A Beautiful Summer Season!

I've got three pints of Mutha Sauce a rattling in the canner, a decent habanero crop on the picnic table and plans to definitely purchase some rubber gloves while handling these babies tomorrow. Summer was wonderful at Stillwater! Many kayakers, campers, hikers from everywhere as always.The Stillwater Fire Tower has been refurbished an I have had the chance to hike it twice this summer. I played pretty much every Saturday night on the Stillwater Deck, And also at the Brackel in Mcdonough, The Pine Tree in Brantingham, The #10 and The Colgate Inn in Hamilton as well as my hospital gigs in Norwich, Herkimer and The Oxford Vets Home in Oxford. Bob Hankey (the owner of Big Moose Inn a few years back who now resides in Thailand and invited me to play in Thailand but unfortunately I have this cataract in my right eye that needs to come out. Pretty disappointed to give up this opportunity. I'm ready for a break but have a few more things lined up at the Country Club in Norwich and the Stillwater Wine dinner party. Then some time for recording. It's been 3 years since my last CD. I have a bunch of new tunes pretty much ready to go. Just need to put the blinder on and focus! So back to habaneros! Holy Hell HOT!

Campsite 1038 Sunny South Hamilton

Now that I've finally found some time..here are some shots from the annual Brown family summer stay cation here at 1038 Campsite South Hamilton

Summer Stay-cation

Crazy busy is all I can say. Loving and living the dream. Gardening, kayaking, Working Stillwater and playing a respectable amount of gigs. One never knows who you will meet at Stillwater! I was requested by a couple who winters in Florida and summers in Lake Placid at the Still a few weeks ago. A wonderful couple who made it totally worth my while to travel up and play while they had dinner. Then a hospital gig in Herkimer, The Brackel then home. This Saturday I'll be at the Big Moose Station then back to Stillwater. Working weekends and stay-cationing during the week. Summer is spinning by so fast that already I'm dead heading my day lilies and cutting back the host shoots.The garlic has been harvested and the yellow beans are out of control! Last night I finally made time and invited my dear friends and neighbors over for a Mexican pizza happy hour on the front porch. I hope to get a few more of these in before the snow flies. Cheers!

Springtime Peepers

Spring has finally arrived in a cold, wet dress of rain, all muddy green with fog. So very grateful to have made it through winter and also grateful for a fine winter season up at Stillwater. The Easter decorations are back in their boxes and shelved and the leftover lamb cassoulet is in the freezer for another time. Last July 3rds blow down is stacked yet again from the back yard into the shed because it's April 8th and still the wood stove burns. In the craggy branches of the seven ancient maples that guard my home are the springtime starlings busy with nest building and new blue maple syrup lines have replaced the hooded, tin sap buckets and connect my trees like a dot to dot emptying the clear sugary sap into a large orange barrel that sits on the corner. Sparky and Sparkle, my two grey squirrels are still doing their acrobatics at the bird feeders and wouldn't you know the spring peepers are migrating up and out of their cold, muddy dens and out into winter's last patches of snow. The green is ever so slowly appearing in the lawns and fields and a tinge of red hue budding in the underbrush and the yonder horizon of woods. Around five o clock each evening a large herd of thirty to sixty deer climb the hill kitty corner from my house and graze on the unharvested soybeans from last fall...very skinny but beautifully silhouetted before they run into the night, flicking their white tails and kicking up their hooves. So happy to survive to see spring.

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The Shock

I'm sitting in the Hilton Hotel in Albany after having a short walking tour of the states capital, the Egg and a few other historical buildings. Completely out of my element. We are having a Brown family holiday and rented three small, cozy cabins on Fish Creek in a dilapidated town out side of Rome NY called Taberg. We toured Fort Stanwick on probably the coldest day of the year one day and skied Woods Vally with the kids the next. Now we are in Albany for two nights. Bill's nephew's wedding is this evening. I'm trying my best to get on with things. My sister is gone as Ma described it. "Cancer reared its ugly head one more time and took her." I just don't know how to write about it. From which angle. I just don't have words to describe the shock and the loss of the emptiness. She's gone. The gray days of winter certainly don't help me...I pray for the powder blue skies of winter. The same blue color her eyes turned as she passed into the skies of heaven, leaving me in this undescribable shock of living out the rest of my life with out her. Last Tuesday was her birthday. She would have been 52. There was never a more beautiful and more feisty a woman as my sister.

The Last Days Of September

It's been a beautiful Indian Summer here in Central New York. Loving this time of the year! Bill and I had a so so crop this year. The garlic, Kale, swiss chard, potatoes, onions and tomatoes all did well. The pole string beans were awesome as well as the parsley, chives, oregano and mescaline mix. My basil sucked and I still can't grow a pepper to save my life. We are hoping to plow up a new area out back in the spring and start new. I have a few more gigs left up at Stillwater and a private party booked this Sunday at the Brackel for Mel Predmore who is an ole friend of the family. It should be a fun time! I had a gorgeous hike and said my morning prayers on the Brookfield horse trails which got badly bruised in the blowdown July third. Many many trees are down. A bipolar summer to say the least and it's fading fast. I'm hoping for another three or more foot of snow winter with many snowmobilers headed Stillwater way. Bring them on!

I Bought A Juicer

After two hours of blanching, squeezing and chopping the plum tomatoes that never plumbed up because all it did was rain this summer. I decided to buy a juicer. I bought the Breville Juice Fountain Elite. I LOVE it! The first run, I juiced Kale, cucumber, green apple, carrot and ginger. I drank a half a juice glass and I swear I felt high. Delish! The next day I picked a bucket of the plum tomatoes and juiced with them green pepper, basil and parley to make the best Bloody Mary I ever had. Stillwater is hosting a wellness weekend on October 18th and 19th. I'll be at the head of the juicing table and also will be doing kayaking tours during the day and playing music on Saturday night. More to come on this.