Yellow Jacket Hive

So, my mother hasn't been the only one busy at her place of residence. So were her uninvited guests. The Bees! While having dinner with my brother last week, she asked him to check out a crack in the sheet rock she had noticed in the ceiling of her laundry room. After poking around, the cracks turned out to be a few small holes where my brother peered in and saw a hornets nest. Today, Bill and Ford had to cut back the whole sheet rock wall to get at this yellow jacket hive that had been built. The bee's had come in a small opening on the front of the house. Thankfully, because it's winter, the hive was empty except for a few dead bee's scattered here and there. The yellow jacket hotel we thus named it had 11 floors and in spite of the creepy fact, having a hive in your house and merely inches away from Mom's head where she would stand to do her laundry. The work these bee's did on this hotel hive is actually quite beautiful and intricate. Still...another reminder that I'm allergic and need to get my epipen renewed!

Holding Down The Country Side

I had a foggy ride down route 20 yesterday hooking Bill up with his rental car at the Albany airport. It's a little after 7 am this morning and I imagine they are just getting on the road now for that long trek to Cocoa Beach. Not for me this year thank you! I'm all Florida'd out. Nick and I are here holding down the fort. There's a January thaw going on giving me a break from tending to the fire...which I totally don't mind as I haven't worked since before Christmas with the Colgate students being away and all. January is when I started back up at the infamous Bipolar Hotel aka The Colgate Inn. Now I know, having worked there a year through, that next year I'm out of here with the town being so dead in January. Something to look forward to. I'm thinking Colorado, Arizona the mid west. Sitting here this morning and I just got a text from Aurora who just boarded her plane for Hickory, North Carolina in her traveling promoting Chobani. Every one is going some where! I'm going to the grocery store, the wood shed maybe to moms to do some rug hooking and into my studio. Got some tracks to record. It's a music week. I have three gigs to prepare for. Local gigs I don't have to go far for. This year I hope to get a little further out...write more, shoot more, kayak more and have more outside bondings with mother nature and camp more. With the dark troubled times of 2012 fading in the rear view mirror...I'm road tripping and heading into a year of more...Look out. But first I think I'll drag the Christmas tree down to the firs pit.

2013 Bring it on!

2012 can kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned. I made it through and it wasn't cheap. Having a kid in jail with jail being big business and all really put a damper on my cash flow. Fifty dollars a week for commissary. Money spent on New York Times and magazines and the envelopes to mail them and postage...Not to mention the lawyer and gas for the forty minute drive to Wampsville and back. Nick is home. He payed his due and is all the better for it. I honestly think jail was the best thing for him. Bill and I drove through a white out arriving shortly after midnight on December 24th and broke him out. What a Christmas...what an exhausting Christmas. The days were spent in an all out cook-a-thon! The ten year kitchen wafting with smells from Thanksgiving to Mexican to Italian. So one day at a time here with the kid home. He looks great and is positive and hopeful for the future. 2012, I hated you but you made me strong and you didn't defeat me...you beat me up pretty good but you didn't win. 2013, I look forward to you and am eager to accept what may come. And I'm so thankful for all I have.

The Last Seven Days Of The Last Seven Months

Like I have probably have said before...if I can make it through seven months of having a kid in jail I can make it through anything. And then the massacre in New Town. Friday I was in good spirits getting the house ready for Christmas and Nick's return home when I decided to turn the TV on for a weather update as I am praying for a good foot of snow for the holidays and thats when the tragedy was all unfolding in New Town. It made me sick. I'm not even gonna go into all the emotions I have been through as the rest of the world are going through them too. Its all to sad, and to mad. Something needs to change with the mental health issues and gun control in this country. Killing children to go out in the glory of media hype is just sick and wrong. I'm still overwhelmed and need to pray for the families, the community, the whole freaking planet for that matter and with the TV off. Snow seems pretty trivial in comparison. It's Monday night as I blog this and I'm seven days away from picking up the kid in the orange jumpsuit for his re-birthing. Like Aurora, I too am nesting and fluffing the house up for his arrival. It's been a long rocky road for my son and me,for the whole family near and far for that matter. But in my heart of hearts after the shock and realization that my kid is in jail. I knew it was the best thing for him. He messed up. He payed his due. And when I talked with him tonight...our last phone call from Wampsville, he muttered about how he was still in shock and depressed about the children senselessly murdered so close to Christmas. He said more than anything he wants to be with all his sisters and eat all my good food. I cried a tear of joy knowing my son is a wonderful man with a big heart and I'm blessed to have him in my life no matter how many hard balls I'm thrown. I love him. Thats what mother's do. Nothing will ever change this.

