Category Archives: Music

2025, animals, Gatherings, Music, Nature, Uncategorized

Don’t Pet The Fluffy Cows

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Yesterday we left the house at 7:15 am to drive to Medora. Our church bell choir had a gig at the Congregational Church there. Medora is a little town just outside Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the heart of the ND Badlands. It is full of tourists and tourist attractions. The church only has services in the summer now, with guest pastors each week. It is a small, one room church with about 20 pews.

On the way there, we saw a couple of Forest Service trucks on the side of the road near a deep ditch. There were about four guys there, along with a big bison. We gathered that the bison had somehow got through the very tall fence that marks the park boundary along the interstate. The fence is presumably high enough to keep the elk and bison from jumping over. I wouldn’t want to have the task of herding an angry bison, intent on roaming, back through the fence. They are fierce creatures. I don’t understand why any sane person would think they could walk up to one and pet it.

We encountered another wild creature once we made it to the church. The preacher for the day was a well-known local Lutheran minister, retired now, with a reputation for being a real character. The mild mannered librarian in our bell choir muttered “Oh s##t” when she saw his name in the bulletin. She has known him since she was a young adult and had him as a pastor for a while. He is a kind, gracious and well-intentiond man, but one who is all over the place in terms of his sermons and impulsive changes to the liturgy. He would be as hard to manage at a church council meeting as that bison in the ditch would be. He named several people sitting in the pews told and anecdotes about them and their familes (including the librarian) from years past, somehow connecting them to the theme of his sermon. His sermon didn’t run over the time allotted, though, and he only digressed from the order of service in the bulletin a couple of times.

On the drive home we saw the forest service trucks along with a Sherriff’s Department truck a mile or so west of where we saw them on the way to Medora. I guess the bison was still on the move. I hope they can get it back through the fence without anyone getting hurt.

What up close and personal experiences have you had with wildlife? Who are some characters in your life?

2025, Family, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

First Instrument

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Our 7 year old grandson has taken a keen interest in his mother’s Ibanez acoustic guitar, and spends up to an hour at a time trying to pick out chords and play tunes on it. His dad taught him the tune “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica that he likes to pluck out.

Grandson isn’t big enough for a full size guitar, so yesterday we went to Sioux Falls and got him a three-quarter size Yamaha guitar. It fits him really well, and has just the right sized neck and fretboard. He is very excited! His parents have been in touch with a Brookings guitar teacher and are going to sign him up for lessons this week. His new sibling will arrive in August, and he will need something to keep him occupied when all the attention is on the new little one.

My first instrument after the piano was a B flat clarinet. Son had a trombone. Daughter was so excited to get her French Horn in Grade 5 that she marched around the block blasting on it. The first time she saw a violin that a friend had brought over to the house to jam with Husband, she almost wrestled him to the ground to get it away from him. She was 5. Husband set up violin lessons for her the next day. Husband had a cello, and still has one he loves to play. Daughter in law is a piano and flute player.

Grandson assures me that practicing won’t be a problem. We shall see. It is lovely, though, to have another musician in the family.

What was your first instrument? If you are an older sibling, how did you adjust to your younger siblings’ arrival. If you have older siblings, how did they react to your arrival?

2025, Medicine, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

How’s That Again?

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We live-stream Classical MPR from our computer in the study. I drilled a hole in the wall that separates the study from the living room so that we could put a speaker wire through the wall and have a speaker play music into the living room. It works swell, although the volume control is on another speaker on top of the piano in the study. Sometimes it isn’t loud enough. My ears have been pretty plugged up due to spring pollens, and it is sometimes hard for me to hear well.

The other day I was sitting in the living room listening to MPR play a Beethoven Piano Concerto. The volume wasn’t as loud as I would have liked, but I was too lazy to get up and go into the study to crank it up. It was a lovely performance, and I was surprised to hear the announcer say at the end of the recording that the pianist was Elton John. Well, of course Sir Elton can play the piano, but I never heard that he had entered the classical sphere. I double checked the play list and saw that the pianist was actually a Chinese pianist named Huang Tiange. I don’t know how I translated that name into Elton John, but I think it was the way the last name was pronounced. I had a good giggle thinking about all the other absurd and wonderful combinations of people and activities I could think of, like Mick Jagger’s preschool curriculum. I need to take more Sudafed so this doesn’t happen again!

What have you misheard, and when have you been misunderstood? What are some weird and wonderful people and activity pairings that you can think up?

2025, animals, Farming Update, Music, Mysteries, Nature, Uncategorized

Who???

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I heard on the radio the band ‘The Who’ is beginning their farewell tour. I thought back in 2016 they were on their farewell tour. Which isn’t anything new, the Rolling Stones are still out there and how many farewell tours have they had. Anyone seen the Stones? 

