Young banjo player

A bittersweet day today...
My wonderful little banjo student of the past two and a half years came for his last lesson today. I sent him off with his last lesson under his belt, my two favorite banjo books, and my favorite banjo CDs under his arm. His family is moving across the country to the west coast, following a golden opportunity that will be wonderful for their whole family. His mother takes mountain dulcimer lessons with me, so she will be gone as well.

It has been a true privilege and to know and teach this absolutely delightful young man. I will miss him deeply, but I'm happy for him too- their destination is a place with many wonderful things to offer and many fine musicians and artists.Goodbye and God speed, my dear little friend!

Little visitor

This morning as I started to work in my upstairs home office, something caught the corner of my eye. A little brown bat was peacefully hanging from my office window curtain. I'm not sure how he got into the house, but I was happy to get the chance to photograph him briefly.



I loved his soft looking shaggy lion's mane, and his little dog snout. After the last photo closeup, he took off flying about the upstairs rooms. At one point he landed on my banjo hanging on the wall, clinging to the strings. That would have made a great photo, but he took off again quickly and landed on the floor. That's when I dropped a towel over him, gathered it up gently, and escorted him outside. He was making those wonderful bat sounds in the towel- squeaking and clicking. I opened the towel out on the kitchen porch and away he flew, happy to be free again.

morning garden

Here are some pix I took of the new vegetable garden this morning, before the sun was all the way up.

Here you can see our little kitchen back porch on the left, down the little hill from the garden:

A view from the far end of the garden. The bed in the forground will have blueberry bushes next Spring:

It makes me happy to see the little bright green rows of baby seedlings:

Vegetable seedlings in the new garden

New 'baby pictures'...

Butterhead lettuce:


Carrots:


Beets:


Spinach:


Radish:


Multi-colored Romain lettuce: