I keep promising that I’m going to make our music part of this blog. School’s out, the hubby is home, our home studio is built, and we’re finally at a point that I can start making posting our songs semi-regularly. Hurrah!
We may have a slight obsession with trying to make things ourselves, but homemade music has always been one of our passions and hobbies. We don’t presume by any means that our music is the best out there- we are constantly learning as musicians!
Most of the recordings I will be sharing are rough, live-takes, and either minimally or completely un-mastered and un-mixed. This one was done in a resonant hallway of a local university, though most of our recordings have been done at home.
So without further ado, we invite you to join us in the process as we share these little “Saturday Song” posts. I can’t promise you one every Saturday, but I hope this is the first of many.
This song, “Beneath the Sun,” was written and played completely by my husband. In his words:
“[This song is a] vignette of a bike-ride’s roadside scene: a lone silver maple brushed by the wind in a field that lay fallow, aged stone walls and fence-posts grown over with wildflowers and grasses, mixed with inspiration from Gilgamesh’s quest beyond the mountains.”
Hope you enjoy! We love your feedback, and (if you feel so led) your shares with friends. If you want more, you can follow our music Facebook page, or our Soundcloud page. 🙂
It’s officially spring, but it doesn’t feel like it too much this morning. I shivered my way over to the goat field for milking, and found all the animal waters frozen. Sigh. But I probably shouldn’t complain as we’ve had an extremely mild winter this year.
I wanted to give you a springtime family update. I’ve let the blog slow down a bit as we’ve been working on several big projects in our “real life.” We’ve had a lot of momentum going in our household as we work towards several goals, but also a lot of stress as we try to make it all happen. Progress is never easy, but at least you grow through it, right?
First: homeschool. This whole year has been a search for balance and an exercise in trial and error. I suppose I’ll never come to a point where I feel like I’ve “arrived” with successful homeschooling, but it would be nice to not have to wonder whether or not I’m a massive failure as a mother and teacher. BUT recently I’ve been blessed with some encouraging talks with friends, other homeschool moms, and posts from bloggers I love (like this one) that have given me the courage I need to press on. So, despite a momentary cave and desperate calls to area schools for pricing and schedules, we’ve decided to carry on.
A photo posted by Abigail Zieger (@theyrenotourgoats) on
On the homestead: We cut our maple sugaring season short. It’s been a weird spring, with February temperatures getting up to almost 70, and mid-March temperatures getting down below freezing. We’ve also had too much other stuff going on to properly watch our sap, leading to another burnt syrup disaster. Sigh. You think we would learn after three or four years doing it.
And remember that seed starting post I just wrote? We still haven’t started ours. And NOW is the time to do it in our zone. So, today, I’m going to try to make a rough draft map of the plot, then hopefully team up with the hubby to get those plant babies growing. (I’m really a dreadful procrastinator.)
The hubby has been keeping himself busy with essentially re-building our garage. Off with the old cardboard siding through which we could see daylight, on with new sheathing and siding. We had a nice pavilion for a day or two:
But now he’s really making progress:
It’s been a bit of a construction zone around here, but it’s only for a time.
With the animals: We lost our first litter of baby rabbits. Five of them, dead, found in the cold early morning lying out in the run instead of in the nesting box. We lost another hen to an unknown cause. But, on the plus side, the goat has been unusually well-behaved as of late.
With music: Oh yeah, remember that music thing? I do have an entire category devoted to music, but I write on it rather rarely. However, we’ve been working towards pursuing our music more now that I’ve finally gotten into a perfect routine, err, a manageable schedule, umm, now that I’m surviving having three kids. Kind of. Regardless, I’ve got some concerts to sing in this spring, I’m teaching more voice lessons, and the hubby and I have been accepting more gigs to play in together. It’s reviving to my soul to be singing together.
Here’s a spring haiku song, written by my husband, roughly recorded, and played with friends. What do you think?
And lastly, I’ve taken up therapeutic art journaling alongside my kids. I have NO idea what I’m doing, but it’s been keeping my hands busy and my mind relaxed while the munchkins are playing outside or working on their own art projects.
So that’s what’s been going on around here. My life is full, and while it’s sometimes hard, it’s been rewarding too. Not much good comes without some hard work along the way, right?. 🙂
