Christmas Letter 2011


Can't say that Mother Nature (in her broadest sense) has been kind to us this year. She's been rather brutal. Glacial winter, infernal summer, storms, drought, pestilence, it's like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse came a calling.

We started the year setting records for both snowfall and cold. We had an 18" snow (with drifts much higher) and a few miles away a state record low of -31° was set. I know any Yankees among you will scoff at such, but that's pretty serious stuff for us poor southern folk. Actually, it brings back memories of my childhood in North Dakota. We used to laugh ourselves silly hearing southerners complain of "bone chilling" colds of +20°. Where I was, when it got up to 0° we'd roll up our shirtsleeves and go out and have a picnic. I have vivid memories of walking 5 miles to school, uphill - both ways, in raging blizzards and plowing through snow drifts up over my chin. And thinking nothing of it. These wimps down here, get a couple inches of snow on the ground and school's out for a week.

You'd think, after a winter like that, we'd get a break and have a pleasant summer, but Noooooooooooooooooo............ We set records for heat and drought. Weeks of 100°++ weather with nary a cloud in site, topping out at 115° or so. We lost Redbud Island, which is now Redbud Peninsula. The garden melted and didn't produce enough to even pay the water bill. And bugs, the hotter it gets the more they seem to like it. It hasn't been fun. But I digress: It was a white knuckle spring, constant reports of severe storms and tornadoes kept us on the edge of our seats with our fingers crossed.

When fall finally arrived we wondered, "What could be next?" Earthquakes of course. Last year we had a small quake, and this fall we had several more, one of which set a record at 5.6. Several of these were strong enough to cause significant damage near the epicenters. Oh -- and did we mention the record setting early killing freeze that wiped out the summer garden just as it was finally starting to recover and produce again? Sometimes things just suck!

It's finally started to rain a bit. Maybe the return of Redbud Island will be our Christmas present.

We hope you all are doing well. We wish you Merry Christmas, a joyous Holiday Season, and all the best for the coming year.
 
 
P.S. It's Christmas Eve, we've had ice then a bit of snow in the last week. In digital terms, Mother Nature got out her snow brush and painted the landscape at 50% opacity and density. Sun's popping in and out, temperature's struggling upward, the icicles are melting, I say the odds are about 50/50 whether tomorrow morning we wake up to some kind of semi, quasi, demi, or other white Christmas.

Farm Report

Trish got to play mother hen this year -- literally. We adopted three baby chicks this spring and they were our house guests for several weeks. They started out in a washtub, and then checked into the Chick Chalet we put together in the living room. I'll have to admit, they were entertaining to watch. Then I built them a baby house and pen for them so they could move outside and still be separate from the Big Four. Finally they graduated into the Real World, the Big House and commingling with the Big Four. They've since become fine little egg layers.

While we're on the subject of birds: We got to watch the "Great Goose Migration" again. The grass was a little bit taller this year, and we could just barely see the little heads bobbing above the grass. Crazy little wrens build their nests in the darnedest places. Trish had a frantic mama wren scream at her the entire time she was mowing the pasture. We later discovered she'd built her nest under the running board of the tractor. They've built their nests in the spare tire and the battery well of the trailer. Fortunately the babies were flown by the time we had to take the trailer out. They build them in barbeques and old cans. They always build them in the barn and mama has a terrible time coaxing the little ones out of it into the real world. And then we had a phoebe build her nest over one of the floodlights on the house. So we had to avoid turning on the light for a few weeks to avoid fried phoebe fledglings. Also, every few years we get a BBB invasion a la Alfred Hitchcock: the invaders are Birds, very Black, and there are Billions of them -- sufficient to darken the skies. It's eerie, even creepy.

Construction Report

I built a bunch of shelves in the basement, garage, and barn to stuff our stuff. Too late I've realized, if you're not careful, you don't own your stuff, it owns you. We started on the interior of the garage and got the walls insulated, sheet rocked, mudded, and painted. I seem to be slowing down exponentially with age. If I finish this house before I die it will truly be a miracle.

Music Report

We continue to do occasional informal gigs at the local Senior Center and other venues. The weather for our spring rendezvous was marginal so we did most of our picking inside. The weather for our fall rendezvous was gorgeous, the best we've had since our very first rendezvous so we picked almost exclusively outside. We built a big campfire, and picked until the wee hours under a glorious harvest moon. Now that's the way rendezvous are supposed to be! Trish -- as reigning Songbird and Bassist Extraordinaire of Osage Country -- continues to be in high demand. At Winfield, she fell in with a group of super swing players and was in music heaven all week long; and was begged/pleaded/cajoled to play with bands on Stage 2 and the infamous Stage 5. If you're tone deaf - or otherwise musically tolerant - check out our new Cacophony page. Can't promise you'll be glad you did, but there's always hope!


Anyone passing this way is always welcome to drop in and sit a spell. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season and we wish you all the best for the coming year.