South of the Frostline

Here's the second song that I've finished for the poetry CD Cheryl Denise is working on.

This song is based on a poem called "Spirit Friends", which has a lot of metaphors involving things that move in unpredictable ways. I tried to reference this by putting the song in an odd meter and trying to make the melody a bit unpredictable as well.

Here's the video:



After I recorded it with the mandolin, I decided to see what it would sound like slightly slower and with the octave mandolin instead. If you're interested in hearing it, just click the "Play" button below. I still haven't decided which version I prefer, so feel free to weigh in.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

And on another unrelated note, I know I won't be biking anymore this year, so I can say that in 2009 I biked 1,373 miles (2,210 km).

It felt farther than that.

Andrea and I are both very excited about our trip to Winnipeg. We'll see you guys soon!

New Door

Very exciting stuff around here! We just got a new door that is both energy efficient and aesthetically pleasing. We still have to stain the trim and paint the door red, but for now I'm just enjoying it.

Loving Little Luke

Some entertaining videos of our sweet little nephew, Luke.
This is Ben's oldest sister's (Laura's) son. He 1 and a half now. We took these videos when they were over visiting this past weekend.
Luke loves wearing hats and getting all wound up before his nap.
Video 1: Thumbs Up!
Video 2: Crashing Before Burning (Nap time!)

Sunday Afternoon Stuff

We had two potlucks this past Sunday, and somehow I figured that warranted bringing my camera. I figured it was high time to take some family pictures, and pictures of some church friends.

This is Chuck and his first grandson, Luke. They adore each other.

I told Wil that if he smiled really cute for this picture, I would get him a spoon. It worked!

Greg and Wes.

Bev, Tim, and Ben.

Ben's aunt and uncle, Alyce and Larry.

Above: It was Grandma and Grandpa Bartel's 56th (I think?) Anniversary. (Betty + Laurence)

Below: In the evening, we had a goodbye party for Greg Regier, Ben's cousin. He recently graduated with his Agriculture degree, and he's going to Nicaragua with World Vision to do Ag development there. He is a very cool guy.

Ben and da boyz.

Some a Da Grlz: Amanda, Diana, and Katherine.

Katherine and Laura.

Our Halloween

Ben and I had a fun Halloween this year. Some of our favorite kids stopped by with their parents, and we had the usual 20 kids from the neighborhood come around too. Later on, partied at Mark & Amanda's house who went to great and astounding lengths to make their house incredibly spooky! Melanie was in town, so that was an added bonus.

Above: Cousin Addie and Eli had the best costumes of the night by far!

Above: Our dear neighbors. Bradley and his daughter, Lucca and their friendly dog, Pheobe.

Below: Faby and Camila. Very good friends.

Above: I was a genie, and Ben was a (can you guess?)....ceiling fan!

Above: Laura and Greg had a great costume. Laura was a student nurse with her handy bottle of Pepto Bismal ("that will cure anything") and Greg was her very bloody and uncared for patient.

Above: Greg the Elephant. Melanie the Cat.

Below: Amanda was a shark victim and Maebe (dog) was dressed as a little shark. Aw, so cute.

Still Water

I've got this potential music project that I've been putting some work into lately. Cheryl Denise is a poet I met in West Virginia, and she's working on putting together a CD with some of her poetry and contacted me about writing some music to go along with the poems.

We're still working out the details, but she sent me some of the poems that will be included on the CD, and I've been trying to compose some instrumental music around the feel of them.

This is the first piece I've completed. It's inspired by a poem she wrote about the Amish school shootings that happened in Lancaster County.

She ends the poem with a reference to the 23rd Psalm, so I continued the theme and named the song "Still Water". I don't have any idea if we'll end up using it, but here it is anyway.

Flying

My friend Kate invited me to go flying with her and her dad this morning. It was awesome. We had a stunning view Newton in all its fall splendor. I couldn't see our house, but I could see our brilliant red maple tree from way up there.

Regier-ville, including Bev and Chuck's farm, is near the Newton airport, so we had several opportunities to circle over it. The fields were a deep shade of red with milo, and florescent green with new winter wheat. Even the pigs looked kind of cute from way up there.

Kate was able to take-off, fly, and land beautifully. She is a great pilot. I didn't even need to use the barf bag.

Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died just before take-off!





Since I don't have more pictures of my flight today, here is a picture of our red maple tree.


On the topic of airports, if you would like to read an article written recently of a field trip I took with some of my students, feel free to follow this link. I was one of 4 teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs) that got together with some of our students.
http://www.thekansan.com/education/x402528048/Youths-with-visual-impairments-experience-the-world-of-flight

It's Fall!

I saw a hummingbird drinking from this feeder only seconds before! Seconds!

Andrea looking ready for fall. And for sleep.

This was my first attempt at cooking up polenta. The topping is pesto and fresh tomatoes. It looks pretty good, but I think polenta might be an acquired taste. Which I have not yet acquired.

Apples for applesauce! This was the best bushel of Jonathan's we've ever gotten. So sweet, so delicious.

Here I am cutting apples.
(Note to Self: This shirt makes me look pregnant.)

No recent pictures of Ben! Here's a nice one of him playing with Airo this summer.

Turlough Carolan

I've been playing quite a few weddings lately. Back when the hammer dulcimer was my main instrument, I used to play weddings all the time. Since I've moved to the mandolin, the offers have decreased, which is fine with me. It's fun to play at the wedding of someone you know, but playing at stranger's weddings can get old fast.

There is a certain type of music that is generally considered to be "wedding" music. It's usually slow and melodic, it's usually in a major key, and it's usually instrumental. When I played the dulcimer, probably half of my repertoire fit those guidelines. Now that I'm doing weddings on the Octave Mandolin, it's a little more challenging. I don't play a lot of "wedding" music for fun on my own, so I've had to intentionally work up enough songs to pull off a wedding.

This is where Turlough Carolan comes in. Turlough Carolan was a blind Irish harpist who composed a ludicrous amount of beautiful, slow, melodic songs in major keys (and some in minor keys as well). You really can't find anyone who's music is better suited for weddings, in my opinion.

So here's a couple of Carolan tunes I've worked up for weddings. The first is "Planxty Irwin" ("In Honor of Irwin"). I was playing at my cousin Rachel's wedding last week and the day before the wedding I suddenly panicked and thought that I didn't have enough material for the prelude, so I worked up this arrangement sometime around midnight. Turns out I had more than enough for the prelude, but it doesn't hurt to have one more option.



This second piece is called "Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór" ("Little Hill, Big Hill"). I worked this one up a while ago and had a little more time to put into the arrangement. This is probably the most well known Carolan tune.

Colo(u)rs of Life

1. Ben in my dad's bright red jacket at Winnipeg Folk Fest (July 09).


2. Rose of Sharon bush in the backyard provides me with plenty of pretty pink blossoms.

3. Painted the trim in the dining room white. Brightens up house immensely.

4. Bright red tomatoes accumulating rapidly in the fridge this week.

Going North

I am starting my second and last 7-week session at UND in Grand Forks (and Winnipeg on the weekends). I leave for GF tomorrow and start my first three days of classes at the ND School for the Blind which is affiliated with UND.

Naturally, I'm a big blob of emotions, knowing that I have to leave Ben for so long... and yet very excited for what lies ahead.

Here are some pictures that I recently took.
1. My favorite snack lately.
2. & 3. Some curriculum modifications I made this year--also part of my internship project.
4. The love of my life. See you soon, Ben!

The New Bike

So I've been biking as my primary mode of transportation for close to seven years now. For the past five of these years, I've been riding a single speed bike that a friend helped me put together, mostly from used parts.

If you are a biker who uses a bike mostly for in-town commuting and just getting around, and you live in a place without too many hills, single speeds are great bikes. They're durable, efficient, and usually people don't want to steal them (though this is changing as they are suddenly becoming "cool"). They are workhorses, they're fun to ride, and they're easy on the pocketbook.

I've put over 10,000 miles on my single speed in the time I've been riding it, but this past April convinced me that it was time to have a decent bike with gears. A combination of very high winds and muddy conditions made me start to worry about what riding a single-speed in those conditions might be doing to my knees.

So I put up some cash and bought a 1998 Trek 5000 off of Ebay. I'm still keeping the single-speed for getting around town, but when I take longer rides, it will be nice to have something that can handle the Kansas winds a little better.

Here's a picture.



For those of you who like looking at pictures of bikes, there are more pictures here.

I also shaved my beard this weekend.

MASSIVE UPDATE!!!!1!1!!

It's time for a massive update. There are three things that we need to let you know about.

Update #1

Ingrid and Sonja just visited us from Winnipeg. They stayed with us for a week and we had a great time with them. We even got to walk them through their first experience with a tornado warning. The first day they were here, there was a line of thunderstorms that was pounding us pretty much all day. We did have to go down to the basement for about half an hour when a funnel cloud was sighted about a mile away from us. It did not touch down.

We also had a sushi night.As you can see, along with the sushi we had a huge bowl of delicious barbecued meat. Thanks, Ingrid.

Sonja, Ben, Andrea, Ingrid, Kate and Nick.

Update #2

Andrea and I had a little bit of time to work on the garden today before it started raining.

These will be green beans.

Lettuce and Spinach - the only things we had already planted.

Update # 3

It's a cute-off. A cute-off is not a competition, but just a situation where there are two cute things. Everyone wins a cute-off because everyone gets to see two cute things.

First we have our nephew Luke, and second is our nephew Airo.

Congratulations. You just won the cute-off.

Easter in Newton

I decided to attempt Paska. I actually had a friend teach me to make it last year, but she mostly did the work and I watched. It turned out pretty well today---but now I need to learn how to make that cottage cheese spread.

The recipe was huge, so I shared it with some others on my street.

We have some great neighbors here on 6th street. Jane is a lovely 92 year old who still gardens and has a great sense of humor. We invite each other over for tea every once in a while. She gave me her tomato cages last year. Adjacent our backyard lives an older (70s) couple who think we're hippie-farmers because we hang laundry, grow vegetables and have dandelions---but I think we've managed to convince them that we're not crazy. Then there is the lovely sweet (deaf) widow from our church, the family from church across the street who take in our mail when we're gone, and the younger couple next door with whom we share garden tools, groceries and invited us to be part of "cow-share" milk cooperative. There's a lot of sharing and give-and-take on our block. It's nice to have a little community around you like that. I always took good neighbors for granted on Helmsdale growing up. Anyway, that doesn't really have a lot to do with Easter ...or does it?