Steve Madewell: Pedestrian Rambling

July 4^th

It is beautiful Ohio summer morning and I have been up for a while.

Got up a bit early to enjoy some quite time and take inventory around the homestead.

I played at Zocalo’s Saturday and the Lake House yesterday which are two completely different gigs so maybe I am up because I trying to reconcile who I am after playing in such different places.

Last night was a spectacular evening. The sunset was not dramatic, but the platinum color of the lake more than made up for it. Even the drive was great. It was the first night after the new moon, and there was this tiny crescent in the north west sky.

This morning, I took the time to go sit by the creek on a big granite boulder that was pushed down from Canada by the glaciers. I was looking across the stream at another geologic feature, an anti-cline. That is basically a wave in the bedrock form some distant time in the past when an earthquake or some major disruption caused an upheaval in the earth’s crust.

It is a really cool feature. The cliff is about 60 feet high, and the exposed rock is layered shale. Generally this stuff is stacked up flat layer upon layer but because of the anti-cline there is this very distinctive hump in the layers. Sort of like taking a stack of printer paper and bending it. Only a little more impressive.

The cliff swallows have taken advantage of the situation and built a nest in the seam that formed in the shale. I don’t have a suitable camera to catch them as they fly in and out of their nest, but after my morning musings, I took some pictures anyway.

So whenever I sit on one of these big rocks, I always think about the glacier ride coming down and the force of the water moving it back down the stream-bed. Of course this made me think of Jeff’s song Like A Stone, which make the analogy of human resilience to rock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfMQ9BYR22A

Human resilience is an amazing thing but it is all so tenuous.

I know several young men who have been deployed in our recent military missions in the mid-east, who are trying so hard to create or hang on to some sort of life and recover from their experiences.

I don’t profess to understand why there can be such evil in our world and why we can’t find a better way of addressing it. But to sense the incredible disruption these young men are living with, and to think about the folks actually living in war torn areas of the world is so deeply disturbing.

So as I sat on my rock surrounded by the beauty of the world around me I couldn’t help but think two things:

Be thankful and grateful for the existence that I have had and to recognize the sacrifices that have been made for me to enjoy the serenity of this morning.

And what can do to help make this world a better place for others to enjoy.  I hope that music can be a part of this.

 

The loss of darkness

I had to drive to Cincinnati this past week for a work related engagement.  I wasn’t able to leave until 6:00 or so and this made for a few hours of driving after sunset.

I would have said several hours of driving after dark, but that really wasn’t the case.  We really never drove in the dark.

I am used to the drive down 71 to Columbus but I have rare occasion to continue south on this route. 

As we drove past Grove City we could smell the landfill that was designed by a friend of ours Kurt Anderson nearly thirty years ago.

He was a brilliant individual who succumbed to an inherent drive to always push the limits.  An excessive use of alcohol, drugs and some ultimate bad luck resulted in an untimely death.

Kurt had received national recognition for his design to capture and reuse the methane gas generated by the landfill.  As we drove by I wondered if the smell was the result of the single digit temperatures, a flaw in his design or some failure to maintain the system for cost cutting measures.  (Probably the latter)

There is a long stretch of 71 that goes through some exceptional farmland.  Land that feels as flat as a board and for all intense and purposes you might think you were in Iowa, so MJ que'd up Greg Brown’s “Iowa” CD as fitting music for this portion of the ride.

Of course historically this land might have had pockets of tall grass prairie, but was predominately forested at the time the first pioneers began their explorations.

It is hard to imagine just what those forests must have been like and about the best way to get any kind of descriptive idea is to look up and read some of the early surveyors journals.

I have read bits and pieces of journals from Israel Ludlow who worked in southwest Ohio and Seth Pease in northeast Ohio.  Both of these men recorded what the natural features they saw in addition to simply measuring and monumenting the countryside.

Their observations are simply fascinating.

Ohio had spectacular forests that were cleared to make way for farmland.  It was not uncommon for huge tracks of these hardwood forests to be burned over the winter months just to clear the land.

Every kid in school today knows about the loss of the rainforests but few people realize that our predecessors cleared the eastern United States in much the same way.

We were now driving through one of the most productive areas in the country for row crop agriculture on an interstate that had been built through rural, prime agricultural land.

What struck me as we drove along was how many lights there were across the landscape.

It seemed that every farmhouse or out building had a cluster of high output lights.  At every exit with a gas station there were a myriad of tall light poles.

The amount of light pollution was really disheartening.   I suppose as a culture we have been conditioned to be afraid of the dark.

That is all I can think of.  Why else would someone in rural America hang high output lights off of every building?

The opportunity to enjoy the night sky is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

When I was growing up in southwestern Ohio, one of my most engaging winter time actives was looking up at the night sky and taking in an overwhelming display of stars and planets.

It made me sad to observe this as we drove along and to think of the simple enjoyment that we are denying ourselves as a culture.

The dark is as much a part of the day as the light is.  It seems strange that we would choose to not enjoy the benefits of each.

Currently we have the privilege of living in a very lovely location and I have often marveled when a new neighbor moves in or builds a new house on our street what they choose to illuminate.  Sometime it is the length of their driveway, other times it is the porch, or garage, or outbuildings or in some cases all of the above.

And I wonder why they do this?

If they are afraid to live in a natural setting why did they move here to begin with?

Are we that afraid of the absence of light or are we afraid of what we might see in the darkness?

But I guess it is not to unlike having constant background noise on to perhaps keep us from hearing our own thoughts.

I think we listened to Greg Brown until we reached the hotel.

Yesterday in the early afternoon, I was driving through the valley, and caught site of a large bird over head. Sure enough it was an eagle, nope there were two eagles!

They were both immature, just beginning to get white on their head and tails, and they were engaged in a mating flight.

Now I don’t know enough about eagles to be sure if this was the real deal and if immatures actually mate or if this was a pseudo mating flight.

Sometimes animals do a sort of pre mating play as juveniles, sort of like teenagers making out. Ideally it’s just practice, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, perhaps you have seen this on nature shows or maybe had the chance to actually watch such a site.

It was an incredible and I pulled the car over and watched for ten minutes or so.

They would circle around over this broad spot in the valley floor, the male was a little smaller and would glide over the female and she would turn upside down. They would grab at each other’s talons as they were falling toward the ground and then disengage and right themselves right above the treetops. Off they would fly, climbing up into the air and repeated this again and again.

To see the female flip and fly upside down and to see the male turn completely sideways and slip down through the air to meet her was simply a spectacular spectacle.

This all was taking place about a quarter mile from my house.

Now you might ask, "Why in the world would I want to move?"

Well that is a good question.

