June 28, 2024 by willedare

‘S Wonderful, part 2

I hope you are well as you read this blog post.

Summer has begun here in New England, and I would like to share an upbeat blog post — setting aside terrifying political and environmental challenges for a few moments — in order to savor some BEAUTY!

For example, these roses grow in a friend’s backyard.

They have a delicious, old-fashioned scent — and epitomize summer for me.

My friend also has a small vegetable garden AND a new dog — a Norfolk terrier — who likes to stand with his nose glued to one particular corner of her fenced-in backyard and sniff for rabbits.

Earlier this week she and I and another friend recorded six songs (five originals plus one cover) at Doug Hammer’s studio north of Boston.

Stryder overseeing rehearsal (photo by Molly Ruggles)

My friend’s new dog is extremely well behaved (he didn’t bark once during a two-hour rehearsal we had at their home), but we did not bring him with us to the studio.

Here is a photo of him making sure that we are all singing the correct parts of our vocal arrangements.

He is a very good boy!

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Chicken coop and sky (photo by Christianne McMillan)

The song in the player at the top of this blog post is an upbeat 1927 gem which pianist Doug Hammer and I recorded when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs by Ira and George Gershwin.

Longtime readers of this blog may remember that I wrote a blog post about it almost four years ago.

Longtime readers of this blog may also remember that I used to camp each summer for two weeks with family members in North Truro near the end of Cape Cod.

Here’s a blog post I wrote six years ago about that annual experience.

Rooster with catnip (photo by Christianne McMillan)

I created a lot of songs at that campsite; so it was extremely wrenching when we stopped going there due to the arrival of COVID in our lives.

This summer I am trying something new.

My sweetheart and I will be camping at my sisters’ family farm in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY for almost two months.

One of my sisters is a gifted photographer who documents moments of beauty as she is moving from point A to point B to point C during the day.

It’s wonderful to get these glimpses into her life (she shares them on Facebook and Instagram) when I am living six hours (by car) away from her in Massachusetts.

Here is one of her Australorp roosters passing by some roses and catnip.

I am looking forward to spending time in my tent each day with a ukulele + a rhyming dictionary + my digital recorders + lots of binders full of song ideas + birds singing all around me.

Tasso contemplating a swim (photo by Christianne McMillan)

I am also looking forward to daily walks with my sisters and their rambunctious dog.

Tasso likes to swim in their irrigation pond, and I may end up swimming there, too, as long as I am not intimidated by the water snakes who (according to my sister) live there.

We shall see…

There is also a lovely state park with a great swimming area — featured in a recent TV commercial encouraging people to visit New York State — which I can walk to.

And there are probably water snakes there, too!

Here are a few more of my sister’s photos.

Her sheep are Icelandic and very smart.

They are also very opinionated about where they prefer to graze and do not hesitate to let her know if they would prefer a different location.

Roosters returning to barn (photo by Christianne McMillan)

Most of her chickens sleep in a coop overnight and roam around a penned-in area by day.

The coop and penned-in area get moved to different fields during the year.

But my sisters ended up with a lot of roosters when they hatched some eggs earlier this year.

So now a few of the roosters roam around the barn — where the horse lives with her own paddock area and where the sheep return each night to sleep.

One of my great grandfathers oversaw the creation of this barn ninety years ago. I do not remember the exact details, but I think it was constructed from two other pre-existing barns…

At one point it was full of horses plus a cow or two.

Tasso eating berries (photo by Christianne McMillan)

Now it is home to many swallows, a friendly Clydesdale-Morgan mare, and the sheep (who usually just sleep there overnight…)

I am very excited because I have been told the black cap raspberry harvesting season is about to begin..

They grow in the hedgerows and are delicious to pick and eat.

And put into pancakes.

Delicious bread (photo by Christianne McMillan)

And make into jam.

Some dogs even like to pick and eat them!

One of my summer goals is to learn how to do the morning and evening chores (taking care of the chickens and the sheep and the horse) because, if all goes well, my older sister will be riding the train to Virginia next month to welcome her first grandchild onto planet earth.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

The circle of life!

