What can I say about today?

I can't really think of a good title at all for today's post. I don't even know what to say about today, but Nin got me think about some of the famous/semi-famous people I've met (not that I am some great friend of anyone, or have even met people that most everyone else knows-just famous people to me and my kind of ilk I guess) and who I would love to meet.

Now, let's say this first and foremost--I am a lover of blue-grass, old fashioned country, Christian, classical, and any number of other kinds of music that most people don't listen to a whole lot. I don't know most of the music other people my age listen to because Classical Public radio was played in my house from when I was tiny to even today (I don't tend to have the radio on much at my house now, but we almost always have Minnesota Public Radio playing in the gallery).

Soooo . . . I have met various people from different old jug bands from the Twin Cities and that also includes meeting Koerner, Ray, and Glover because my dad used to be in a jug band back in the 60's called Mama's Home Cooking (he played the washtub bass). They have the Battle of the Jug Bands every year down in Minneapolis and my dad always goes to see a bunch of his old friends. Of course, back when I first went to the Battle it was in a VFW (I guess it was an American Legion-according to the history on their site) Hall in Minneapolis and now it has moved to a much fancier location (I haven't been to it since I was in high school though).

Me and Sherwin Linton

I have met Sherwin Linton. He plays all over the state of MN and SD and other places. He and his wife and their band are out playing all over most of the year. He emcees our county fair's talent show every year and I have been known to go up on stage and try to make a bit of a fool of myself strumming my guitar and singing. He seemed to think that I have an alright kind of a voice (my guitar skills need a lot of work, though, I think). Anyway, he knows all sorts of people in the music business as well, including being friends with the Cash family.

Dan and I have been to a couple of Michael Martin Murphy's (caution-music starts playing when you go to this page) concerts. He always is really nice and talks to everyone after the show. (His most famous hit was Wildfire, but he has done a bunch more that people would recognize.) We have a CD of his in which Paulette Carlson sings back up on a couple of songs. Paulette grew up around here and even though I have never met her I worked for her brother and his wife at an apple orchard just a ways from here.

I have been able to shake hands with Osmo Vanska, Lori Line, and the Riders in the Sky. (I have been trying to make the links to these last two here and I am not being allowed to do it. grrr, so you'll just have to look them up if you're interested in them)

Oh, and here's a silly story. Last month, we went down to a graduation party for my cousin's son and I asked my dad to drive around and show me how to get to my grandparent's old place because I couldn't remember how to get there (since I couldn't drive back when they used to live there and couldn't remember the way). We ended up driving into the neighborhood and stopped at an old neighbor of my dad's house. He restores old, old cars (the kind that look more like a buggy than a car) and he had a bunch sitting outside, so we chatted with him for a while. Come to find out that Jay Leno had been at his house the weekend before us. He had been doing an act at one of the casinos North of the Cities and had heard about this guy, so he called him up on his way to the airport and asked to pop in to look at his cars. If only the graduation party had been a week earlier, we would have been there at the same time.

So anyway, those have been my brushes with fame and glory (sound the church bells). Not much in the whole scheme of things, I suppose, but still fun for me!

Someday, though, I would really like to meet and actually chat with Randy Travis. He has led such an interesting life. I would love to meet any number of people, though, I suppose, but I am a true Minnesota girl and try not to bother people if at all possible and figure they would rather not have some little weirdo like me bothering them.

Well, have a great day!

1930's Wife and a Little House!

Well, I'm not quite as bad a wife as I thought I was--(even though I do hate to wash the dishes)

86 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

In other news, Dan and I went to go see Little House on the Prairie (the musical) last night at the Guthrie. It was the second preview night before it opens in a couple of weeks and it is also the premier of the musical with Melissa Gilbert playing Ma.

I heard about it back in late May/early June and thought that I would love to be able to go and see it. I haven't been to a fancy play production since college (although, I did go to the Opera a few years back at the Ordway because my oldest brother was in it--Rigoletto (he didn't play Rigoletto or anything, but it was his first opera as a member of the ensemble (or was it his first? now I can't remember offhand). I went to the old Guthrie back then and saw Much Ado about Nothing (at least that's what I think I saw) with a bunch of my drama friends.

Anyway, Dan thought that he would get us a couple of tickets for my birthday. The tickets went on sale the weekend before my birthday, so we went online and got them (or actually, I went online. Dan doesn't really ever use a computer). Since then I have been excited to go see the musical. We were just a few rows back on the right side of the stage, so we got to see everything nice and close up. It was exciting for me to see Melissa Gilbert in real life (of course, I would have loved to have met her).

My Stetson Man

I also kept thinking before the play that it would have been really cool if her husband, Bruce Boxleitner (I just love the show Scarecrow and Mrs. King and he is also in a fair amount of cool Western movies), would have been there just watching the play like us and then would have come up to Dan and I (because Dan was wearing his usual belt buckle and summer straw cowboy hat along with the leather belt he made) and said something like, "Hey where did you get that leather belt? (or make mention on the beautiful leather purse I was carrying)" and then we would say, "Oh that, Dan made it. He makes all sorts of these kinds of things."



