Heat Wave

Summer weather arrived a month early, as though a switch suddenly flicked on. This happened a couple days ago and the high temperatures are expected to continue through the weekend.

It is not often that the West Coast has the highest temperatures in the country; Arizona, Texas, Florida and parts of the Midwest usually have us beat.

A ridge of high pressure hangs over the Pacific coast, creating unusual heat for this time of year. As a rule, we do not experience this kind of weather until late June or July.

It reached 91˚ In The Woods yesterday. We were tempted to jump in the river, except that the water is still very cold this early in the season. James joked that we should buy wet-suits!

Our bodies are trying to adjust to this abrupt turn of events. We’re used to sleeping with lots of blankets, which are now way too heavy at night. I suggested that we pack away the flannel sheets we’ve used since last Fall, but James thinks it will cool off again. He’s probably right.

He reminded me that when we first arrived here last June, it SNOWED on the upper highway, and there was sleet in our little valley. So this heat-wave is probably a false summer, and we hope that it is temporary.

James brought out his sarong and retired his sweats. He put away his heavy clogs, took off his socks and donned flip-flops. He took off his shirt.

I quickly followed suit. Although I was rather awkward wearing a sarong last summer, my reservations seem to have disappeared this year. It truly is more comfortable, and the best way to deal with the heat — especially since we don’t have air-conditioning.

I may even come to feel at ease wearing a sarong around people when they visit us, but I am NOT quite ready to parade in a skirt on the streets of “Big Town”!

If someone were to come along this way and see us in this get-up, they would probably think that we belong to some sort of far-out religious order. Perhaps that assessment is accurate — James and I are sort of in an “monastery of two”.

We could probably walk around naked on this land if we wanted to (and have, briefly, on occasion), but we don’t want to scare the summer people. Much.

So a sarong feels perfect here.

We used them as window coverings all winter. Now that we’ve taken them down to wear, the early morning light filters into the Music Room and urges us out of bed.

This is a very good thing, because the early morning is the coolest and most pleasant time to be awake and productive in the summer.

We got up shortly after six today (early for us former “theatre people”!) and James suggested that I bring the video camera out to an area of the Woods which he calls “The Secret Garden”. A great variety of spring flowers are popping up, almost overnight.

I don’t know that much about flowers, but could identify buttercups, mountain daisies, several kinds of lupine (lots of that!) two varieties of Indian paintbrush, star tulips (very rare here) and bluebells.

When the large and small kinds of Indian paintbrush arrived a few days ago, I took the following pictures:

Mountain flowers have a subtle, economical beauty; they’re often tiny. The visual impact doesn’t hit you over the head like a field of tulips would; you have to look closely to appreciate the mountain flowers’ charms. They are here for a fleeting moment, then soon disappear and are replaced by new varieties.

The blankets of lupine in the meadow are a bit more dramatic. You’ll see them towards the end of the video. We think they’re gorgeous.

A Walk Through The Woods

I’ve been wanting to shoot a video of our daily walk “over the river and through the woods” for quite some time now. (We left Little Red Riding Hood at home.)

The first day of May was gorgeous here; sunny and mild, not a cloud in the sky.

In the late afternoon we took our walk, and I shot continuous footage during the twenty minutes it took to meander down the path near the barn, then through a protected area where the bleeding heart flowers are in full bloom. The trilliums are still hanging in there, too.

Further along the path, the piles of large rocks are a legacy from the Chinese workers who cleared them from the dredging areas blasted by water, the miners seeking gold. The coolie laborers organized them into neat piles. James is convinced that they did this in a conscious, artistic manner, in spite of what must have been extreme hardship.

The faint echoes of the Chinese blood, sweat and tears still whisper through these woods, but as L. commented recently, “But it’s not as strong as when I first saw this land forty years ago”.

In any case, the huge piles of boulders inspire awe. It feels like a sacred place.

Then on to the river, and up the path leading to L.’s cabin, and back through the meadow to the barn.

