Old Time, Celtic, Maritime Music, Gardening and Small Scale Farming

I didn't know I was a musician gardener.
All my life I've loved getting my hands dirty gardening, keeping small livestock, and playing traditional music, but I always thought that was just a peculiar combination that occurs in a completely random fashion. But one day my wife Sara and I were talking with a neighbor who ran a one acre educational garden down the street from us. He mentioned that as soon as the growing season was over he was going to hit the road with a bluegrass band he played with. He smiled and said that he felt really blessed to live the life he had- getting to play in the dirt and play on the stage. I had no idea he played in a bluegrass band so we talked shop about music, gardening, and travelling for a bit. After we said goodbye and started walking away Sara turned to me and said "oh I know what you guys are, you're Musician Gardeners."
Suddenly it clicked, all my life I've known and met people who combine their lives like that. friends, neighbors and other folks who combine their love of the land with a love of music, often the very music that grew and still grows out of that land.
This blog hopes to explore that relationship and to let other Musician Gardeners out there know that we're actually a demographic!

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Busy schedule update, and some pics

I hope everyone out there is doing well.  It has been a very busy spring and summer for me and my family.  In turn, I haven't been blogging at all for many months as one can plainly see.  So far we've planted over 200 red and golden raspberries,  a few cherry trees, and some apple trees.  35 new chickens are getting close to laying age (the roosters are getting close to freezer age) and I've just started milking our two dairy goats Hanna and Dottie who had kids this spring (all bucks, also getting close to freezer age).  So far with just one milking every morning we are getting 1/2- 1 gallon of milk per day!  That on top of a busy work schedule and fixing our fixer upper has made for very hectic summer, happy, but hectic.
Despite my lack of blogging this summer has been a busy one for music as well.  I've been playing at least a few time per month at my regular gigs in moscow, and in lewiston. My favorite new place being the Blue Moon Coffeehouse on main street in lewiston.  A great place to play music, or just visit and enjoy the atmosphere and extremely well made coffee.
More to come soon!
In the meanwhile, here are some Great Pic's taken of me during a performance I gave at a private party earlier this spring, just north of Deary, ID.  Thanks to Gina Raebel for sending these to me.







For those of you who don't know, the little wooden guy on the wee diving board is a "limberjack"  an old rythm instrument/doll/storytelling tool.  He dances when you tap the board, goes great with harmonica.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

WINTER FARM PICS

A few pictures of the new place during some relatively rare valley snowstorms.




east view.  looks like a mountain but it's really a bluff, we're in a pretty deep canyon which shelters us frome the harsh palouse winds, and is one full growing zone warmer (7A)

Baby Clo, keeping warm

The new recently finished goat shed.  No goats yet but I hope to remedy that soon



Hard working farm girl

SNOW ICE CREAM

SNOW ICE CREAM

When I was a kid every once in a while when there was a good coast of fresh snow on the ground my mom would go outside with a salad bowl and pack it full of snow for us to eat.   What, was she cheap?  was this the depression? You might ask.  No, it was snow ice cream!

A few days a go we got a rare 3-4 inches of snow here in the potlatch river valley.  Since this doesn't happen too often and since my daughter and wife had never had snow ice cream before I went out and filled up three bowls of fresh clean snow, poured milk and maple syrup over them and treated the family to nature's snow cone.
If you've never had snow ice cream I definitely recommend it.  It's as a texture somewher between home-made hand cranked ice cream, and a slurpee.  Since this was sort of an off-the-cuff treat I didn't have all the ingredients I like to use.  To do it right follow these directions.

make a snowball in a bowl
mix a few drops of vanilla into a cup of half and half
pour the mix over the snowball untill it's saturated
pour maple syrup over that

Eat and enjoy!  Just make sure the snow's not yellow....