My sisters believe in eating well.

Even though they have their own gardens, they also belong to a local farm share AND a local bakery share.

Black caps (photo by Christianne McMillan)

And my younger sister happens to be a wonderful chef who once worked in restaurants in New York and Massachusetts.

When I helped her and my nephew pack up and move east from California a few years ago, I learned that she has an extensive collection of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines (remember when we used to read newspapers and magazines?)

She is a fearless cook who will prepare anything which attracts her curiosity and interest.

She also is happy to make old favorites like Eggs Benedict.

Yum!!!

Eggs Benedict (photo by Christianne McMillan)

Another one of our great grandfathers was a professor of poultry science at Cornell University.

There’s even a building named after him — Rice Hall.

So eggs and chickens have a historical resonance for our extended family.

Thank you to my grandmother and grandfather who bought this farm almost 100 years ago.

Thank you to my grandmother and father and great aunt and great uncle and cousins and aunt — along with an ever-changing constellation of helping hands — for keeping it going after my grandfather died.

Thank you to my sisters for daring to move to the farm and raise their children.

Thank you to all of the birds and animals and insects and trees who also call the farm their home.

Thank you to my sisters’ wonderful neighbors who help in myriad ways — small and large — on a year-round basis.

Thank you to my older sister for letting me use her photos in this blog post.

Thank you to my younger sister for all of the delicious things she creates for all of us to eat!

Thank you to Pixabay for a lovely summery image of a notebook with roses which evokes a spirit of creativity…

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his exuberant piano playing and patient engineering/producing chops.

Thank you to Gretje Ferguson for taking the photo which Stephen Fischer incorporated into a fun graphic design for this song (and thank you to him as well for his creative handwork!)

Thank you to the long days and short nights of summer.

And thank you for reading another one of my blog posts.

What are YOUR summer plans?

ps: You can find my recording of “‘S Wonderful” on your favorite streaming service by clicking here.

December 8, 2019 by willedare

We Need A Little Christmas!

Although it is still autumn for another two weeks here in the northeastern United States, last weekend we had our first big snow storm.

So it feels like winter has already begun, with the holidays of Solstice and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and Christmas looming on the horizon…

As recent readers of this blog may recall, my two sisters live on a farm in upstate New York.

One of them has lived there for many years, is a terrific photographer, and has agreed to let me use her photos in this blog post. You can click here to read a post from two years ago which also featured her photos and the song “Winter Wonderland.”

My sisters take at least one long walk with their dogs each day.

Stella, a very large black Lab mix, is unfazed by rain or snow.

My younger sister and nephew moved from California a couple of summers ago.

He, too, is unfazed by snow…

Their beloved dog of 14 years recently died, and after some reflection they decided to welcome a herding dog into their lives.

This is Tasso.

Right now he’s still growing.

But eventually he will help with these woolly beings..

My older sister works in Cornell’s department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design.

This is one of the reasons why she invited several pregnant Icelandic ewes onto the farm last winter.

Here is a sampling of their un-dyed wool…

They have a soft, insulating undercoat as well as a hardy outer coat which helps them keep warm during the winter months.

My older sister also has a very hardy flock of Australorps who are willing to venture out into the snow if someone offers something delicious such as sunflower seeds.

They have been very healthy and generous egg-producers.

My sister has learned firsthand how intimately connected with sunlight their egg-laying cycles are.

Egg production drops off as the days get shorter and gradually picks back up after the winter solstice.

I continue to be amazed that hens can create such enormous and beautiful and nutritious objects inside their bodies ON A DAILY BASIS!!!

My sister feeds them organic grain from a local mill and lots of left-over vegetables — and in non-snowy months they forage outside all day long, too.

She sells some of the eggs to local customers, and her family consumes a goodly number of them, too.

During the holidays my grown up nephew and niece and her husband return to town to partake in various family rituals.

The cutting of a tree..

The baking…

And decorating of cookies.

