Navy Band's "Country Current" in Milton, Delaware

We caught the Navy's outreach band, Country Current, playing at the park in Milton, Delaware a week or so ago.  It was a fun concert.  Lots of people attended and the weather was perfect.  The military bands have world class musicians so you can always count on good music and it's always free. Well, sort of. Our tax dollars cover it. 

 In the Broadkill River at a dock near the concert, was this tiny steamboat. We don't know what the story is on it because we saw it just around the time the concert was going to start so we didn't want to distract from the music by talking. I bet it's an interesting story. There is an RV campground in Milton called Steamboat Landing so maybe this little boat is part of the advertising for that.

Dreaming Big in the Adirondacks

We took our camper to Crown Point, New York to an old Victorian home owned by a friend.  She hasn't lived in the house full time over the last maybe 30 years.  It had hundreds of bats in the attic and they'd been there most of that time but are finally gone thanks to the legitimate company she hired to do so.  Well, I say all the bats are gone and maybe they are now, but as of our last day in Crown Point a week ago, and a check by the company of the attic, there was one bat left.  The company installed six bat nets (or maybe they are called socks) that allowed the bats to depart but not return.  

The same company that got rid of the bats is working on getting rid of the termites.  In fact, in the old barn behind the house, they said there was evidence of every known kind of wood eating critter.  The back end of the barn has to come down, but the rest of it appears to be salvageable.  

The house needs basically everything redone.  It needs painting which is happening now.  The porches were restored/rebuilt by my friend's ex-husband.  The roof tiles were removed (they were slate) and a new roof is going on it but I don't know when.  The house has knob and tube electric.  That needs to be addressed.   Plaster needs work in a few spots inside, and walls on part of a new upstairs bathroom addition need to be completed.  A new furnace/AC needs to be installed.  The current one backed up and there was soot covering everything in the house.  My friend hired professional cleaners that cleaned most every room of the house.  One of the rooms that my friend didn't have them clean was the pantry where lots of books and breakable dishes were stored.  I took that project on and thankfully never broke anything to include the glass fronted cupboards in there.  The soot is so greasy and it hangs in cobwebs of carbon.  The first step is to sweep the walls and ceilings with a broom.  Then the cleaning starts.  We used a degreasing agent, and I guess it was basically a dishwashing degreasing liquid.  But the washing has to be repeated again and again in some places.  The clothes just come away black and greasy.  I tossed the black and greasy ones in the washer (also in the pantry) and just kept grabbing more clean rags and having at it. Then I'd wash the dirty rags (with hot water and some Clorox) before I ran out of clean ones and just use the clean rags without bothering to dry them.  I had a system.  A method to my madness.  

In the meantime, while I cleaned the pantry and placed all the items in what I hoped to be safe storage places elsewhere in the house like the permanently blocked off servant's staircase, my husband and my friend worked to paint the barn behind the house to help get it through the winter.  

The foundation of the Victorian and the old barn both need to be addressed, as well.  The work that needs to be done is overwhelming, at least to me.  There is no way my husband and I would take that on.  It would take all the time and resources (money) that we have, I fear.  But our friend is an artist and also a retired Army officer.  She is not stupid.  She is not crazy.  She knows what she has to do (or who to ask to help get it done) and is willing and patient.  She will do it over time.  

I hope she can finish it, if there's such as thing as finishing a project like that.  I love how she dreams big and is bravely addressing her dream in stages.  

We worked hard on the house and grounds during the day but we started with a nice walk each day, in a different area.  One day we walked in Ticonderoga on the walking path.  Another day we walked Fort St. Frederic and Fort Crown Point along Lake Champlain. We hope to put our boat, the River Dancer, in on Lake Champlain at some point in the future.  On yet another morning, we walked a road, doing a big loop, up the hill behind our friend's home.  

We saw a small fox during broad daylight in the yard of neighbors.  I wondered if it was rabid since it was out in broad daylight, but it returned back into the woods after passing through yards.  I didn't get a picture.  

When we went to the library in town, just a short walk from our friend's home, we saw this yellow garden spider in the garden in front of the library.  

Back side of the yellow garden spider.

Under side of the yellow garden spider. 

We'd gone to the library to see if our friend's mural was still displayed on the walls.  She hadn't been in the library in years nor had she talked to anyone about it to know if it was still there.  It was maybe fifteen years ago since she painted that mural.  It was nice to see that the original librarian that she dealt with to paint the mural was still there and working that day.  She would like my friend to paint another mural on the outside of the library.  They agreed to talk about it again next spring. 

The library mural painted by my friend years ago. 
It completely covers the back wall here but 
wraps around on to the adjoining walls. 