If things progress with the other position, we intend to hang on to this house if we can.

It is a great location and would be a lovely vacation and weekend getaway house.

This might be a pipe dream but then again we’ll sort that out when we get there.

At any rate I have been truly privileged to live for the past 11 years or so in such a cool spot that has generated so many wonderful memories.

I have watched mink hunt in the creek, as well as two big water snakes work together to herd and catch minnows. And no I am not making that up.

I have had red fox sit and look into the back door in the dead of winter as if pondering the possibility of coming in.

I watched a coyote ambush a red fox off the side of the hill.  The next morning I examined the remains in nearly the exact spot where I discovered similar fox remains a few years and wondered what had happened. That day I knew.

MJ and I have been entertained by two families, at the same time, of pileated wood peckers enjoying our suet feeders.  The adults were feeding their clumsy youngsters who couldn’t negotiate hanging upside down to feed themselves.

And I will never forget watching both eagles and kingfishers hunt steelhead in the creek.

The kingfisher realizing at the last second of his dive he was no match for the big fish and pulling off before hitting the water.

And of course there is the recollection of the early morning hours on the day of the five-hundred year flood, lying in bed with MJ feeling large logs smashing into and shaking the entire house while the little creek was roaring with the extreme volume of water.

So yep this is a special place.

I suppose I too am engaged in the Acrobatics of Life.

I know I am privileged to be here, and fortunate to be considered for yet another position that may allow me to continue to work to protect, enhance and share the benefits of these things that inspire me.

I don't know if this is just practice or will produce, but it's the journey that is life.

Friday Night I went out to the Conneaut Creek Club cabin and spent the evening by myself.

Saturday was the opening day of muzzle loading rifle deer season.

The cabin is a rustic Adirondack style, with propane lights and stove, no running water, a barrel wood burning stove, two wonderful porches and many great memories.

I got out there around 8:30 and it was about 15 degrees with ten inches of snow on the ground and it was lightly snowing.

Tomorrow I was intending to walk up a deer, that is slowly and quietly walk through the woods until I either came up on bedded or feeding deer.

With the particular muzzle-loading rifle that I would be using, this would require getting within 80 yards and with the cover and habitat around the cabin, this more than likely would be something like 15 to forty yards.

In order to pull this off, the big deal is moving extremely slow.  All the old hunting books I used to read when I was a kid called this still-hunting.  I never understood why the authors would use this term and not stick with using “stalking” as the common descriptor.

As I got older and realized what was involved, I began to get it.

To really do this right you are moving through the woods while being as still as you can.

I was taking a Thai Chi class a few years ago when the instructor introduced me to meditative walking.

It is a process where you consciously transfer weight through your body from one leg up through your hips then down to the other as you walk in a slow determined way.

I recognized instantly this was an excellent method of mental training for still-hunting.

That fall I tried it and what I observed was pretty remarkable.

I consider my self to be fairly observant when I am “on my game, in myself, in the moment” or whatever you call it going through the woods.

I have noticed that generally when I am going through the woods, I will occasionally see squirrels out 60 yards or so moving away from me, and song-birds occasional twittering in front of me maybe twenty yards more or less.

When I tried the meditative walking approach, I found that I was often moving through the fall woods with a small mixed flock of chickadees, junco’s and titmice immediately around me and I would seeing squirrels moving in front of me maybe ten to fifteen yards.

So needless to say, this is an excellent method of moving through the forest with hunting intentions.

One other dimension to this approach to moving is the incredible mental focus it takes.   The easy and regular thing to do is revert back to normal “walking” in addition there is an substantial amount of focus required for deer hunting anyway.

 So I was planning on going out alone and walking up a deer.

It had been a long time since I had used the CCC cabin as a personal retreat.  Most outings over the years had been with a number of family or friends, which of course were great in there own right, but being by myself was a little different.

I needed a little solitude to strip away the layers of mental chatter that have been building for the past several months.

I had a great time dealing with the simple challenge of getting a fire going with no kindling, making a pot of tea, getting my muzzle loading stuff together, which is an interesting task unto it own. 

In spite of great technological advances, these guns are still primitive weapons.   To load one, you take an amount of carefully measured gunpowder, pour it down the barrel of the gun, tamp that in place then push a bullet down the barrel and tamp that into place.

At the other end of the barrel, there is a small opening where the a spark will flash from a primer or cap.  Ideally this will happen when the trigger is pulled, igniting the powder causing a contain explosion pushing the bullet out and toward the target.

Before bed I got my muzzle loading stuff out, checked over and loaded into appropriate pockets located on the exterior of my hunting clothing.

In the morning I set off about forty-five minutes before sunrise in the 8 degree morning air.

After a executing a slow circuitous ¾ of a mile route down the valley, through the hemlock thickets, across the oak flats and skirting the grapevine tangles I was back at the cabin for a cup of tea and a bit of lunch.

Snow was still falling off and on but in brief periods it was nearly white out conditions.  After my morning hike I assumed the deer would be lying under the hemlocks and out of the weather.  My challenge would be approaching them in a manner to get close enough to get a clear shot.

My afternoon, mosey began would be on the other side of the cabin.

I immediately saw where deer had been pawing through the snow to get to grass on the dam of the pond and had more than likely bedded up in the hemlocks on the point of a keen ridge overlooking the Conneaut Creek Valley.

This is a great nearly fail safe bedding strategy, if any threat is coming they merely stand up and bound down the 45-60 degree one hundred plus foot descent down in the valley.

So how I approached the hemlock thickets was very important if I expected to get a shot.

I figured that this deer were probably conditioned to watching for people coming from the pond so I decided I would approach them from the edge of the valley ridge as best as I could.

I put up the first two deer in a few minutes.  I had walked to within twenty yards of two lying under the hemlocks, and we saw each other at about the same time and they made their move as I was making mine and no shot was fired.

In a short distance in the same thicket I walked up on another lying behind a log.  The deer jumped up when I was about 15 yards away and started to go over into the valley but the wall was too steep, nearly vertical and instead was force to turn and come straight toward me.

I pulled up, aimed, pulled the trigger, the hammer fell and the percussion cap didn’t ignite.  Evidently moisture from the heavy snow had dampened the cap.

The deer turned within a few feet of me and bounded away.

And out of the day I had gotten everything that I had needed, several hours solitude, emersion in the elements, several hours of meditative walking, and incredible rush of adrenalin in the thrill of the moment. 

There have been reasons why I haven't posted any Pedestrian Ramblings and it hasn't had anything to do with an absence of events happening, inspirations coming etc., it has had more to do with being entirely consumed with existing day to day and not having the space to capture inspirations when they come.