The chopping of wood…

The singing of songs…

The lighting of torches with cousins to drive away the winter’s gloom…

The trimming of the tree…

The baking of pies…

The eating of pomegranates…

And those daily walks around the farm with the dogs…

Past the irrigation pond…

Along the edge of a field…

Admiring the beauty of an invasive species…

Sometimes shoveling a path…

Sometimes visiting with a sheep…

Or watching a squirrel’s adventures on the side of one of the barns…

Under which Stella is taking a break…

I have long loved the song “We Need A Little Christmas” — written by the songwriter Jerry Herman for Angela Lansbury to sing in the musical Mame.

Here he is with Angela and Carol Channing, who starred in another one of his hit musicals — Hello Dolly.

Pianist/composer Doug Hammer and I recorded the version in the player at the beginning of this blog post several years ago.

I also perform it each December as part of an hour-long program of winter holiday songs written or co-written by Jewish lyricists and composers which jazz pianist Joe Reid and I bring to Boston-area retirement communities and public libraries.

In our current era of cultural polarization, I am grateful to remember that some of our favorite winter holiday songs — including “Silver Bells,” “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” (and all of the other songs from that animated TV special), “The Christmas Song” (a.k.a. “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire”), “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow,” and “White Christmas” — were written or co-written by Jewish-American songwriters.

I thank them for their creativity and their appreciation/respect for the loving spirit of Christmas.

I thank my older sister for letting me grab all of these photos (except the one of Angela, Jerry and Carol) from her Facebook archives.

And I — standing in snowy field during a visit to upstate NY — thank you for reading and listening to another blog post.

May you enjoy healthy and happy holidays during this season of short days and long nights…

And maybe some pie and tapioca pudding and colorful root vegetables, too…

November 8, 2019 by willedare

The Look of Love!

My last few posts have been a bit grim.

So here’s a post filled with joy and happiness.

Last fall my niece married her boyfriend at a beautiful place called the Treman Center in upstate NY not far from the farm where she spent most of her childhood and teen years — and where her mother still lives.

Here she is with her father, husband, mother, brother, and dog.

My niece recently gave me access to a huge cache of their wedding photos, which I plan to feature in two separate blog posts.

Today’s theme is “The Look Of Love…”

The Treman Center is itself a labor of love by a wife and husband team — full of all kinds of beauty. The husband is a tremendous stone mason. The wife is a terrific host who — among her many gifts — is also an extraordinary makes-things-beautiful person.

Beauty can be found everywhere at the Treman Center — as well as whimsy, such as this rubber ducky floating in their reflecting pool…

My niece’s husband’s family also lives in the area, and we have loved becoming friends with them over the past six years.

At first I did not understand why my niece and her (then) boyfriend wanted to have a fancy wedding.

But as soon as I arrived at the Treman Center, I got it.

They wanted to create and share a weekend of love and beauty with a small tribe of their nearest and dearest.

Weddings can be a transformative event not only for the bride and groom, but also for the community of family, friends, and beloved pets whom they invite to surround them, bear witness to their vows, and celebrate with them.

This wedding proved to be a wonderful mix of hands-on work by family and friends + catered deliciousness which wove everyone together in new ways.

For example, the wedding cake was made by the groom’s mother.

It featured custom-made replicas of the groom and the bride plus their beloved dog.

All of the flower arrangements — except for the bouquets and boutonnieres of the bridal party — were grown and harvested and assembled by local family members who spent most of Friday focused on this exquisite undertaking.

Here is some of their — and mother nature’s — handiwork…

All of the wedding favors for guests were also grown, harvested, and preserved by members of our family.

My other sister (the bride’s aunt) is — among many other things — a terrific chef, and she took leadership of a pre-wedding pickling marathon.

Yum!!!

My sisters also canned a lot of peach-raspberry jam…

And my sisters’ neighbors keep bees; so some guests took home jars of local honey, too.

Many friends and family members also pitched in to make pies.

A lot of pies…

They were served from a Ferris Wheel Of Pie — which was something I had never seen before.

And very delicious.

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, and somehow the caterers were running late.

So everyone — except the bride and groom — pitched in to set up tables, plates, glasses, silverware on the second floor of the elegantly converted barn that is the heart of the Treman Center.