I edited the video to about three-quarters of its original length, which is still fourteen minutes long. Since YouTube’s video limit is ten minutes, I split the Woods walk footage into two parts.

Part I:

Part II:

L.’s lilac bush is in bloom in the side-yard north of the Bunkhouse. Shortly after this picture was taken, James cut several sprays of the fragrant purple blooms and brought them down to L.’s house in Nevada City. So now she gets a whiff of The Woods whenever she enters her kitchen.

The Burn Pile

A week ago, at least a dozen pine trees were cut down in our yard. D. and M. left the debris scattered all over the meadow, for James and me to clean up later.

Since the burn season officially ends on May 1st — after which it is necessary to get a permit — we decided to burn the many branches scattered throughout the meadow last Saturday, before conditions became too dry.

I played with the Modesto Symphony Wednesday through Friday, while James completed his interior painting project at the family house in Sacramento. We stayed there for three days, then I had two days free before having to perform the final kiddie concert in Modesto.

So we decided to come home on Friday afternoon, were able to spend all day Saturday and then return to the valley on Sunday. It was a lot of driving, but we really wanted to be HOME — even for such a brief time.

Shortly after noon on Saturday, James went out to the meadow with loppers and began trimming the branches off the usable tree trunks for kindling and small starter firewood.

Pine is good for this, because it’s soft and fast-burning in the Franklin stove. Later, oak or other hard wood is added after the fire is well established.

I joined James with another pair of loppers and our work began in earnest.

There were four large piles of debris to deal with in the side-meadow. We soon amassed enough branches to haul off to the burn pile, so James drove the pickup truck into the meadow and loaded it while I continued to lop off branches from the next tangled heap of limbs.

Most of the locals would not save any of these branches and might laugh if they knew that we were doing this, but we feel strongly that it’s our obligation to save as much of the tree as possible, after cutting their lives short.

We placed the burn pile near the well, so that we would be as close to the water source as we could get. When the fire was roaring and crackling with the green pine branches, it became my job to tend it while James continued to load the stacks of greenery from the meadow into the truck.

Hauling. Chopping. Tossing branches onto the fire. Adjusting the branches on the burn pile. More hauling, chopping, tossing etc. The non-stop cycle continued for hours. It turned into a meditation, and time floated by in billows of fragrant smoke.

At last, the sun was about to set and we were down to chopping up the last pile of branches. Whew. We put in a seven-hour day.

We sat in our folding chairs near the burn-pile and contemplated the mountain of coals, which looked like a miniature city on fire.

James joked that we were indulging in a redneck activity, settin’ ’round the burn-pile faahr watching sh** burn. Wellsuh, guilty as charged I guess.

My muscles ached from the unaccustomed labor. James is in a bit better shape because he does more physical work on the land, but said that he ached too. My thighs and lower back growled a protest from all that bending and lifting.

But it felt really good to work outside on that lovely sunny mild afternoon in early Spring. It was beneficial for both body and soul, and we’d like to think that we made the best of the tree-cutting situation.

Here’s a video of the crackling fire. If you listen closely, you might hear James sighing a time or two. We worked hard that day!

Now there are piles of the larger trunks still residing in the meadow, that need to be cut up with the chain-saw and then stacked in the barn to dry out over the next six months. Only one pile of green branches remain to burn. I don’t know if we’ll make the May 1st deadline; we’ll probably have to get a permit to burn the rest, or wait until Fall.

In the following picture, branches from a dead willow tree are in the foreground. James plans to use these to create a lattice-work effect in combination with mesh screen for our proposed Summer Kitchen. We will remove the outside wall and replace it with support-beams and a screen. The wall is practically falling down anyway!

Earth Day Chainsaw Massacre

We invited our dear friends L. & D. to come up from Nevada City to visit us on the land today. D. promised to bring along not only his chainsaw, but also a close friend who also has an even better chainsaw and truly enjoys doing forest-work and is apparently an expert at it.

This was too good an offer to pass up.

As James and I checked out the news online this morning, he suddenly let out a guffaw while he was reading the NY Times. I asked what was so funny and he said, “Did you realize that we’ve invited these guys to help us cut down trees on Earth Day?”

Uh-oh.

Actually, we hug our share of trees and cherish them, yet…there is a need for occasional thinning of the ranks, which are so numerous on this particular piece of land that we’d never live long enough to cut them all down, should we be so inclined — which we’re not. The trees are truly a blessing on this land, and we are awed whenever we walk amongst them. But as most people who are intimately connected with forestry know that some of them need to be thinned.

We don’t want to be excessive about it, but we DO wish to preserve this meadow in all its open glory and magnificence. Quite a few pine trees have sprouted up over the past dozen years, some growing too close to our electrical wires, and others which obstruct the view down towards the river. Many of these fifteen-to-twenty-foot tall trees are not healthy, showing many branches of brown pine needles, which can happen when they grow too close to their neighbors.

And we sure can use the firewood! Never again will we need to PAY for firewood as we did last Fall, when it was too late to gather a winter supply. Now we have the time, and there are certainly enough felled trees to keep our trusty-rusty Franklin stove burning for years to come.

Note: Many of the downed trees all around this land are harder wood (oak, cedar) which burn best in the stove. But it is nice to be able to start fires with faster-burning, softer wood such as pine. Rest assured, we will keep a close watch on the chimneys to make sure that creosote doesn’t build up too much.

L. & D. and D’s friend M. drove up from Nevada City shortly after 10 this morning. The skies were overcast and the breeze was cool. Rain was imminent, so we needed to get started cutting as soon as possible before it got wet.

M. was a marvel at cutting the trees. His chainsaw was indeed powerful, and he prides himself on keeping its blades sharp. As you can see in the following video, he wasted no time felling the trees.

When it came time for a break, James served a wonderful lunch of hot butternut squash soup, salad and garlic bread on a folding table overlooking the meadow in the quickening cool breeze. Then the guys went to another part of the meadow to thin out more dying trees before they left — just moments before the rain blew over the mountains.

Many thanks to these visitors for their company and for their valuable help with cutting down a few small trees. The meadow looks fantastic! (Pics soon.)

So that was our Chainsaw Massacre on Earth Day. We bless the trees, again.

We trust that the Spirits of the Pine understand.

Harps and Chainsaws

I was just starting to tune my harp this morning when James called out to me:

“Would you please come out here to watch me while I use the chainsaw for the first time?”

Ever since we moved out to The Woods last summer, we’ve discussed cutting down some of the small pine trees which surround the barn and outbuildings.

We bought a chainsaw awhile back but hadn’t used it until today. I think that both of us were hesitant to operate it because of the danger factor.

We donned our work gloves, and our special hard orange hats with protective screens for the eyes and headphones for the ears.

James read all the directions carefully and fired ‘er up. The first cut was a branch growing at a weird angle from the base of our liquid amber tree out front (which you may recall from last Fall’s photos).

After several pulls of the starter rope, the chainsaw came to life. I had expected something louder and more dramatic, but the gas-powered machine was not quite as scary as I’d imagined.

However, both James and I have a healthy respect for the chainsaw’s power, and we need to be extremely careful and mindful while operating it at all times.

James approached the liquid amber tree. Zing! The saw cut through the large branch “like buttah”.

“Let’s go out back and try it on a couple small pines!” James exclaimed, so we walked out back to the meadow.

He cut down a twenty-foot tall tree which was probably ten years old, and trimmed off a few branches before letting me cut off the rest. Then I cut the trunk into eighteen-inch sections for firewood.

I was relieved to find that I could manage the chainsaw with ease, but I refuse to be lulled into false complacency or confidence. We absolutely have to be careful. I think the real danger will come after using it a while, when the tendency to relax may creep in.

James suggested that we always operate the chainsaw together, which is a good idea.