Of course, none of that happened, but gosh-golly-gee it was some good fun going down to the big city to see the world premier of a brand new musical starring Melissa Gilbert! (Okay, we might live in rural MN, but we are only about an hour and a half from the Guthrie--not soooo far)

Ruby Tuesday

Hey, this post has nothing to do with the restaurant (in fact, I never been to a Ruby Tuesday--I've been to TGI Friday's and Applebee's, but never a Ruby Tuesday) nor have I recently acquired a gem mining operation. I don't even own any kind of jewelry with rubies in it (although I do have a necklace with little red glass bead things on it), but it is Tuesday and the song came into my head.

****Warning, this is a bit of a rambling post with no real point to it, but if you want to know what's been up in my life--Read on . . . ****

This past week has been warm, it has also been kinda pretty here and there and I've done a few different things. I will get to them in just a bit, but first let me say a sad little item. If you want you can skip this little emotive piece of stuff and just start reading after the pictures.

It happened a month ago, but it made me very sad and I just didn't know how to say it. You know those precious baby kittens that I posted pictures of--(I always tell myself I shouldn't get so attached to precious babes like that, but I can't help myself)--Well, one day a month ago Dan came running up to the house to telly me that my most favorite little fluff ball was laying in the barn nearly dead, so I ran down, picked up that limp little body and got some liquid and milk replacer down her and she perked up quite nicely. I had her sleep in a little cat carrier in our room for the next couple of days and fed her every little while. She was starting to regain her energy, when all of a sudden one morning when I was feeding her she just died--I cried and cried. She was the sweetest little thing. Well, that same morning two of her siblings (who had been very active and doing well) got very weak and died. We ended up losing 4 of the 5 kittens in about a week's time and I was very sad about it. The symptoms they had were nothing like the common diseases that our kittens have normally had when they have died suddenly, so I think it must have been some congenital defect or something--I just can't figure it out. These little kittens were much smaller than other ones that were born about the same time. In fact the night before these ones died a friend brought some that were about the same age to live at our house (they were never exposed to the other kittens, so it couldn't have been anything that they brought with them) and they are way bigger than the ours. Anyway, of our first little batch of babies that I petted, cared for, and loved to the full all we have left is little Hank.

He's just a precious little ball of fur and now he has five other siblings that play with him and cuddle up with him, thankfully.

At the moment I only have two really good pictures of a kitten a piece, but I will tell you all of their names--Mike, Molly, Mabel, Tom, and Jerry.

Little Miss Mabel looking out the barn door

Little Miss Molly lounging in the barn.

Okay, that sad item took way longer than it should have to talk about. I ramble and ramble sometimes, but I do love my little kitties (and all our animals really) and even though I grew up on this little farm and have had to deal with pets and farm animals dying most of my life, I have a bit of a tender heart. (Don't worry we are well acquainted with our local vet and we make sure our animals get the care that they need--I've been helping give shots to animals since I was in my teens)

Anway, I have also picked beans and peas from the garden . . .

Yellow and green beans, with a pea or two stuck in for good measure!

I call this one-On the Vine-Sugar snap peas are so pretty!

Dan and I went to his aunt and uncle's house for a birthday party. They own an old farm place near this little lake about 1/2 an hour from our place. You walk down this long driveway and come up to the lake where they have an old cabin from, oh, probably the 30's and the part they own is undeveloped whereas the rest of the lake is full of cabins, homes, beaches, and docks. (His aunt's husband's family has owned the property for generations--they even have the original farmhouse back in the woods a ways--I plan to get some good pictures of it sometime, but the mosquitoes were nasty that night and I didn't think traveling further into the woods would be a good idea!)

The sun was shining on the lake real prettily that evening!

On our walk back up to the house I stood back a little ways and took a few shots of Dan, his brother, and his two cousins.

Cord, Tim, Dan and Jason

(I have and idea this picture will be one that his aunt and uncle will especially want to have--their son Cord (he's almost 12) loves hanging out and being one of the big guys and this shows that really well!)

Sooo . . . in lieu of a recent picture

I picked strawberries this morning (my third time this year) at a local farm that has pick your own and decided it was about time I stole my dad's digital camera to take some pictures of kittens and strawberry stuff and the garden, so I did, BUT the little flash card was here at gallery and not in the camera and there are no pictures to show of the exciting goings on at my house (or even of the pile of dirty dishes awaiting me when I get home).

Sooooooo . . .

The first picture my parent's took when they bought our farm house in 1972. It is still the same basic L-shape farm house, but there have been a lot of changes and none of them are finished yet. (Because that is the way it is will old farmhouses-the projects that you are working on never seem to end (we still haven't finished re-siding our house that we started almost 6 years ago (although I don't ever really remember our house being white as it was resided with a gray siding when I was 1)

This picture was taken last Spring. the outbuilding all used to be white with red trim (and I vaguely remember that, but for a few different summers my older brothers had jobs repainting everything red with white trim---more my style as I love the color red)

Oh, there is one recent picture (and this is the reason there wasn't a card in the camera (I took it out so I could upload this picture and send it off))

An old friend from college is getting married at the end of the month and had designed a nice little logo for all of their invites and so on and so forth. He remembered that I knew something about metal stuff (did I tell you I used to work in a bronze foundry doing waxwork one year? That's where I met my husband, Dan. (it's a small foundry that does work for artists and Dan still works there)) and sent me an email wondering if I could make them a medallion for their wedding. Anyway, this is what it looks like in wax. I sent it with Dan this morning to the foundry to get it made into bronze (that's a whole other process-maybe I'll explain it sometime, but it gets a bit tedious) and it should be done by the end of the month.