The scene is of the monument/lighthouse on Lake Champlain
at the base of the bridge from New York to Vermont .  

While I cleaned the pantry and my husband and friend painted, our friend's sister worked in the gardens all day.  She found this critter. I feel I've seen it before somewhere.  

The flowers were blooming and beautiful while we were there.  

I like eccentric people.  Our friend, the owner of the old Victorian in Crown Point, is eccentric.  She's an artist and many artists are eccentric.  It's cool that she is also a retired Army officer.  I love how some eccentrics can walk many different paths.  I love when eccentrics dream big as with her vision of how the old Victorian and the old barn will look.  But let me talk about the sister.  When we met the sister, she was coming out of her bedroom on the top floor of the Victorian. She was dressed in a gorgeous, vintage black silk, beaded ankle length dress.  She had full makeup on and her hair was on top of her head a la Katharine Hepburn.  She had gorgeous and bodacious costume jewelry. She had nice shoes on took but I can't recall what they looked like.  She was totally decked out as if going to a costume ball circa the 1920's, 30's or 40's maybe.  Then she went outside, dressed like that, and proceeded to weed the flower beds and to chat with neighbors.  I will never forget the sight of her sashaying out of her room to greet us in the hallway of the upstairs bedrooms.  She has what appears to be osteoporosis and is bent almost double and to the side. That posture adds to the feeling of eccentricity with her dress.  This woman is also the author of three beautifully illustrated children's books about nature, primarily about the sea and sea life. She, like her sister, have quite the respectable work ethic.  Everyday this beautiful lady would go work on the grounds of the old Victorian, sometimes in shorts and a blouse, but always decked out with makeup and accenting jewelry.  Her hair is waste length when worn down.  Beautiful lady.  

We had beautiful weather while at Crown Point, if unseasonably hot for a couple of days and with rain only one morning, allowing us to get the barn painted.  Below are a couple of pictures of one of the barn windows showing vegetation on the inside, not at all where it should be. Did I say that one of the projects is that the barn needs to be re-roofed? 

It was difficult painting the barn because it soaked up the paint since much of it was unpainted yet still needed to be scraped/sanded down a bit. 

Pictures from our walks.

At Fort Crown Point

Old home on the Vermont side. 

Front side of the old home.  

It's just such a beautiful area.  

Boat ramp in front of the Samual Champlain lighthouse.

Looking up at the statue of Samual Champlain

I love me some Adirondacks

We went to Ticonderoga one evening for a free bluegrass concert by the Too Tall Bluegrass band. They were delightful.  I found myself smiling most of the evening as they played.  I really enjoyed it. We bought both of their CD's.

Too Tall Bluegrass Band

And when we left the concert to walk back to our car we encountered two skunks who were eating from a bowl of food set out on a porch behind the pub where we'd had a fun bar-food dinner before the concert. One of the skunks ran into a nearby bush. Neither sprayed us, fortunately, even though we had just come around the corner and surprised them probably less than we were surprised by their presence.  They were about four feet away.  I'm guessing they probably don't spray people they encounter or there would not be food left out on what may well be a routine basis. These skunks, or at least one of them, seem to have lost their fear of people.  We got the feeling the skunks knew how their bread was buttered, so to speak, and appreciated the free food. 

An unusual sight. 

Views, below, from other walks.

I like this little yellow building by the tracks. 

This used to be a B&B but there was no signage saying it still is.  
It's a beauty.

And so we got as finished with painting the barn and cleaning the pantry as we could before heading back to Delaware. We hope to return and give our friend a hand with more projects in the future.  She and her sister were wonderful hosts to us.  

Sunset at Holt's Landing State Park

We went to Holt's Landing State Park for a bluegrass concert by a Delaware's Vintage Blue.  They were OK enough and we enjoyed it.  It was worth the drive to enjoy live music at a beautiful park.  I think Holt's Landing is one of the sites for horseshoe crab counting and tagging during mating season. 

Mr Moribunch's Theater of Terror

While volunteering at the Ladybug Music Festival in downtown Milford, Delaware, we ran into one of the ladies we met at the Kent County Theater Guild who also is involved with Milford's Second Street Players who perform at the Riverfront Theater.  She told us of Mr Moribunch's Theater of Terror which was to be held the next evening and the entrance fee was only $5.  Mr Moribunch's Theater of Terror is a spin off idea from the cult of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Mr Moribunch's Theater of Terror works around the selection of an old B rated horror movie and there are actors, many teenagers, that are costumed and singing, performing and speaking lines here and there during the movie.  In this case, the movie was Equinox, a 1970 supernatural horror film done with a low budget.  