Although it is sad to cut short a tree’s life — a new experience for both of us — as long as we do this in a conscious way and give thanks for the firewood, we will feel all right about it.

I know that might sound strange, especially to our local friends who cut down trees on a regular basis. But we wish to live as lightly and consciously on this land as possible.

James expressed it in his usual eloquent way in an email to a friend today, which he has agreed to let me include here in part:

“we fired up the chain saw today and “killed” a couple of trees. i felt totally butch. however, i could almost hear the tree’s tears falling to the ground. we saved as much of the tree for firewood as possible and very neatly trimmed and cleaned up the area where they stood. we probably were more particular doing that than most of our neighbors would be, but that is just how we have to do it. i have thanked the trees’ spirits for the warmth they will provide next winter.”

After cutting down another tree and stacking the wood in the barn, I went back into the Music Room to finish tuning my harp.

I was amused at the juxtaposition between harps and chainsaws; how diametrically opposed those two objects are!

That’s a big part of the fun of living here — the extremes.

Trilliums!

We’re finding them everywhere on this property! The above picture was taken near the river. Not far from the metal ladder leading down to the private beach, are several small streams which provide perfect growing conditions for these rare, fragile plants. The following photographs show this area from various angles:

I took the following picture last week,

…then James happened to take a picture with nearly the same angle, several days later!

…along with this shot:

Another few from my earlier session, from close-in to further away:

A few days later, James was exploring the area of the property southeast of the barn, which is a good quarter-mile uphill from the river. He discovered many more trilliums growing in the woods.

He came across a particularly nice grouping of plants which almost looks like a bouquet, and called me over one late afternoon to take pictures:

WordPress glitches

Have any of you WordPress habitués ever gotten the error message, “You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.” ?

I have tried posting comments on several WP blogs today and that very strange error message came up each time.

It’s not like I’m rapidly firing off comments left and right, blazing away at the computer keyboard til smoke rises from it, my eyes popping out of my skull as I frantically dash off fevered messages to everyone’s WordPress blog.

And the admonition “Slow down.” At least they could say “Please”!

It all sounds so cold.

Flowers and the River

Up here in the mountains, Spring is “springing” gradually. The new season is deliberate in its unfolding, unlike the valley where it tends to burst out with an explosion of sudden color and invasion of pollen.

Little by little on this land, the flowers are starting to bloom. A couple weeks ago, it was a lone dandelion nestled bravely in the middle of the meadow and a couple of tiny violets in the side-yard. Now these are joined with a few others. Baby’s breath is making its first appearance.

Down by the river is a very interesting flowering plant which James and I were not familiar with. I emailed this picture to D. (our dear friend L.’s partner) in Nevada City who identified it. Of course, it’s a trillium.

Fascinating flower. It is relatively rare in this country, and is in fact illegal to pick in Michigan, New York, Oregon and Washington, along with British Columbia. It is the designated flower of the province of Ontario, featuring prominently on the Franco-Ontarian flag.

According to Wikipedia: “Trillium is one of many plants whose seeds are spread by ants and mice. Trillium seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that attracts ants. The ants take the seeds to their nest, where they eat the elaiosomes and put the seeds in their garbage, where they can be protected until they germinate. They also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant garbage.”

There are easily a hundred of these plants growing on our land, first encountered on the new trail that we have been blazing through the tangled blackberry bushes, then in more concentrated clumps along the tiny creek near the river. Some have begun to bloom, but not all have done so yet.

We walk the trail each morning to check on the progress of the flowers, and trod carefully around the trilliums growing in the middle of the path. The plants are extremely fragile. I will post a picture of the trilliums in their glory when more bloom.

L.’s daffodils are now in full bloom at the bottom of the meadow, near the path leading down to the river cabin. They are such beautiful, yet delicate flowers, so intimately associated with the coming of Spring. The weight of the brilliant yellow petals at last bends the stems earthward.