Working together like this is one of my favorite ways to spend time with other human beings — and a tried-and-true way to jumpstart a sense of shared purpose and community.

After dinner the father of the bride — who is a professional trumpeter — and I and a dear friend of the bride and groom who happens to be a great pianist (and who had driven all the way from Norfolk, VA, with his fiancee to be part of the celebration) sang jazz standards at a funky old Steinway which graces the Treman Center.

My niece wore a beautiful and very red dress.

She had a terrific group of friends as bridesmaids, and the spirit throughout the weekend was often quite playful.

The groomsmen were also full of fun and creativity.

I love this photo of the groom and his parents.

The bride’s quietly extraordinary younger brother (my older nephew) was part of the bridal party, and pitched in to help at every conceivable opportunity.

Their mother is a hardworking farmer and photographer who like many hardworking farmers — and photographers — also has a day job.

Currently she works at Cornell University’s department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design — which meant that she was able to have a gown created for her by an up-and-coming clothing designer.

One of the unexpected pleasures of this wedding was seeing friends and family members whom I usually see in shorts and swim suits — or in the case of my sister, a one-piece jumpsuit which she wears when she takes care of the chickens and sheep and gardens on her farm — wearing somewhat fancier clothing.

Everyone cleaned up very nicely!

My younger nephew and some of my younger cousins looked very sharp when they were given permission to drive a golf cart around the venue.

The wedding ceremony was held in a stone courtyard which had all sorts of fruit trees growing in huge planters.

While everyone was assembling on Saturday afternoon before the ceremony began, the pianist friend and I shared more standards while the bride’s father rocked his trumpet.

He has toured with Wynton Marsalis, Maynard Ferguson, and Harry Connick, Jr. among others…

I will share lots of photos from the actual wedding ceremony in my second (future) post.

Here are a few observations:

The groom is very tall.

He has a wonderful family.

And he and my niece are very fond of each other.

If I am remembering correctly, they originally met when he was an assistant coach for her crew team.

They both went to the same college — although they didn’t overlap as undergraduates because he is a few years older — and their romance began when they both worked on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean one summer.

She was the cook and he was the gardener on the estate of a college professor.

She wrote a wonderful blog which documented many of her adventures on Elba — culinary and otherwise. You can click here to get a taste of her blog if you are curious…

One of the highlights of the ceremony on Saturday was the ring-bearer — their beloved dog companion named Dozer.

The ceremony was not-too-long and very sweet — culminating, of course, with a lovely kiss.

After this was dinner.

And an extraordinary sunset.

The proactive and very congenial wedding photographers grabbed the bride and groom for a sunset portrait…

Then we all danced for several hours in varying states of abandon to a great live band.

Dancing was interspersed with a few wedding games.

And the cutting of the cake…

One of the unplanned highlights of the night was when the band started playing the song “Uptown Funk” — which my younger nephew had previously memorized to perform in a talent show at his school.

One of the singers in the band gave my nephew a mic so that he could lead us in what became a Dionysian explosion of energy on the dance floor.

If you got tired of dancing, there was also a wall for Polaroid photos + written thoughts…

And lots of bittersweet ice cream…

I will devote a future blog post to the wedding ceremony itself — which included its own spontaneous surprise from their beloved ringbearer, Dozer.

Thank you to my niece and nephew-in-law for letting me blog about their wonderful wedding.

Thank you to everyone who pitched in to help make this such a loving and delicious and memorable wedding celebration.

Thank you to Julian Huarte with Couple of Dudes Photography, to Mary Bloom (a longtime family friend and professional photographer), and to everyone else whose photos of the wedding I have included in this blog post.

Thank you to Nina Vansuch, Michael Ricca, and Brian Patton for recording the two-song medley (included at the beginning of this post) with me many years ago. You can click here to hear more of our music at CD Baby.

And thank YOU for reading all the way to the end of this post!

amusicalifeonplanetearth

Music and the Thoughts It Can Inspire

Dogs

‘S Wonderful, part 2

We Need A Little Christmas!

The Look of Love!