Aurora In Idaho With Chobani! Nothing But GREAT!

My lovely girl Aurora was hired to the mobile team of Chobani and she is now traveling the country side promoting greek yogurt and she couldn't be happier! She is now in Idaho at the opening ceremony of Chobani's new plant. I'm just so thrilled for her in her new endeavor and so thankful to Hamdi for taking the chance in our community to start his business. It's been a god send for many, many people in our area. Cheers Chobani! Aurora and two roomies have also rented a charming farm house just down the hill from me in the quaint town of Poolville. She's in her glory, playing house wife and has named her new rental abode,"Das Poolhaus" as there is an in ground fenced in pool out back. I'm tickled she's only 2 miles down the road and I can bring her food as I haven't quite learned how to cook for two yet. When a dutch oven comes out, it's gotta be filled with something delectable. It's gonna be a very memorable Christmas to say the least. I can't wait to cook for my family and just be with them. That is all I need.

All That Whirls Around Me

So. It's gonna be a very unconventional Thanksgiving for me this year. Bill and I are packing up and headed north and from the looks of the up coming weather, we'll be towing our kayaks behind us. Time to get away from work, and everything that is whirling around me. So many good things to look forward to! Kathy Yassas, and Rosemary Tenney, two pillars of the Sherburne community and bless their ever loving hearts, have been working tirelessly to save the Sherburne Inn by organizing a board of directors, developing a website and also looking into historical grants. It's just a beautiful thing to see the community come together to save the heart of downtown Sherburne. After a two year hiatus from Skyway days, I'm back in the saddle, helping a good friend of my daughter organize a show to benefit the Earlville Opera House and the food cupboard of Earlville. Sean Nevison is the brain behind this event which is in its third year called Treasures In The Heart of New York. Local musicians donate their mp3's and all CD's sold go to the local food cupboards. He has raised over 4 grand…which is commendable I think, in this rough economy. A good cause. So the show is tentatively planned for May 4th. I'll be performing a half hour slot with Rabbit In The Rye and a few other bands I'm not quite sure of yet. Looking forward. It's been many years since I played on the old historic stage of the Earlville Opera House. All summer and every Wednesday I've been recording with my dear friend Steven Skollar in the studio of Rich Grant another great friend. These two have been so near and dear to my heart helping me deal with the fact I have a kid dressed in an orange jumpsuit at the Madison County jail. Steve has graciously allowed me to use the painting he has been working on all summer of a toy cowboy which is totally amazing! Just last night I emailed him about writing a song about a cowboy to kind of tie the CD together and he did just that! I woke this morning to find a rough draft of a song called Toy Cowboy and I was floored by the raw emotion the song made me feel. Wow! So my 7th CD, "Wednesday's Riches" will be ready when it will! Hopefully I can get Steve back from New York's clutch back to record before spring…but if not, then the CD will be released in the spring. And lastly…Nick will be busted out on December 23rd to begin his new life. Nick for Christmas. This will be the best Christmas ever.

Unity Hall, Barneveld NY

Erie day here in Sunny South Hamilton...reminds me of the book I read years ago. The Mists Of Avalon. I guess I'm sitting in the preliminary fog of Hurricane Sandy. We're ready. Bill rigged up the electrical work to be able to plug the generator in to our hot water heater, furnace, refrigerator and what not which kinda takes the fun out of being with out electricity! I think I'd rather rough it than to listen to loud obnoxious motor of our gassy generator. Irene left us for 6 days with out power but I fared well with a wood stove and Reverend Ross's old hand pump up the road for water. We've got lamp oil and wood shed full of wood and plenty of food. Bring on Sandy! September 20th I opened for the Jeremy Wallace Trio at Unity Hall in Barneveld. What a gem of a place! With updates of electricity and kitchen appliances down stairs, the place is pretty much the same as it was when it was built back in the 1800's. A small rounded stage with the old foot lights in the floor, kerosene chandelier hanging down from an arched ceiling that warmly lit the wooded walls from trees I'm sure that were cut from the forest of the Adirondack Park right up the road. It was a long day, working the breakfast shift at the Bipolar Hotel aka The Colgate Inn then hanging around home not really being able to get into anything waiting to load up and head to the gig. I played a fine set which was very well received and met some pretty interesting folks!