James picked up this worm in the middle of the trail (where most interesting things seem to reside lately!) the other day:

Our new trail leads down to the creek which trickles down to the river (seen in the last post’s ladder waterfall). I love this picture; it is so inviting. I can hardly wait for summer!

Trees grow along the cliffs near the river entrance. James had me take this shot of the branches swirling in interesting patterns. The perspective is misleading; the gravel in the background on our private beach is actually about twenty feet below the camera!

The sound of the rushing water is so soothing. For risk of waxing too eloquent, yet again — we are so very blessed to live here!

The river is endlessly fascinating to me. Sit back and take in the wonderful sight and noise of the rushing water:

I must continue to express my thanks as often as possible, because I never, ever want to take this for granted.

Signs of the new season

Spring is in its early stages up here In The Woods.

On my way to the Post Office this afternoon to mail off my taxes, I saw a few daffodils nodding their cheery yellow heads in a front yard on the main street.

The buds are appearing on the trees, but nothing is in full leaf yet. Tiny signs of life in the form of dandelions and violets are starting to peek out from the meadow grasses.

Years ago, L. planted some daffodils on the property which are about to bloom.

James took the following picture last week when some green shoots first appeared below the cabin. We think they’re some sort of mountain iris.

The air is softer now and we’ve already enjoyed some warm days; the temperature even hit 70˚F recently.

The lilac bush outside the Bunkhouse has begun to display buds:

It still gets down to freezing at night, but somehow it doesn’t feel as cold as the same temperature did over the winter months.

Cat Rupert is now spending most of the day outdoors. Here he is napping under a section of barnboard which James tore down last Fall:

James lights a fire in the morning and keeps it going until noon, at which point it’s no longer needed. For a while he lit fires again at night, but lately it’s been mild enough to get by with just the small electric heater.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been hacking out paths in the thick of the Woods near the Yuba River. Loppers have become our best friends! Here is the beginning of the path:

Further down the hill is the area where we hacked out a lot of blackberry bushes:

We’re developing a lovely scenic trail to the river; it wends its way through stands of moss-covered old trees and rocks,

sometimes entangled with blackberry bushes, then over fallen trunks and over large rocks which had been set into piles by the Chinese during long-ago mining days.

It may be difficult to gauge the proper depth perception in the following shot of the river, but it gives an idea how the path wends its way near this slate ledge:

Here’s a beautiful long-shot of the Yuba River:

The path eventually joins the trickling stream which leads down to the metal ladder to the private beach and the water.

There are some interesting moss patterns on the trees and rocks. This is an unusual rotted trunk which has kept its shape:

Up to now, we have accessed the river from the opposite direction, past the little cabin L. and friends had built in the early 1970s. It is a much shorter and steeper trail.

This new path is more level and takes a bit longer (all of ten minutes, perhaps, at a leisurely pace) but has more geographical variety than the other one.

It’s been fun to clear out the blackberry bushes and lop off small pine trees and trim branches to create this intimate trail, and then walk along it regularly to further establish its identity.

Here’s a short video of the waterfall which flows behind the metal ladder leading to the river beach:

I wanted to make sure this posted before I go down the hill to Sacramento to rehearse and perform with the Philharmonic from Thursday through Saturday. I have not played with this group since their first concert set, Mahler 5th Symphony, back in October.

While I’m playing the horn in the orchestra, James will be helping my sister-in-law redecorate the old family house in preparation for her big graduation (from college, at age forty-plus!) party in late May. The house has been in need of a major freshening for years. James is an excellent interior painter and designer, and is excited about giving the house a new look.

We may stay in Sacramento as late as Tuesday, so Spring will be a bit further advanced when we finally return to The Woods. I’m glad that we won’t be absent for too long, as neither of us want to miss anything!

First Day of Spring

Lately, I have been busy making music rather than making words.

Last week I spent in the San Francisco Bay area, playing a very challenging concert set with Symphony Silicon Valley. The program: Copland “Appalachian Spring”, Vaughan-Williams “Tuba Concerto”, Richard Strauss “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks” and “Rosenkavalier Suite”.

