove for years. But it too could be redeemed. (I think the last time it looked nice was in 2003. You can see that garden here). But I did clean up the walkway enough to use it as part of the path. Of course it's covered wtih leaves right now.

When you get over to the back part of the cemetery, my trail used to go down this gully to get to the creek. Well, that could be a lot of work to clean up. So far, I've limited myself to loppers and the weed whacker to clear the trail. But I can probably work my way around the big trees and move the medium-sized ones. There was one big one that was totally across that gully, but it seems to be gone.

Once you get across the creek where it goes into a culvert under the railroad tracks, then my trail went north along what here is the left side of the creek. I walked that today, and it was kind of a mess, but not too bad. That is all city property, and I can walk there all I want. (I went the other direction today because I am currently going along the road to get to the city property. But that's SO noisy, I'd like to be able to stop doing that.) There's a fair amount of water in the creek.

This loop is currently only about a mile, but if I can get it "restored," it was more like 1.5 or a little longer, with at least some rolling topography. I really like being able to just walk out the door and get a little exercise. The snow is mostly gone so I just walked in boots.

I couldn't sleep last night, but I did work out some more pieces of the plot for the mystery book. I did editing, pantry and kitchen work, and wrote. Current word count in Vacation from DMS is 21,136. Due to lack of rest last night I'll probably be going to bed early. Tomorrow evening is the main bell choir Christmas concert. Blogging will be late.

See My Trail Out Back

A Christmas-y Walk with Cathy

Cathy and I decided on Thursday that we'd walk this afternoon. But then we had a bit of a communication snafu, so we didn't actually get together until later than might have been best. That wouldn't be any big deal in the summer, but it matters when it gets dark so early.

We ended up just walking around town which was fine. That also avoided walking in the very wet new snow and mud which would be the case on natural surfaces. We caught a few Christmas decorations, and this one caught us.

I liked the baby polar bear catching a ride on a parent.

We got a kick out of this mini snowman.

And it always makes me smile to find randomly decorated branches or trees. This was in a park- someone just hung out a large ornament.

We walked about 4 miles. I really needed the exercise.

In other news: I edited, I worked an hour on the pantry, I did my accounts from yesterday, I wrote about 500 words. Last night I was really tired and achy. Tonight is better.

See Let the Christmas Dogs Begin

Two-fer

It's December 2. Two years ago, I was doing day 2 of my 2nd hike of the North Country Trail. I'm not going to keep dragging in memories, but it's a little hard to get my head around the idea that I embarked on that whole adventure two years ago.



On that day, Monica hiked with me. Today Monica hiked without me! Although that is accurate, it's not that simple. Today was the monthly hike of the Spirit of the Woods, which Monica led. But I had a vendor event all day, so I could not go.

I got into the Sleighbell Festival Show in Manistee (which you have to be accepted for), and I did quite well. Now I'm home and chilling. All good, but a long day.

I'm really back into "normal" life these days. But that's OK, too. I'm trying to recover my author credibility and participate in enough shows to keep some income flowing.

Two years ago, I was starting something I had no idea if I could actually finish. As it turned out, I was able to do that!

See Momentus but Familiar

How Old Can We Go?

One of the things I did yesterday was to go exploring in the Lakeview Cemetery in Ludington. I'm looking for something I'll use in Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp, but I was also curious about the oldest grave. How does one define that? Should it be the earliest burial date or the earliest birth date? I decided I wanted to know if there was anyone buried there who was born in the 1700s. It's possible, since the area's first white settler came in 1846.

I found several who were born in the 1820s. Here's one from 1819. G. Ewald.

J.L. Blading was born in 1820.

This one is very interesting because it's really a monument shaped like a book on a pedestal of a tree stump with ivy growing around it.

One real problem is that the oldest stones are often very hard to read. I'd need to take a lot more time, and do rubbings of possible dates.

This one was nearby, and I can read that somebody Miles died in 1881, but I can't quite read his age which would give me the birth year. It's certainly not 80 something. Mostly I'm showing you this because the picture on the stone is interesting with the two hands. This symbol can mean a number of different things, but since the two hands are on the same level, it possibly signifies some sort of farewell to earthly life or an embracing of eternal life. If the cuffs are different it may represent a husband and wife. In this case the carving is too worn to tell. I also couldn't find anything about one hand being open and the other clasped. But, it's interesting.

I did find something that I believe will work for the book (none of the above.) I also found a complete list of records for that cemetery on line. I'm working my way through it, but this is a very large cemetery. I'm almost through the Cs, and the oldest birth I've found so far is 1803, with several in the 18-oughts. So a 1700s one is possible.

I worked on the pantry, I did client work, I set up my Christmas gift from Steve (more on that another day),and I used the info I found yesterday to write, bringing the total words in Vacation from DMS is now at 20,027.