This was a great inspirational moment, reminding me I am still who I am and still able to interact in the many dimsions of the world around me. 

This weekend I enjoyed watching the creek thaw.

We had snow on the ground since the first of December and several weeks of below freezing temperatures.

 

When it heated up to the mid fifties something had to give.

 

It is very fascinating to watch the creek release, just like it is very cool to watch it freeze.

 

When the melt waters start flowing over the frozen surface of the creek it may be a matter of minutes or days before the ice breaks up but once it starts to release it happens very quickly.

 

And the ice begins to move and break and the force of the water breaks it apart into smaller and smaller pieces.

 

As the ice gets carried down stream it sometimes gets caught up and this is the beginning of an ice dam.

 

Friday I watched several ice dams form and break apart. It is mesmerizing to watch.

 

In witnessing this, it reminded me that I haven’t taken much time to see the world around me consequently I have suffered for it.

 

It is easy to forget how much clutter we allow in our schedule and into our mind.

 

It is also easy to forget how much I enjoy taking time to stop and just see things, to find the essence of what I do and to live what I am doing.

 

And I suppose this is my New Years Resolution.

 

Stop and do more.

 

A wonderful juxtaposition.

 

August 10 there was a very talented young lady passing through Cleveland, Emily Erin.
She was hoping to pick up a gig at the Beachland Ballroom on her way back to New York.
One of my buds Dan Best with the Swamp Rattlers called and asked if I would do a set to round out the evening with Emily and I did.

There was a fellow there who flip filmed the show and this version of me doing Stan Rogers' Mary Ellen Carter wound up on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev-Bbnlt7TQ
This has always been one of my favorites.

I first heard his work perfomred by a dear friend in Dayton, Dave Gordon.
He and his wife Kay did several of Stan's tunes, including Barrettes Privateers. Unfortunately I never knew who wrote the songs.

When I moved to NE Ohio, a friend used to tell me I should do some Stan Rogers.

Roland would go on and on about how great Stans tunes were and how much he would appreciate it if I learned a few.

One day I heard Barrett's Privateers blarring out of my son Phil's room, and I instantly recognized the song from years ago when I used to live in Dayton.
I went charging in there asking who was singing, and Phil told me Stan Rogers.

Interestingly Roland and Dave had both passed away
by the time I learned who Stan Rogers was and before I learned any of his songs.

I think of them both whenever I play any of his material.

very nice

I just took a day off of work.
Yes it was an “Honest to God” day off. Well after I went in for two hours. But still I bought and installed a bike rack went to a movie. So I think this day counts as personal time.
Whoa, don’t get too crazy.
It has been a blitzkrieg of a year and I really haven’t had much time to do any thing beyond taking one step at a time. That being said there have been some very good moments so far this summer.
Although I didn’t have time to do any promotion this year I have had several gigs at venues that I have always enjoyed. They either called me or held dates for me including the Lake House, the Old Fire House, several house concerts and that sort of thing.
One of the most enjoyable was a return to the Burning River Fest. This worked out great as a gang from Western College of Miami came into town and we all had a big time of it, including the after party gig at Zocalo’s on east fourth.
Big fun had by all and I am still recovering.

Let's see,
Work has been exceptionally busy.
Gigs have been a great diversion and great fun.
Eating some watermelon after the first Zocalo's gig and having an adult beverage.
Life is good.

March 2nd, MJ and I drove down to the Pittsburg area to do a show with Tom Breiding and Sara Mcquaid.

I met Tom last year at the Barking Spider where I was doing the early show with Bruce the Bassman.

Tom invited me to open up for Sara Mcquaid and after listening to Tom's show I was sure I wanted to do it.

I was certainly glad I did.

Not only did Tom treat us to dinner he also turned us on to a great music place, Cefalo's!

Cefalo's is old Church that has been converted into a wonderful space for music and dinner.

To top it off Sara was wonderful.

While the crowd was a little light, everyone had a great time.

Had great time in New York City a few weeks back.

In addition to seeing Stephanie and Sean in there new digs and having lunch with my old college roomie, Sean and I went knocking around one day.

We were able to take in Chelsea guitars where a couple snobbish kids reminded me that all the guitars hanging on the walls were expensive. So much for buying that '63 rosewood neck sunburst strat to replace the one I used to have from those guys. However I did discover the mose wonderful Music Inn right in the village. What a sweet store.

Reminded me of my mind. Cluttered up with all sorts of things... Items with great potential, some clearly broken, and some that I have no idea what they are or might be. The guys that were working down the basement have been building electric sarods, which are very cool fretless mideastern instruments.

They also had a very cool software package that they had developed to bring out all of the overtones and sympathic scales. And if that isn't enough they had a huge collection of singing bowls and all sorts of hand percussion stuff. It is on the return to NYC to do list. All and all the city was wonderfully vibrant and full of good energy.

I'm in.

Actually my flying squirrel trapping was all confined to the barn attic so there isn’t much involved there in keeping warm other than poking up the stove.

And if you don't know what I am talking about you should sign up for my emails!

I have a fair number of people ask me about how I keep warm while I am poking about outside, so here we go.
I put together just a few observations that might be handy if keeping warm in the winter is an issue for you and if not…. Well gee I don’t expect you’ll get much out of this.
In January I was deer hunting and it was 11 below zero.
It wasn’t that cold when I left my house but by golly it was when I got to where I was going.
I have to admit I wasn’t properly prepared and it was not only close to miserable but could have easily been dangerous.
I was generally OK except I didn’t have proper hand and face protection, which can be a big deal when it comes to little things like frost bite and comfort.
I should have had a heavier hat, face mask or scarf and a heavy set of mittens or multilayered gloves. I actually did have those things nicely stored in a backpack in my brother in laws’ truck…
Good move.

Compared to most folks I spend a considerable amount of time outdoors and when I am out often times it is in fairly extreme conditions.

Consider the situation I mentioned above or things like steelhead fishing, which involves standing around in cold moving water between the months of October and April. Not so bad in October and April, it’s those time in the middle!

Anyhow my dear friend Lisa was one of the several folks who I have shared some “how to keep warm advice” with this year and I thought why not just put something on the page about it.
Lisa was specifically asking about keeping her hands warm, and doing so in a practical and cost effective manner.
When ever possible I am all about practicality and cost.
I am a big fan of wool glove liners. You can buy these at army navy surplus stores and by their selves they do have utility but put them inside a larger glove as a shell and you are on to something.
The liners are really in expensive and any leather or canvass/leather work glove will work as a shell.
Of course there are all manner of shell/liner combinations available if you don’t mind plunking down the cash to buy them and some work better than others, but it is hard to beat the above for cost and effectiveness.
You can also cut the fingertips out of this wool liner and make in expensive fingerless gloves too and for fishing this is pretty handy.

Again there are all manner of fishing gloves available but if your looking to go on the cheap those wool liners are great.
I am not going to get into the “how this stuff works” unless you email me and really want to know but here goes the rest of the way I get ready for the out of doors.

Base Layers
Most people are aware of the notion of layering clothing but not everybody really gets it.
One of the most important components of my winter wardrobe is my base layer, and when I say winter I mean late fall through mid spring.
It is a rare day during this period that I do not have on Patagonia Capilene tops and bottoms.
The Cap 1 or what they used to call silk weight is simply great. While the newer stuff isn’t as slinky as the original silk weights it is still really nice.
It is not cheap but what a difference it makes.
There are a number of companies making light weight base layers and often times you can find this stuff at discount outlets like Marshalls.

The key is to start thin and get bulkier then add a shell.

So it all starts with a silky base layer as the foundation (and that includes liner socks too) and after that I get bulky.
Fleece

God what did we do before fleece?
I wear fleece all the time. And there are all kinds of fleece out there. What I have discovered is if you have good base layer, even inexpensive fleece is greatly enhanced.
It is not worth a darn in the wind unless like some of the higher end fleece it incorporates a windproof inner layer. Most fleece have doesn’t have wind guard and that is why an outer shell is very important.
When I am steelhead fishing I generally have a layer of fleece, pants and pull over, over my capilene. I have on waders as a shell and a short rain jacket as an upper shell.

If I am hunting I generally have wool or heavy canvass pants on over my capilene bottoms and they serve as a shell.
And my upper shell depends entirely on what kind of hunting I am doing.
If I am sitting still and it is really cold I use a muti-layer parka that basically consists of a big wind and waterproof shell over a down parka.

If it isn’t that cold or I am going to be walking a fair amount I have a water and wind resistant shell that goes over a fleece of work shirt.
Boots….
That is another story.

Time Passages.
People mark the passage of time in a number of different ways, birthdays, seasons and holidays and of course the beginning of a new calendar year.
Happy New Year by the way.
The first time I went deer hunting I was 13.
Pop and Uncle Marvin had been going to the border of Pike and Jackson counties for a couple years and they decided that my cousin Keith and I were old enough to come along.
We borrowed someone’s camper and had a great time. And so that adventure began and believe me there are more that a few hilarious stories associated with some of those trips.
The first few years that I went I was surely a hindrance to Pop’s hunting. He had to keep an eye on me making sure I didn’t get “turned around in the woods”, which is the Madewell term for slightly lost.
He was generally concerned about me keeping warm, dry and having enough to eat.
You can go on a hunting trip with someone but it is not the same as hunting with someone. Hunting with someone is a partnership.
In my early years in the field I didn’t have a clue what this really meant but I am sure that I really wasn’t much of a partner.
As time progressed I became surer of myself in the deer woods as I also began to physically mature finding strength and confidence and all those attributes that often come with young adulthood.
Somehow there was a passage of time and suddenly I found myself keeping an eye on Pop.
He was slowing down a bit and I found myself doing more and more of the simple things around our camp like lighting a Coleman lantern because he couldn’t see the hole to put the match in. But I would also slow myself down to keep pace with him while we were hunting.
Of course on occasions this was more than a bit frustrating and I was oblivious to the fact that just a few years earlier the roles were reversed and it was he that was altering his preferred hunting plans to accommodate my abilities.
As time continues to pass I can say that all and all Pop and I have had many good hunting trips with countless memories and a sea of faces of relatives and friends that have jointed us somewhere along the way.
This included my son and son in law and nephew who are all fine hunters and strong young men.
It was always a great pleasure to tell them to help their Grandpa drag his deer back to camp.
This was the first year Dad didn’t go deer hunting in 42 years. Some family concerns and sever arthritis in his right hand convinced him that he should stay close to Mom.
But this wasn’t the only mile marker that occurred this year.
My son Phil is at the point where he is physically in the prime of his life is an avid hunter and has a remarkable set of shooting skills.
This deer season Philip passed up a shot at a huge buck and allowed the deer to walk past him to come to me.
The long story short is I missed it.
For many years I enjoyed a reputation of being a deadly shot and have certainly had my share of good fortune in this regard.
However in the past few years shifts in my vision and physical condition have resulted in a world that is not quite a clear and not nearly as steady.
And while it was a remarkable deer that I missed it was an even larger gift that Philip gave acknowledging another passage of time.

Last night MJ and I went down to the Rock Hall’s “Kozmic Blues: the Life and Music of Janis Joplin” Tribute Concert.
The folks at the Rock Hall hit a homer. I have been to Rock Hall Tribute shows and I can tell you they are a great time.
Last night’s show featured a great line up of performers and some wonderful video clips including a very touching interview with Kristofferson regarding the day he was told about Janet’s death. This coincided with the conclusion of the final mixing from the recording of Bobby McGee.
The whole show was really enjoyable including the sound and production. Nice job Robby!
The house band was great and the guitarist embraced and played with a tremendous array of tones fitting each performer and each representative tune from across Janis’ career.
My appreciation of her art and performance goes back to the late 60’s, so last night was a real treat.
I recall hearing Combination of the 2 and Piece of My Heart on the radio while riding around with my older brothers. And for years did a version of Summer Time that was more inspired by Janis than the musical, and I haven’t even a clue how many times I have sang or backed someone up who was singing Bobby McGee.
For me the highlights of the show were Susan Tedeschi and Carolyn Wonderland.
Both of these ladies are smoking guitarists and delivered wonderful vocal renditions of Joplin’s tunes.
Lucinda Williams closed the show. I have seen her perform before and she consistently makes me feel like she is playing for me in her living room. It was a very personal way to wind up the night.
You can read more about it by going to:
http://www.rockhall.com/janisjoplinamm

The Power of Commitment

So last month I had this business trip to Salt Lake City.

Before I left one of my friends told me under no circumstance should I sign anything if I visited the Visitor Center for the Mormon Church.

I have been to Salt Lake a few times and all I can say is holy smokes talk about sprawl. The entire valley is developed from north to south and east to west.

I couldn’t believe how much it has grown since my first visit. And all the suburban houses have lovely blue grass lawns. Remarkable, especially since the whole place is sitting on a sage prairie or it used to be a sage prairie.

They have a nifty program there where all the homeowners in the new communities get unlimited water for irrigating their lawns for five bucks a month.

Where is that water coming from????

Well it is easy to understand that the far fetched notions about piping water from the great lakes isn’t so far fetch when you see what is going on there.

I did get up to Park City a couple times and even got up to Sundance and drove the alpine loop. Quite spectacular.

Easy to understand why Robert Redford loves the place.

Anyway the big Mormon complex was right across the street from my hotel so Saturday night, we took a stroll around the grounds and the place is spotless. Simply lovely if you happen to go for the manicured lawn and grounds look.

In the visitor center they have all these computer terminal set up and you are invited to punch in your name and check out your geneology. They are noted for all the geneolgy records that they keep there. Well I sat down and started to type in my name etc when an alarm went off in my head….
I had been warned not to sign anything and I thought, Wow this is pretty sneaky. So I stopped myself and got up and continued to look around.

There is a pretty good connection back to Kirtland for the Mormons. Kirtland is where good old Joseph Smith got a lot of insight about how to structure the church and all that sort of thing before being driving out of town when the Mormon bank had some financial difficulties

When I left the VC I stepped inside the Tabernacle where the choir does their gigs.

I must admit the place had pretty sweet acoustics and it was all I could do to stop myself from belting out a few notes just to hear the reverberation.

On my way out the door, this sweet little 70 plus year old lady approached me. She asked if I would be at the concert the following morning. I told her no I would be on a plane back to Cleveland.

She asked if I would like a CD of the choir and I told her I had one already.
She asked which one and I said that it was a collection of Christmas Songs. It seems like we do somewhere, so I didn’t think I was lying.

She said she had several of their River of Promise CD’s and she wanted to give me one.

I really couldn’t say no so I expected her to dig one out of her purse….
Oh no, that wasn’t the program, she pulled out her check book and asked if I could writer my address down and she would send it to me. As I was writing Steve, she leaned over my shoulder and said make sure your address is legible so I can read it.

At that point the alarm went off once again and I knew I had been had.

You see if they can get your address, you become a target for all their young missionaries to come visit you in the future.

In a panic, I put my work address down.

Three days later in the mail a CD arrived along with a DVD about the Mormon faith.
Being the spiritual kinda guy that I am, I placed them both on the desk of a co-worker with a note saying that I had brought them back for his spiritual enlightenment.

I have been told by those in the know that I can expect random visits from young men in ties and white shirts for at least two years.

I had a great time last night performing at Brukner Nature Center.
Wonderful to see several old friends, get some good hugs and contribute to an enjoyable fall equinox program.

I had never considered a career in the conservation field prior to working at Brukner in the summer of 1976.

I was hired basically to babysit the children of hispanic migrant workers who were passing through picking tomatoes.

I was impressed with the layout and the design of the facility and trails but more importantly I realized that I could do something about things I cared for.

I was motivated to change my major when I went back to Miami to environmental studies.

Brought back many memories!

August Gets a Bad Wrap

I used to fall into the trap that I think many Midwesterners fall into, and that is thinking that August is hot and miserable.

Well actually on average July is generally the hottest month of the year in Ohio.

As we enter into the last week of the month there is a little coolness in the air this morning providing just a hint of anticipation for the chilling nights of September.

It is a neat time of year, everything that makes seeds have made them, insects are buzzing, the mornings are cool.  It's sweet with the decadent ripeness of the summer. 

I think August gets a bad wrap because we are ready for a change. 

I suppose I am looking forward to the fall.

As a matter of fact Robin and Linda Williams’ tune October Light off of their Deeper Waters CD just cycled up on itunes.

This is a great song and really captures that reflective yet anxious feel associated with the change of the season.

It might just be me but it seems there is a great deal of anxiety in the air.  Unemplyment, heathcare, teh economy, political unrest......

And for me I am still juggling the respocibilities of two postions at work, and that is wearing.

So much uncertainty makes it easy to flirt with a major emotional funk.

George Orwell’s horse in Animal Farm just worked harder.

I try not to do that because most of the time I work pretty hard anyway.  I tend to go the opposite direction and get sedentary.

Of course I still do what I have to do, I.E. work and those sort of essential things but I stop doing the elective things that keep me balanced and engaged.

They just become one more thing to do, and just one more thing to do means yet more on the agenda and yada yada. 

So while I fixing my coffee yesterday in the morning I had some avian visitors who were coming to check on me.

Many native cultures believe that we as individuals have certain animals associated with us and we may or may not recognize this association.

Well for whatever reason I have had over the years a number of encounters with robins that have if nothing else been engaging.

Yesterday was one of those moments.

As August starts winding down many birds start flocking up in preparation for their southern journey, and as you would suspect the majority of these birds are first year young.

While I was making my coffee, a group of three juvenile robins decided that they wanted to check out the grumpy old man on the other side of the window and gradually moved closer and closer until they formed semi circle around the window all watching me watch them.

If nothing more it was a pleasant way to start the day but for some reason this simple little encounter somehow motivated me to get up get going.

Sometime it is the simplest things that can change a perspective.

these little things are always there it is just a question of looking for and seeing them.

Or in my situations with the robins, recognizing that they were seeing me.

 

Burning River Fest. Last week I was down in Tennessee hanging with my brothers and Mom and Dad.

We had a great time staying at a nice house we least through Center Hill Chalets Center Hill is a large Corp of Engineers lake just outside of Cookeville, which is where my oldest brother and several cousins live.

There were only two houses on the dead end road where we were staying so needless to say it was quiet and a perfect place to strum some tunes on the front porch.

I drove back home on Friday just in time to hook up with a gang of folks I went to college with who were in town for the Burning River Fest.

After 12 hours in the car, I was a little brain dead and tongue tied but still enjoyed myself knocking around in the Foundation room at The House of Blues, recalling a few old times and calling people by the wrong name.

Saturday, I had scored a gig at the Burning River Festival for Caroline and I on the acoustic stage. We were the last set of performer and we were set up on the north side of the old Coast Guard station.

What ever was lacking was certainly made up for in the setting. The sun was setting directly behind and it was very picturesque, not to mention the kick of playing for a number of people who used to equality listen to Caroline and I play in the college days in many musical incarnations.

Of course there were several other surprises too like Gary and Cindy coming up from Akron and Jon coming in from Ithaca. (Which by the way I think I was supposed to give Jon a ride somewhere!) After singing away, without monitors, and over the drone of motorboats and sound bleed from the rock stage, we ventured over to the Velvet Tango Room for a few snacks and a nightcap.

Nice

 

Steve Earle & Joe Purdy Rusted Root and the Lake House

Friday night Mj and I went to Kent Stage to check out Steve Earle and we were treated to a great show.

I do love Steve Earle’s tunes and Joe Purdy was a nice surprise.

I didn’t know anything at all about Joe but He has a nice delivery and has about 10 CD’s.

Both were doing a solo thing and it was sorta motivational for me to take it all in, especially coming off the heels of the Nashville experience.

Reckon I should turn on the machine on and get on with recording.

The following day, as in Saturday, I was off to do a wedding.  The bride wanted me to do something different for here recessional, and she likes Rusted Root; So last week I spent a considerable amount of time working up a pretty good version, although I don’t think anyone has an idea what the lyrics really are to that song.

Then off to the Lake house where I was on autopilot for my first and about the same for the third set, but the second set, now that one felt great.

It was a beautiful night on the lake, and the place was simply slammed.

I was absolutely whipped by the time I was loaded out.

Woke up this morning and for the first time in months, wrote a tune.

I think a recovery day is in order.

 

Nashville Cats

So 40 or so years ago I took my first trip to Nashville.

I was riding shot gun with my uncle Roosevelt who was delivering a load of fertilizer to some place in town. I was constantly thumping on my guitar so he drove the truck through the music district to show me all the places where the music was made.

Just so happened that the Lovin Spoonfuls’ Nashville Cats was popular at that time so uncle Rose and I were singing that as we drove down Broad Street.

The song says there are 1352 guitar pickers in Nashville, I am thinking that is significantly underestimated.

This past week I had the chance to hang for a few days in the guitar town.

Through nothing but blind luck I wound up staying and a Holiday Inn Express right next to Vanderbilt’s football stadium.

I had no idea that it is one of the cities hot spots for singer songwriters, and for the three nights I was there I probably heard 50 folks plying their trade.

Most were very good and some were damn good!

Debi Champion put this together with the help of Lorna Flowers.

Both of these ladies by the way are accomplished song writers and Lorna happened to be celebrating an anniversary of sorts one of the nights I was there.

You can check out the commodore at this link

http://www.myspace.com/commodoregrill

It was pretty wild to sit there and listen to wave after wave of folks take the stage and do a song writer in the round for a couple tunes each then surrender their seats to the next batch.

Folks can audition for a spot at the end of certain nights and get invited back of they have good stuff.

There was a great range of material being presented and while I don’t do much in the way of country country, I appreciate the form.

I was really impressed with one fellow, Trent Jeffcoat who had several songs that were really strong for this form.  Probably one of the best car songs I have ever heard, and a couple really funny thrown in too.

His myspace link is  

http://www.myspace.com/trentjeffcoat

June 26th I did an early show down at the Barking Spider with the bass man Bruce Locke.

We were followed by a very good singer song writer from Pittsburg, Tom Breiding.

Tom has a number of recording projects under his belt including his most recent project about the West Virginia coal fields.

He asked me if I would be interested in coming down to Pittsburg next March to perform at the
AmeriSon Ballroom Folk Series at Cefalo's
Carnegie, PA
March 2nd - Tuesday 7pm-10pm

I would be splitting the night with a singer song writer from the UK Sarah McQuaid

Both Tom and Sarah are very good

http://www.tombreiding.com/twotone/pages/press.php
http://www.sarahmcquaid.com/

A compassionate presence vs. an uncomfortable act!

The first time I went to a dermatologist was after I got a little piece of my skin caught in a sweater.

Some of us have these wonderful phenomena where we form lovely little things called skin tags.

Bout the only redeeming thing I could research and find out about this sort of thing is that some indigenous cultures regard this manifestation as a sign of mystic powers.

Whoooooo Cool. I got my mojo working!

In my late 30’s I started growing these things and some how managed to get one caught in a sweater as I was pulling the sweater off.

So this inspired me to go to this dermatologist who had me pull off my shirt and he looked me over.

He turned away from me for a moment only to turn around with a needle in one hand and some scissors in the other.

I was expecting him to look at me and then give me a prescription or something to melt my little troubles away.

I wasn’t expecting a pair of eyes starring over a surgical mask intent on poking and snipping them away.

I wouldn’t say I was severely traumatized but I would put it in the moderate category.

It wasn’t all so painful; it was just sort of freaky.

I have this strange mental thing I go through when ever I leave a piece of my body behind and I guess I just wasn’t mentally prepared for that.

(Especially my mojo and would I loose my mystic powers?)

I didn’t go back to a dermatologist for over ten years.

When I did it was at the urging of a friend who happens to be a doctor who happens to be married to another doctor who happens to be a dermatologist.

Doctor number one made a convincing case that, as much time as I have spent outside I should really give some thought to monitoring the condition of my skin.

With my Pop having various skin cancers scrapped cut and snipped off this seemed like a pretty good idea.

So he convinced me to go see his wife.

I have to say there was no comparison to my first visit to a skin doctor.

When I left I looked pretty much like I had been shot in the face with birdshot at about fifty yards.

I was peppered with all manner of little red dots where I have been injected and snipped, frozen and zapped and even scalpeled a time or two.

That being said however it is appropriate to mention the biggest difference of all.

And that was in my attitude.

You see my new found friend the dermatologist, approached things with such an overwhelming sense of compassion and reassuring
confidence that I didn’t mind at all.

There are few times in your life when you really can relax and surrender your self to someone’s care.

I try to do that when I am on a guided hunting or fishing outing.

I certainly remain aware and focused but I let the guide take me where they want me to be.

It is a remarkable lightness to just be.

It is really wonderful in today’s world to be able to do that especially in the area of medical care.

I have never quite experienced this before where a doctor overcomes a completely uncomfortable situation with reassuring confidence and simple compassion.

What is so wonderful about the whole experience is the realization of how deeply committed this exceptional person is to humanity.

Today is the third year I have been back and each time I get a little “beat up” but I actually look forward to going, as it is such a pleasure just to be in her presence.

Sorry fellows but when we get right down to it, I think she’s my favorite Doctor.

Beetox vs. Botox

So last Tuesday when I went down to get the bees at Ken the Bee Mans I got stung twice under my left eye and once on the thumb.

By the time I was one the road back home I knew that I was going to puff up a little bit.

Getting stung used to not bother me at all but I think after Jim Brock and I moved a hive in the night and got zapped a dozen or more times each it seems that I have on occasion puffed up a little bit.

The first time this happened was when Rachel was a little girl and was helping me tend a hive.

I had taken things apart and there was a pretty good cloud of bees buzzing and she headed back to the truck.

I finished up what I was doing, walked back to the truck and as I pulled off my veil off I realized that one of the more irate bees had followed me.

I stared to jump in the blazer and realized that Rachel had locked the doors.

While I was negotiating for Rachel to let me in, I got zapped right between the eyes.

That was the first time I ever swelled up after a bee sting and the next day I sort of looked like a pig.

Anyway, since then I have had the tendency to get a little puffy depending on where the sting was.

Since Ken’s bees had drilled me under the eye I suspected that I would probably have a lump by the time I got home.

Sure enough after getting home and dumping the girls out in their new hives I could feel a little tightness around my eye and cheek.

When I asked MJ how it looked she said that all the wrinkles around my eye was gone and I looked like I had a beetox treatment and suggested that I go out and let them sting my other cheek.

That way I wouldn’t look like one of those TV commercials where they treat only one side of the face to demonstrate the effectiveness of the product.

Beetox what an idea!

This really could be a pretty cool thing if you think about it.

Age defying beetox, nature’s organic anti aging treatment.

Just a simple injection or two with a tiny hypodermic administered by a completely dedicated professional.

My new money making idea fell apart when I woke up the next morning and found I had a lovely purple triangle under my left eye and it looked more like someone socked me.

I suppose I will try asking for a little less venom next time.

 

 

Looking for a queen bee!

The Gals Are Back! You might recall that last year I got a colony of bees from my friend Ken at Mid Ohio Honey. We met when he and Lori had stopped in at the Old Fire House and spent the rest of the afternoon listening to my play. One thing lead to another and the next thing you know Ken and Lori are dropping off a box full of bees at my house last June. Anyway, the girls seemed to be thriving all summer and fall but last winter was just too much for them and that exceptionally cold spell we had in Febuarary after the exceptionally cold spell we had in January brought about their demise. After pestering Ken for about two months we finally confirmed a date and Last week I drove down to his place near Mansfield to pick up a couple packages of bees. If this sounds a little strange it really isn’t once you get past the notion that you are dealing with several pounds of insects that are capable of stinging you. Bee keeping has a long history and it is yet one of many really remarkable stories of how the relationship between people and animals has evolved. Beekeepers do all kinds of interesting things and I was about to participate in one I hadn’t seen before. My history as a beekeeper has had varied ups and downs but having once tasted the sweet taste of success (yuk yuk) I have found myself from time to time wanting to get back into the hobby. So here I am going off to a bee yard with Ken the real bee man. A bee yard by the way is a place where there are several hives of bees, Kens’ bee yard happens to be surrounded by blue berries. We get to the bee yard aka. Apiary and Ken pulls this giant metal funnel out of his truck. I had asked him if I should take a veil, that is one of those funny net hats that you see bee people wearing in all the photos. Matter of fact in most of the photos you see bee people wearing all sorts of special clothing. They sort of look like HAZMAT crews with white coveralls, gloves and the funny hats. And there is good reason for this. A colony may have 100,000 bees. The first time I moved a hive I had a bunch of impromptu protective clothing and I got stung more than a dozen times but that is another story. But since then I would like to think that I have learn a few chops (that is a guitarist phrase which means I think I have learned a thing of two) about handling bees. For one thing, I have developed this approach of moving very slow and deliberately whenever I am working with them, this seems to make a big difference. Zen, Me and Bee make three. So when Ken said he wasn’t going to use a veil I thought “Cool, I won’t either. Ken Hands me this giant metal funnel and pulls a couple little bee packages out of his truck. They actually use these packages to ship bees. If you have ever seen a coop they ship chickens in these packages are like this only in miniature. (But the chances that you have seen a chicken coop are remote so I don’t know why the heck I even mentioned it. I used to work on chicken farms when I was a kid and occasionally forget no one else I know has.) Anyway back to the little bee coops. They are about the size of a shoebox with screened sides and a wooden top and bottom. The top has a round hole in it that is covered with a screen once the bees are in the box. We were going to “shake down” the bees into the package. I had no idea what that was about but hey this is how you learn. We fired up the smoker, which is this little metal thing about the size of a coffee can with a bellows on the side and a funnel on the top. You put a bunch of paper and grass in it and light it. Close the funnel top and use the bellows to puff smoke in to the beehive. This causes the bees to think that there is a forest fire coming so they all set about doing their version of an elementary school fire drill. In other words they get a little pre occupied and in theory don’t mind the plundering that is about to happen. So I follow Ken to the first hive, where he puffs a bit of smoke at them, tears off the cover of the hive and to my surprise pitches it on the ground. Remember what I said about slow and deliberate? Well Ken you see has been a commercial beekeeper, and at one time had something like 2500 hives. With that big an operation time is money. I haven’t ever been around a commercial operator before. He proceeds to pull a frame (a part of the hive that holds honey comb) out of the hive that is simply covered with bees maybe five hundred to a thousand or so, looks it over to make sure that the queen isn’t walking around on it then slams it down into the funnel I am holding. The majority of the bees is flung off the frame into the funnel and down into the bee package. The operative word is majority. Maybe ten of fifteen percent buzz off into the air. We proceed to do this to over and over again and each time a few more bees buzz off into the air. So in no time we are surrounded by quite a cloud of fairly pissed off bees. Ken has a grey tee shirt on, a ball cap and jeans. I have a white long sleeve shirt and jeans. Almost immediately one flies down my shirt. And I have to stop walk away and shake her out. One near miss. Then one makes a “bee line” toward a black wrist support I have on, realizes that the wrist support isn’t skin and promptly walks over to my thumb and drills me. Which is no big deal and I knock her off before she can really give me a good dose. However that little episode is followed by a direct hit to my left cheek right below my eye. I scrape that one off only to be hit immediately in the same place again. Thankfully our first package is full and we walk away back to the truck. Off course we are escorted by a few of the guard bees who have a sworn oath of office to protect the hive several of whom fly directly into my chest to make sure that I know they mean business. While Ken closes up the first package, I dig a veil out of his truck because; I don’t want to take any more shots to the face. And the next round of shake down goes off without a hitch. So know we have maybe thirty thousand bees in two little shoeboxes all ready to go to my house and be introduced into the two empty hives I have waiting with one exception. They need a couple queens. Not to worry. Mr. Bee man, Ken has one hive set up that is something like the bee version of the Tower of London. There is a collection of royalty each in their own little cell. Yep a queen bee trapped in a little plastic cell. Who is ready to be freed by diligent attendants who only have to bust her out by eating a hole in the sugar plug blocking the opening. Ken took two of these little prisons and put one into each of the packages of bees and we were done at the bee yard and were on the road back to Ken’s place. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Lori had made a run to the local store for cold beer and pulled in shortly after we arrived. And while we were walking around trying to figure out what a kind of new tree was growing in the corner of his yard was. (Clammy Locust BTW) I saw that Ken got stung one time on the cheek too. We had a beer on the porch and I played a couple tunes for Ken and the girls, Lori, Jess and Lynn before hitting the road back to the valley. Next up Beetox!