I saw The Who in 1982. I think it was my second big rock concert and as an 18-year-old, driving with a State Farm atlas in my lap from Rochester up to the big city of St Paul and the St Paul Civic Center, it was a pretty big deal. I’m sure my folks were concerned sending me out into the world like that, even if it was just two hours away. I know I’ve told the story before but I like to brag about it so I’m gonna say it again: My first rock concert was Queen 1982, when Freddie Mercury was still strutting around the stage. My brother says Queen was the warm-up act when he saw the band Chicago right after Bohemian Rhapsody had come out.

So I set the bar quite high to have Queen and The Who as my first rock concerts. I know I have programs from them both, might even have tickets stubs in a drawer somewhere. And that’s when you had to go to a ticket office on the second floor of Dayton‘s department store. I feel like I found out about both of these fairly late so it’s not like I was waiting at the doors the first day tickets went on sale and a bunch of us rushed to the window. And then I found out you could call in to get tickets, so you called, getting the busy signal, hung up, and called again. In 1986 when tickets for Pink Floyd went on sale at the old Metrodome, I was home sick in bed and Kelly, while at work, was able to call and get tickets for us.

I digress.

The Who on a farewell tour.

They were well past their prime in 2016 and I decided I was not gonna remember that concert, I was gonna remember the 1982 concert.

You probably all remember the rock opera Tommy, and a really bad movie that was made after that. I always liked the Quadrophenia album better. Pete Townshend, the arm-windmilling guitarist, is married to Rachel Fuller. A singer-songwriter, musician, and composer. Together they created an  orchestral version of Quadrophenia and I recently saw it’s a ballet in England. I enjoy the sound of an orchestra behind a rock band. And the climactic final song of Quadrophenia called “Love Reign O’er Me“ sung by a full throated, powerful opera singer like Alfie Boe, is really something.

How long should you keep doing something?

I am sure they don’t need the money, and if you love it, and you are able to do it, I guess you should keep doing it, right? I mean should I quit farming because I’m “too old“? But I’m not farming in front of tens of thousands and charging an obscene amount of money for people to come see me struggle to climb up into the tractor and make crooked rows across the field.

But I’ll be skipping this tour.

Farming.

I’ve finished all my spring work. Although I am remembering now I’m supposed to plow up a couple fields and plant some corn as deer food plots for a neighbor. I kind of forgot about that. But the important fields, the ones that I’m trying to make money and survive on, they’re done.

I was hoping to finish soybeans last Tuesday, which is still two weeks later than all the neighbors, but… life.

It rained just enough on Tuesday that I had to quit. Once the dirt starts getting sticky, which only takes a couple of hundreds, it sticks to the gauge wheels on the planter. The gauge wheels control the depth of the seed, and sticking an extra half inch of dirt on the wheels changes the planting depth, and you’ve heard me say before, the depth is pretty critical. I  quit for a little while.

I spent most of Monday out working up all the ground, me and Bailey, and was a little bit sad to be done. Only because I enjoy my time in the tractor. The next morning I realized I had forgotten a field. So while it was a little bit too sticky to plant, it wasn’t too muddy to do fieldwork. Bailey and I got another hour of tractor time.

And then later on Tuesday I was able to go out again and I planted until 9:30 PM when it was again raining lightly and I was out of seed. I finished planting Friday afternoon. I started going over the fields with the drag, just like I did with the Oats, but the point of this is to smooth it out so that the combine header, when harvesting the soybeans, can ride as low as possible. Because soybeans pods will grow very low to the ground.

I had my last event at the college on Thursday evening. Tuesday will be my last day and I can haul out the garbage, and lock up cabinets, and take the rest of the summer off. So to speak.

The question was asked why my eggs are different colors. It’s different breeds. Some breeds of chickens lay white eggs, some brown eggs, and then there’s a couple breeds that lay the green eggs. I have Araucana’s.

Got the chicks outside and they’re enjoying that.

ORCHESTRAL ROCK MUSIC? DO THE STONES HAVE MOSS?

2025, Food, Gatherings, Music, Uncategorized

Sing For Your Supper

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The church choir year is winding down for us, and I couldn’t be happier. We have sang and rang bells since September, and now have one more service to ring at next Sunday. Then we are done for the summer.

There are only eighteen active musicians at our church, plus two organists. Many of us perform in both the choir and the bell ensemble. We are a rather large congregation with around 500 members, but it is only we few who keep the music going. That gets a little disappointing and exhausting at times. The congregation is quite thrilled with the music we provide.