The movie was stopped several times and supporting cast members would come on stage or through the audience with songs and comments.  It was fun.  They sold raffle tickets for some silly stuffed animals that were tossed to winners but more importantly, all the raffle proceeds were being sent to the Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Fund to support fellowships and shelters LGBTQ children.   I fully support that.  

We will be back for more fun at the Riverfront Theater. 

LadyBug Music Festival Milford, Delaware

We volunteered at the Ladybug Music Festival in Milford last Saturday.  We helped set up and break down and handle merchandise and provide information.  It was phenomenal - the entire event!  We loved the whole idea of a music festival celebrating and highlighting women musicians.  And our volunteer experience couldn't have been better.  The other volunteers were great, the public was great, the weather was great, and the music was awesome.  

I put the two posters from the festival on my "wall" which some would call a "Vision Board" or a more boring sounding bulletin board. My husband and I made the board out of insulation sheets and initially I intended it as a spot to hang my fiber arts projects as I was creating them.  The two chairs are on wheels so they are easy to move away.  But then I had old sheets of a tye-dye pattern that were just too fun to pass up for that spot in my studio.  There is just so much color and playfulness in my studio that the board just begged to have more.  So I put some of where I'm going with my creative projects, and some of what I've done (like volunteering at the Ladybug Music Festival) when the energy is so awesome that it feeds me going forward.  Other things on my board with the Ladybug posters is a flyer from Tiny Beautiful Things, a small play done at Camp Rehobeth, based on Cheryl Strayed's book, Tiny Beautiful Things.  White wings are also on the board and those I wore for my costume of Cupid at the Cupid's Undie Run around Valentine's Day in Washington, DC in 2013.  I think that was the year.  My daughter wanted to do it and a gentleman I worked with was forming a team so we could fund raise.  The proceeds in part went to benefit research for a rare children's disease that his daughter had.  The Undie Run is really just a heavy drinking event where mostly youngish "runners" show up in underwear, skimpy swimwear or costumes, also mostly skimpy.  I wasn't going to go skimpy at my age so I came up with a costume of flesh colored and heavily spandexed body suit, the white wings, and I put a white kitchen dish towel around my bum wrapped like a diaper.  It went over really well.  We ran the, get this, one mile, if that, in the snow, while runners were sometimes walking on their hands and many were dropping to do pushups.  I was in the latter category.  I was so sore the next morning.  OK so I digressed.  No surpise. 

This was one of the first bands to play on the main stage but for the life of me 
I don't remember which one.  They were good though.  It's just that 
I was distracted with my volunteer duties.

The key performance was Eljuri out of NYC.  Cecilia Villar Eljuri is from Guayaquil, Ecuador but grew up in NYC.  She's a bilingual singer/songwriter, plays a really good guitar.  Her genre is alternative pop/rock and Latin but I'd suspect we should not pigeon-hole her.  I believe she is creative and open and will keep surprising fans with innovative, exciting and lush sounds and thoughts. 

Rock the Boat - Lewes to Cape May and Back

Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse in the Delaware Bay just off Lewes 
near the ferry terminal

We went for a fun and inexpensive boat ride on a rainy evening last Friday.  The rain didn't dampen our fun on the ferry ride.  We danced to live music provided by the cover band, Glass Onion.  In fact, the light rain cooled things off nicely.  It was off and on for the trip from Lewes to Cape May but ceased and the float back was dry. 

This was a fun event and I highly recommend it.  The price was right.  It was unique.  What's not to like about a comfortable boat ride, snacks, drinks, available bathrooms (got to be practical here) and live music provided by a very friendly, fun-loving band. 

We saw the band first in Milford, Delaware in the amphitheater behind the library.  They announced to the crowd, as they threw Mardi Gras beads to the children, that they played every Friday evening on the Lewes/Cape May ferry and that you could buy ferry walk-on tickets for relatively cheap ($12?) and ride to/from just for fun and drinks, socializing, musical entertainment, and dancing if you are so inclined and brave enough (or tipsy enough) to, uh, brave the tipsying, I mean tilting deck as the waves occasionally gave us a little rock and roll of their own.  We did notice that a lot more people danced on the return trip then on the way out.  But then, it was raining a bit on the way out. 

This is at the ferry terminal on the Cape May side.  We were
paying particular attention because we'd like to take our boat,
the River Dancer, across the Delaware Bay and through the intercoastal 
canal and putz around on New Jersey's intercoastal side.

Looking east down the intercoastal canal at Cape May.

The beasty ferry approaches the terminal at Cape May. 

The Delaware bayside beach at Cape May. 

Intercoastal Canal at Cape May

A beautiful evening on Delaware Bay.

Thank you to the New Jersey ferry crew. 