This ambitious program was demanding for all the instruments in the orchestra, but especially for the horns. I was also challenged by playing 2nd to a very talented young woman who holds the distinction of having contracts with nine different orchestras in the Bay area. She substitutes in many more ensembles, and has become famous amongst the freelance musicians for playing a high number of gigs in the area.

I wanted to make the best impression possible. The 2nd horn’s job is to make the Principal horn sound good. She didn’t need any extra help because she already has considerable playing ability, but it was important for me to match her well.

It could also lead to more freelance work in the future, since she is so well-connected in the local orchestra network. Hopefully word will continue to spread that I am a valuable asset to any horn section.

I like to think of myself as a musician who “brings a lot to the table”, so to speak. For risk of blowing my own horn (pun intended), I pride myself on a high level of professionalism and I am easy to get along with in the orchestra.

My horn teacher in college insisted that I develop these qualities in order to be a successful musician, and I thank him for emphasizing this into me early on.

I had the privilege of playing in an excellent horn section in the Sacramento Symphony from 1982 through 1996. Our playing was in sync and we got along well professionally. Over a decade after the organization’s demise, people still talk about how good our horn section was.

Spending time in the SF Bay area is so very different from being In The Woods. The pace is crazy-fast; there are so many people (seven million in the metro area) and the physical environment contrasts sharply with the higher, woodsy elevation of my home.

At sea level, many flowers and trees were already in bloom in the Bay area, although the air still had a cool neutrality about it last week; not quite Spring yet. But you could tell it was coming soon!

I am very fortunate to be able to stay with my violinist friend R.A. in the house she shares with her father, in Lafayette which is only an hour commute north of San Jose where the orchestra rehearses and performs.

I have my own room and access to the internet in the adjoining room which is being used as an office.

I adore both R.A. and her father, and always look forward to seeing them.

Still, my heart is home in The Woods with James, who stays behind to take care of the cat and the place.

He’d accompany me on these trips to the Bay area if we were able to bring Rupert, but R.A.’s father has made it clear that he doesn’t want cats in his house. He is a retired veterinarian and saw his fill of pets during his long, successful career.

When R.A. first moved in with her father a couple of years ago, she brought her old cat Jazzy. It was sometimes incontinent and was kept in R.A.’s quarters upstairs, which was the only real alternative but not an optimum one “for man or beast”.

When Jazzy passed on, Morrie said something along the lines of “Never again!” as far as cats were concerned.

So James stays home with our puss, while I work intensely with the orchestra and shuttle back and forth to San Jose from Wednesday through Sunday.

Sometimes Morrie cooks dinner for us, and other times R.A. and I grab a bite out, or I buy a few things at the grocery store to nibble on. I made R.A. peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on two occasions. Other sandwiches over the course of the week included sprouts and tofu, and tuna. This was often supplemented with carrots, apples, pretzels and a little cheese.

On Saturday evening before our first concert, Morrie made us shrimp louie salad, accompanied by a fresh, crusty baguette. I supplemented this with ready-made veggie minestroni soup from the store deli. This nice. light meal sent R.A. and me off to San Jose in good style.

I don’t like to eat heavy foods before performances. I’ll leave it to your imagination to think of why this might be so, for a horn player — or any wind player for that matter.

This gives you an idea of the food I eat when I’m away from James’ excellent cooking. It’s fine, and particularly good when Morrie cooks, but I’m always glad to return home. Yes, I’m very spoiled!

I arrived back In The Woods late Sunday night, after a successful week with Symphony Silicon Valley. It was wonderful to see James (and Rupert) again, enveloped by peace and quiet and the smell of pine trees, and to sleep in my own bed.

I woke up the next day, exhausted from expending all that energy down in the “flatlands”. But it was a good kind of tired — a satisfaction which comes from a job well done.

However, I didn’t have much time to rest; James and I have been busily working on various recorder arrangements and compositions for the local recorder group in Nevada City.