We were pretty tickled at choir last week to hear that a congregation member who is a rancher wanted to thank the musicians for all our work, and donated 100 lbs of ground beef from his own cows to us. It came in 2 pound packages and had been processed at a butcher shop in Belfield, a little town just west of Dickinson. It was a rather unusual gift, but certainly heartfelt. It was also a reminder that we truly live in the West. We will all be fortified to start in again after our summer off.

What are your experiences in music ensembles? What are your favorite bird songs?

2025, animals, Family, Music, Nature, Uncategorized

Animal Sounds

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I have always loved the music of Sibelius, and was tickled to hear that he described the third movement of his violin concerto as “a polonaise for polar bears”. What a visual! It is a sort of lumbering piece. I also love the pieces he has done that are inspired by swans.

Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf are family favorites. Many composers were inspired by animals, like Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending. Satie wrote about a dreamy fish, and Scarlatti wrote a keyboard sonata called the Cat Sonata. Vivaldi wrote about the goldfinch. Then, of course, there is Gershwin:

What are your favorite animal-inspired musical pieces or songs?

2025, animals, Farming Update, home, Media, Music, Nature, Uncategorized

Down The Hole

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Today’s Farming Update is from Ben.

I was listening to a jazz station the other day and a song came on that I remembered.

“Li’l Darlin’”, a 1958 song by Neil Hefti for the Count Basie Orchestra. And I recall hearing it late nights on MPR with Leigh Kamman and the Jazz Image. I went down an internet rabbit hole looking up Leigh and the Jazz Image. He has a Wikipedia page. He even has a website created by his daughter and others.

https://www.leighkamman.com/

He was on MPR for 34 years, in radio for 65 years.

Born in Minnesota in1922, he grew up in central Minnesota, and spent time during WWII in the Armed Forces Radio. The last edition of The Jazz Image was September 29, 2007, and he passed away in Edina, MN, at age 92 on Friday October 17, 2014. From the look of things, his contribution to jazz music is severely understated.

He used music of Alice Babs as his ‘filler music’. But Li’l Darlin must have been in there somewhere, how else would I have known it? And that led me to Count Basie, and a recording by the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble, and down the hole I went. I had forgotten how poetic he was on the program. From a substack website by Tyler King called “From Astaire to Sun Ra: A Jazz Journey”, there’s are quotes from some of his broadcasts: “wrapped in honey and floating on a cloud” or “Here we are in pursuit of a timber wolf howling across Miller’s Bay, Leach Lake; and we are headed to Star Route, Walker, Minnesota zip code 56484.” Pretty good imagery!

And in the words of Duke Ellington, “If it sounds good, it is good.”

Thanks for the memories, Mr. Kamman.

It must be spring as the college put out the ‘Ornery Goose’ seasonal email.

The college has several nesting geese. This one has moved to a new spot in the parking lot this year.

At home, I picked up the driveway markers, and I took off the rear blade, but I haven’t taken down the snow fence yet.

I have started picking up sticks, branches, and roots from the dirt work done last fall. It’s a little too muddy in places yet, especially with the rain and snow we’ve been getting lately, but there’s a lot to pick up and we’ll get them eventually.

And before it snowed and rained last week, I cleared a downed tree off the edge of a field and pushed brush back into the trees along the edge. Trying to keep nature at bay. Or least in its place. It’s a yearly battle.

The weather was so nice Friday evening, Kelly and I and the dogs sat out on the veranda for an hour. We didn’t have wine or even chairs; we just sat on the steps and talked and watched the chickens and the clouds and the world go round.

I’ve had three electricians working in the shop this week. One journeyman and two apprentices. There is so much planning and forethought required in this, it is one of those situations where I’m paying for his 20 years of practice, in addition to the 3 days of work. Look at the skill it takes to create concentric 90-degree bends. Plus, all the code requirements, and the cleanest way to get all the wires where they need to be with the least amount of conduit.

Part of me wonders why I hired this out and didn’t do it myself? All the aforementioned is why. Plus, he has a scissor lift.

I did pick up the lift early and mount the lights to the ceiling, and I’ll install the ceiling fans myself, but they’re doing the hard work.

It will be nice to have the large garage door opener hooked up, and outside lights when needed, and better inside lighting, and outlets all over, and a dedicated outlet for the air compressor, and two welder outlets! One inside, one outside!

Can’t wait. It’s gonna be SO COOL! And then really, I’m gonna stop spending money. On this.

I moved some tractors on Tuesday. I was going to hook up the big tractor to the soil finisher, my main spring implement, but decided it wasn’t quite time for that yet.

Moved the scrap metal tote outside so I can get to the grain drill. And it will be time to pick up seed shortly.

It’s interesting the chives growing wild are greening up, but the chives in the pot are not yet. The ground stays warmer than the cold air surrounding the pot I suppose is the reason.

JAZZ MUSIC IS THE THEME THIS WEEKEND

2025, education, Gatherings, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

School Dance

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Our community of 28,000 people has four Catholic churches and a very large parochial school system. The churches were originally started for and attended by the various immigrant groups who settled here. The Germans from Russia and the German Hungarians attended St. Joseph’s Church on the south side (less affluent section) of town by the railroad tracks and stockyards. The more affluent Czech immigrants attended St. Wenceslaus, north of the tracks, and the most affluent attended St. Patrick’s Church in the downtown area. The 1970’s oil boom led to a need for another church, Queen of Peace, built in the area of new houses near the interstate.

The Catholic School system has a big Mardi Gras celebration/fundraiser every your during the first weekend of February, ostensibly close to when Mardi Gras happens, although this year it was way earlier than Mardi Gras since Easter is so late this year. The festivities take place at the Catholic High School, just a block from our house. We have never attended, but I understand that every year it is the same with games of chance, big dinners, cakewalks, and fun activities for children. This year, however, they added something quite surprising-dance lessons.

Local dance teachers came to teach Line dancing and Swing dancing, and most surprising, Salsa dancing. We have a fair number of immigrants from Central and South America, and a group of them started a Salsa dance company that is apparently very popular and booked way out for for engagements. They also perform every December 12 at Queen of Peace in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I found a video of Salsa dancing, and it just doesn’t fit the conservative stereotype of our Catholic community.

Can you imagine this happening at a Mass? It sounds like everyone at Mardi Gras had fun learning the moves. What next?

What are your memories of school dances? What is your favorite way to dance?

2024, Gatherings, holidays, Music, Uncategorized

Whew!

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Yesterday was tiring but satisfying. We played in the bell choir at both morning church services, came home and packed up seven boxes of Dresden Stollen and cookies (one box had a Bremer Klaben instead of a stollen) and got them to the UPS store. We then played bells and sang at the annual Lessons and Carols service at our church in the afternoon. I got to read the Bidding Prayer again. By 5:00 PM we were done and free. We are heartily sick of being town musicians at Christmas.

By town musicians, I mean some of the few people who are active in the musical community in our small town. The majority of town musicians are affiliated in some way with our Lutheran church. Our local college had a vibrant and active music department with a band and a choir. They had music festivals for high school students and hosted lots of concerts. The recent college president decided that the music and theatre departments didn’t have enough student majors, so he closed them down last year. The Education department has enough music education majors and they need to have some sort of music going on, so they have a band of one person and a choir of six singers. Our bell choir played with them two weeks ago at a Christmas concert in the college student center. Had our bell choir not been there, it wouldn’t have been much of a concert. I should add that the decision by the college president was so unpopular he quit. I don’t think they will reinstate the music department, though.

The Lessons and Carols service was lovely, and our church music director had a local classical guitarist, someone I had never heard of, play the following piece.

The guitarist appears to be Spanish. I have no idea how he got to North Dakota, but it was delightful to hear him. We have only one more vocal choir performance next Sunday, and no rehearsals this week, so we are free to relax and chill. Christmas hysteria is over, at least in our house. I may need to order more classical guitar recordings, though.

What musical instrument would you like to hear more of? How is the Christmas hysteria at your abode?

2024, History, Movies, Music, Uncategorized

Our Song

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I am not too sure why I started thinking about Dr. Zhivago last week, but I did, and that led to memories of our Italian landlords in Winnipeg.

Angela and Emilio lived in a modest home not too far from the University, and when the house next to them came up for sale, they snatched it up. It was a very tiny, two bedroom home with a large enclosed porch and a nice sized garden in the back. There was an alley that ran in the back, and an unattached garage.

Emilio and Angela were from Calabria and immigrated to Canada in the mid 1960’s. Emilio was a ceramic tile layer and flooring guy. He had invented and perfected a way of laying tile that made him the fastest in the city. He wouldn’t let anyone watch him work because he didn’t want anyone else to learn his method. Angela was a homemaker. They bought the house next door out of an Italian desire to be able to control who lived near them. We were their first renters.

Angela told me that Emilio immigrated first, before they married, and she followed several months later. They married in Winnipeg. She told me her first impression of Winnipeg flying over the city was that the rows and rows of houses looked like rows of grave stones in a cemetery. She said that Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago was “their song” since it spoke of lovers finding a place where they could be together. I thought that quite sweet. They managed to make a good life for themselves.

What are your favorite romantic movies? Did you ever have a song that you considered yours?