Nice weather.

The recent string of nice weather has been just what the spirit needed.

I don’t mind the winter and in fact I really like it. I like to work in the barn after dark and always appreciate this uninterrupted time.

But I confess that the temperature does wear me down.

And this winter was one of a great deal of emotional upheaval. It is still hard to get used to the fact that both our dogs are gone and I am often a little remorseful when I get home and there is no Emmet or Kate waiting to say hello and take a little stroll in the back yard.

The other day I was working in the yard with Ipod and headphones on, and Bill Stains' song Old Dogs cycled up.

I teared right up.

Of course folks in the know, know that my work has exploded and I am juggling a great deal in the conservation career.

And I miss the "boys" coming to check on me and ground me after a big day at work.

And I like so many other folks have the tendency to over do it in the warmer months.

Finding balance and working within the capacity I can manage is the big test, but I have been here before and hopefully will put the right things on hold and take care of the essentials.

But right now in the last few weeks of spring it is easy to see that everything is just beautiful.

It is funny how we choose not to look and really see what is around us.

I recently read a thought by Thoreau which basically said if the stars were only visible one night out of the year it would be a historical holiday of celebration, as it is we can see them on any clear night and take them for granted.

I need to remember this to sustain me through what will be a very busy year.

This past Sunday I woke up at 4:00 and couldn't go back to sleep. I was thinking about work and that sort of thing. After tossing and turning for about forty-five minutes I remembered that it was the last day of turkey season. I got up and threw my stuff together and ran up the road a bit to friends’ place. Generally when you go turkey hunting the idea is to get in the woods about a hour before sunrise and to get set up and ready to go well be for light. There is an old trail system that goes through this wood and I sort of know my way around so I shuffled off to fine myself a suitable tree to lean against. Now if you don’t know anything about turkey hunting, the deal is sort of like this: Spring is turkey breeding season. They have amazing eyesight and they have a pretty big vocabulary if you will. In other words they make a number of different sounds and they clearly communicate with each other. In the evenings they roost in big trees and fly down to begin their daily activities right be for or right after sunrise. The general objective is to: Know there are turkeys in the woods your are hunting. Get your self in a comfortable position where you have a commanding view of the surrounding landscape. Have some capability with a turkey call. Get camouflaged from head to toe, and be completely aware of what is going on around you. And of course you have to get all this together and ideally be sitting down and ready before it gets daylight. If you are thinking this sounds like a stupid past time, I won’t argue that you do have a point. However this is a spectacular time of year to be in the woods at sunrise and really it is worth doing regardless of if you are hunting anything. I also think anyone who is remotely interested in observing nature should get camouflaged up some time and go sit in a natural area and be as still as possible. The things you may see can simply be remarkable. But that is a another collection of stories. Ok Back to turkey hunting. I started doing this on occasion a few years ago and of all the hunting activities that I have been involved with I have laughed at myself more times chasing turkeys than any thing else. It really can be incredibly addicting and in a very bad way. You see because it is so early in the morning, you can delude yourself into thinking that you can go for a couple hours then dash home and go on to work. What happens to me anyway is I start nodding off around two o’clock in the afternoon and as I struggle to stay awake I start imaging turkeys walking in a line behind people I am talking with in meetings. This is not a good thing, so I have tried to minimize my turkey hunting. But here I was watching the growing morning light and listening to the woods come alive. All the song birds were singing up a storm, I saw a couple racoons amble down the trail toward me then climb a hickory tree just a few feet away and squeeze into a hole about 20 feet off the ground that looked about the diameter of a tennis ball. Of course there are all sorts of wild flowers coming out this time of year and there is a myriad of different shades of green and all the plants are kicking into high gear. I had parked myself at the base of a large oak tree with a natural clearing in front of me. In about fifteen minutes I heard my first gobble and it sounded like the bird was over the hill behind me. The idea of course is to make a call that sounds like a female turkey and try to entice the fellows to come looking. When I was a youngster my dad had taught me how to call quail by imitating a covey or gathering call, and many of the same basic priciples apply to nearly any type of bird calling, that is don’t over do it and let them call back. So after hearing the first male turkey gobble, I started imitating a hen turkey. In no time I had at least one and maybe two birds going. It dawned on me that I should move so they wouldn’t be coming in behind me. That isn't good because you have to let them walk by you and you never know how many there are. If there are several one of the stragglers might see you move and alert the others, so I decided to move to the other side of the little clearing. Also I felt like I would have a little better cover to my back. So I got up walked across the clearing plopped down against another large oak and waited a few minutes. Nothing but song birds. I was afraid my buddies were already on the top of the ridge when I made my move and they might have seen me. So I called a cadence and waited thinking it was still going to be a great day even if I might have blown it by getting up and moving around. Nothing Five minutes or so and I gave another cadence of hen calls, and waited several minutes and then gave it up again. This time I heard a gobble back, but it sounded further away than the ones I had heard earlier, but then again I reasoned I was forty yards further away from where I was. Waited a few minutes and scratched three more chirps and this time had a gobble right away and was much much closer. I knew the bird was out of the valley and coming my way. In just a few minutes I saw him coming down off of the trail and heading on a course that would put him stepping behind a big oak tree about thirty yards in front of me which was going to be perfect. He of course stopped for the longest time! I gently scratched a couple times on my call and he started coming a gain but he changed directions. He was now going east parallel the trail I walked in on. He stopped in a little clearing and gave a nice gobble, then flared up his tail and wings for a moment. This is always a cool thing to see and it makes them look huge. He was getting closer but taking his own good time about it. When he stepped behind a nice size tree, I eased the call down to the ground. He came out and continued walking until he was behind another tree and I twisted my gun around and turned the safety off. He moved behind the large oak I was originally sitting at and I lifted my gun to my shoulder For the longest time he barely showed himself and then finally he was a good foot or so beyond the tree. When I pulled the trigger he went right down, but I have had several friend loose birds after shooting them. Sometimes after a few moments they can regain their composure and run or fly away, so I thought I better get up and run over to make sure that this didn't happen. Now this is where it gets sort of funny. I jump up and took one step and stove my left knee. I nearly went down and I realize that not only is my left leg is asleep, both legs were asleep. I had to ease myself back to the ground for a few minutes using my shotgun as a support. All was good and he was down. This was like the perfect hunt. I mean really, I have never had one so smooth before. If I had had anyone with me who didn’t know a thing about turkey hunting they would have thought, “What is so hard about this/” Of course I haven't even shot at a turkey in 7 years or so, so I guess I had one coming! If you are interested in knowing how it tasted just shoot me an email.file:///Users/stephenmadewell/Desktop/IMG_1547.JPG