I have been expanding some of my recorder duets for the larger ensemble. One piece requires eight players and two other pieces use seven. I had finished the largest one last week, and completed another at R.A.’s over the weekend. Then I worked most of Monday and Tuesday on the next piece, which I finished in time for last night’s rehearsal.

We recently bought a basic black&white laser printer, which is fine for music. I’m very pleased with its output; the music score and parts look professional.

I printed out the three pieces yesterday before we went down to “Big Town” for our weekly Wednesday grocery shopping/errands and recorder rehearsal in the evening.

We rehearsed at one of the member’s homes, which was a treat. Hostess Vanessa was gracious and accommodating. Eight of us set up in her living room (the furniture was pushed back) and rehearsed director Richard’s arrangement of “Carmina Burana”. Each movement calls for different combinations of recorders, and he wanted to add harp and hurdy-gurdy to some sections.

So I brought my small 26-string lap harp, which has a wonderful bell-like, “folky” tone perfect for recorders and Renaissance music.

But Vanessa’s hurdy-gurdy stole the show. What a fascinating instrument! Its concept began in the 13th Century. I had never seen or heard one before. This ancient instrument is difficult to explain, but I will say that it’s basically a rectangular wooden box, about two feet long, ten inches deep and ten inches high. It has a drone sort of like a bagpipe’s and has four strings, and is operated by a crank on the side.

In fact it sounds rather like a bagpipe, but is much more subdued — thank goodness! Some of the movements in Carmina Burana are perfect for the sound of the hurdy-gurdy, and Vanessa got very excited when she was able to play the melody, after we helped her tune a couple of the notes which needed to be changed to fit the key of the piece.

I enjoyed alternating between tenor recorder and the harp. It just so happened that the movements which didn’t call for tenor work out well on the harp.

The time flew by quickly during this creative process. Before the rehearsal ended, director Richard wanted to make sure we had a chance to play through one of my compositions, so I put on the CD of the computer-generated score in order for the players to get a rough idea what the three pieces sounded like.

I was pleased at the positive reception, but even more pleased when we played through one of the selections. I’ve composed various pieces over the years, duets mostly, so it was a real treat to hear these musicians play a composition with seven parts.

In fact, I was almost overwhelmed with emotion.

Obviously, they enjoyed playing the piece, “Hymn”, which had started out as a duet shortly after my mother died in 2005. It has sort of a churchly flavor, like a quiet organ in the lower register. I’m hoping that it will eventually become a best-seller, when James and I get our recorder music website going.

Richard wants us to perform it at our upcoming Spring concert in late May. I feel very honored.

I am excited about the prospect of having my compositions performed with this group, and possibly with an even larger recorder ensemble which Richard directs in the Bay Area. James and I plan to attend their Spring concert in Berkeley on April 19th, to hear what the group sounds like. We may join them when their new season starts in the Fall.

If time permits at next Wednesday’s rehearsal, we’ll play through my other two pieces. Richard expressed interest in including another of them on the Spring concert program. So there may be two compositions by Cameron on that performance, which is exciting.

I was gratified to see that he (along with the others) seem enthusiastic about having a “resident composer” in their midst.

Actually, TWO resident composers — James has some wonderful recorder compositions too. They are quite different from mine in that they start out as arrangements of various jazz and pop songs, but are adapted and modified so that they have become original pieces.

I can hardly wait for the group to play James’ version of “Corcovado” (Quiet Nights) when he finishes it. The piece takes its roots from a version performed by Engelbert Humperdinck — jazzy, upbeat and corny, and I think that the recorder players will love it!

Ah, the Vernal Equinox arrived early today. It’s wonderful to experience the upsurge of new Spring energy.

It’s going to be a busy season — full of rehearsals and concerts with symphony orchestras in Sacramento, Modesto and Nevada City, as well as our activities with the recorder group — not to mention all the MANY projects which need doing here In The Woods!

More about what’s going on In The Woods in my next post….