The Washington County Band opened its summer season with a free concert at Fort Salem Theater last night. Here’s their take on the gospel classic Just a Closer Walk with Thee, performed in the style of a New Orleans jazz funeral march.
It’s amazing to me that a community this small can field so many good musicians on all these different instruments. Most of them appear to be Social Security eligible. And they’re pretty darn good.
Take a listen.
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Remember how cute they used to be?
By popular demand, here’s an update on our chicks.
As you can see from the photo above, our 30 Rhode Island Reds are no longer cute little balls of fluff, but after four weeks of furious eating have grown into near-adulthood and the reptilian version of a chicken they were meant to be. And they have a surprise in store.
If you’ve been reading this blog on a daily basis, you might have thought my days consisted of occasionally moving the sheep around, taking photos and eating bons-bons. Au contraire, mes amis. In my spare hours I have also been working on a chicken coop. And not just any chicken coop. This one has wheels. I’ll tell more about that anon. Today, finishing the mobile coop has moved to the top of the agenda and here to help is my brother-in-law Steve, who flew in last night from Chicago to be my farm slave for a week.
Steve booked a late flight and the plane was delayed an hour because of a storm. So we didn’t get back from the airport in Albany until nearly three in the morning. For some reason, I’m awake at 5 a.m. no matter what time I go to bed. So I’ve already finished my morning chores–including leading the sheep to a new, electrified paddock–and now I have to take our pickup truck into the shop to find out why it has all of a sudden developed a sputter.
Check back tomorrow for exciting developments in our chicken coop construction and find out whether we’ve freed the chicks from their basement enclosure and finally put them out on pasture.
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Sunday afternoon was supposed to present the first concert in the park of a summer series in Cambridge, but with rain a certainty, the program was moved inside to the town’s old train depot. On the bill: three young cellists playing selections from Baroque to Michael Jackson.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because all three of the musicians are alumni of the Music from Salem Cello Seminar, which performed at Cambridge’s Hubbard Hall two weeks ago. They are also graduates of the Boston Conservatory.
Notice the giant radiator sitting in the middle of everything. I’m guessing this used to be the waiting room.
Recorded here is part of a cello duo by Italian Classical composer and cellist Luigi Boccherini.
Give a listen.
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We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
What's in your turkey? We killed and butchered more than 80 birds on the farm of Mike and Michelle Klein in Prince George's County. Thankfully, Michelle did the gutting. Unfortunately, Mike bought his turkey chicks earlier than usual and they did not stop growing. Our prize for helping was a carcass that weighed nearly 40 pounds. It barely fit in the oven. Here, Mike is subjecting a slaughtered bird to the "magic fingers," a machine with a nubby, rotating barrel that removes most of the feathers. 
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