When we got back to Lewes, we bellied up at the separate, four sided deck bar of Grain On the Rocks, excited about having a drink and dinner but even though the bar area was not at all crowded (maybe 3-4 other customers) the bar tended refused to make eye contact with us. She busied herself making drinks and maybe she was helping to make drinks for others at the outside tables on the deck or to help back up the bartenders serving drinks inside the restaurant.  But here's the thing.  A good professional makes eye contact to let you know she sees you and usually says something to the effect that she'll be with you in a minute.  Nada.  Nothing.  Just a sour puss expression that pretty much told us what we needed to know.  We gave it about five minutes and left before our fun experience on the ferry was sullied with a shitty end to the evening.  We then ambled over to the Rose and Crown, entering from the side street.  This bar was packed.  Yet the bartender immediately greeted us and invited us to sit anywhere at available high tops or booths.  He told us he'd be right with us and he was.  He apologized for the wait, though there really wasn't much of one.  He was moving right along, working his arse off.  We had prime rib and clam chowder and lovely drinks to end our evening.  

Baltimore's Key Brewery Celebration of Jimmy Brink

I'm not sure what the gist was for this huge Bunny of Liberty
inside at Key Brewery but it was sweet. 

I don't know why I didn't get a photo of Jimmy Brink, the drummer in lots of bands in the Maryland area that we have loved for years.  We'd lost touch while on the road for several years but now we are firmly linked back into the Baltimore area music scene, reconnected with old friends who are music lovers and musicians.  Jimmy is a former Marine - I know, they say there is no such thing as a former Marine, but you know what I mean.  He's not active duty now.  He has a large extended family, many of which are also musicians.  All really nice folks.  

The day was really hot and the bands set up on a stage in back of Key Brewery in an asphalt parking lot so there was no shade and the parking lot reflected up the heat.  But I'm not complaining.  Not really.  We sat out there all day enjoying the live music as different bands traded out with the common denominator being Jimmy on drums.  He was loving it.  So were we.  

It's so good to be home. 

The only negative thing seems to be the fear mongering going on about Baltimore crime.  We have heard about how bad it is.  It seems to me, and this is not scientific, but it seems to me that a lot of the fear mongering started among white people during and after the Freddie Gray murder in 2015 by Baltimore police. The riots and continued animosity, brought out front and center, seemed to really scare some of our white friends and acquaintances though I do note that none of those complaining of fearing for their lives actually live in the city.  These are the kind of people who are always somewhat fearful of big cities though Baltimore is the somewhat big city we who love it always call a small city of wonderful neighborhoods.  

So on this note, Dave and I looked up the murder rate in Baltimore going back 15 years or so.  It goes up and it goes down and back up again.  It varies.  Again, I'm not a social scientist or a criminologist.  I'm just a lover of Baltimore who lived in the city for almost ten years.  And I remember when we lived there people who didn't live there ranted and raved about the crime.  But we kind of thought that as long as you aren't involved in buying or selling drugs or living on the same street you were pretty much OK.  You do have to be street smart.  You can't go walking around with your head up your ass or in the cloud or on your phone.  And you walk like you have a purpose and the right to be there but without antagonizing or being aggressive.  And you don't leave shit, even loose change, in your car exposed to anyone wanting a few bucks to buy a hit or whatever.   You check the street before you exit your home.  You check the block for people who don't belong.  You look out for each other.  You get involved to make the city a better place.  

Another thing we heard that was disturbing was that the squeegee boys who often stand at the corner of East Lombard and President's street (or in this case, Light Street and Conway) trying to wash windshields for cash and annoying (or scaring) the drivers who get stuck at the light there, was that a squeegee boy shot someone.  The tone of the announcement to us was that the world was caving in and the squeegee boys were taking over the city, taking it away from law abiding white folks. And actually, this story was later relayed to me from Dave.  I didn't hear it first hand or maybe I'd have commented that it had to have been provoked.   So as Dave later relayed the story about this incident, I responded that there had to be more to it.  Sure enough, when we looked it up, a white guy apparently got annoyed and pulled his car over, got out with a baseball bat, and got shot.  Hmmmm.  I'm sorry he got shot.  I'd be sorry to if he'd brained a kid with that bat. But is this a case of a white guy feeling confident enough that he can whip ass on a group of young black kids trying to eke out of few bucks from "the man"?  A baseball bat is a lethal weapon in this case.  Am I right? But a gun trumps the bat.  And oh my gosh, the Supreme Court is OK with people's right to bear arms.  In public.  And they don't seem too worried that young people are getting access to guns and shooting up schools and parades.  Many Americans are OK with not having gun laws to control who gets easy peazy access to guns.  I guess white folks don't like black folks having guns.  Personally, I think this all goes back to our country's original sin: racism.  

Rant over.