GHOSTS OF MUSIC PAST

Our mom sang. She sang at weddings and funerals. She sang when she was doing chores on the farm. She sang to entertain us on trips in the car. She sang while doing housework. Most of the time we enjoyed the sound of her sweet voice, even when she used music to tease us.

As a result I have a whole library of old melodies, tunes and songs lodged deep in my brain. Occasionally one will fly out and circle in my mind like a moth from an old closet.

Some songs 

my mom, Blanche Collings; learned from

her mom, Nellie Hunt; who learned them from

her mom, Emily Casto; who probably learned them from her mom,

Hannah Moon of Denby, Derbshire England.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet and ProjectGuntenberg I was almost immediately able to find the lyrics and the music of my musical ghost.

A little book called “THE BABY’S BOUQUÊT a Fresh Bunch of Old Rhymes and Tunes” published in the 1870’s had been scanned in and made available free of charge as an ebook.

There was the song, “The Little Disaster,” illustrated in color, music included, on page 15.

Once there lived a little man,

Where a little river ran,

And he had a little farm and little dairy O!

And he had a little plough,

And a little dappled cow,

Which he often called his pretty little Fairy O! 

2And his dog he called Fidelle,

For he loved his master well;

And he had a little pony for his pleasure O!

In a sty not very big

He’d a frisky little pig,

Which he often called his little piggy treasure O! 

3 Once his little maiden, Ann,

With her pretty little can,

Went a-milking when the morning sun was beaming O!

When she fell, I don’t know how,

But she stumbled o’er the plough,

And the cow was quite astonished at her screaming O! 

4Little maid cried out in vain,

While the milk ran o’er the plain,

Little pig ran grunting after it so gaily O!

While the little dog behind,

For a share was much inclined,

So he pulled back squeaking piggy by the taily O! 

5Such a clatter now began

As alarmed the little man,

Who came capering from out his little stable O!

Pony trod on doggy’s toes,

Doggy snapped at piggy’s nose,

Piggy made as great a noise as he was able O! 

6Then to make the story short,

Little pony with a snort

Lifted up his little heels so very clever O!

And the man he tumbled down,

And he nearly cracked his crown,

And this only made the matter worse than ever O!

A lot of negative things can be said about the internet but at times like these what a blessing to be connected so easily to the music of my grandmothers.

RIVER WEIRD

We spent the holiday weekend at a family gathering.  By the time we went home, DH and I were pretty sure the weird genes had been passed down to future generations.  Spouses added to the mix with their own kind of crazy. Thanks to CindyLooWho's in-laws we had access to a location with plenty of fun things to do.  Below is a short video of one of the trips down the river.

I'm in back wearing the white hat. That hat went with me on a couple of white water trips.  It still knows how to handle splashing.

WASCALLY WOBINS

One bonus that came with our house when we moved in decades ago was a small pie cherry tree in the back yard.  DH puts cherry pie on the very top of his list of favorite desserts.  And even though it was December when we unpacked, we already had plans for making pie with our very own cherries.

When spring turned into summer we discovered we weren’t the only ones with dreams of cherries.

 Long before they changed from pink to red we had robins helping themselves to all the cherries they could choke down.

Our first defense was hanging shiny, flashy things like can lids from the branches.  The robins used them to preen and check their beaks for smudges and smears.

 We put a radio in the tree turned to a rock station and added balloons for extra effect.  The birds danced and partied while they feasted.

 We put a big plastic owl in the tree.  It might as well have been invisible.  Finally I took some old sheer curtains and made a net. We covered the tree so it looked like we had the worst infestation of tent caterpillars in the county but we harvested enough cherries for a pie.

The net worked for a couple of years until the tree got too big.  So even though we were short on spending money we bought a tree net.

 It looked better but we had to cinch it tight around the tree because the robins were determined little critters and not to be discouraged.

One morning we awoke to hysterical screaming coming from the tree.  Not only had a robin found his way through the net…

 … but so had our big bob-tailed cat.  The cat had gray feathers in his mouth and was going for the rest of the bird.  To restore peace to the neighborhood we hurried out, still in our pajamas, and opened the net enough to let out the cat and finally, the hysterical robin.  Of course that didn’t keep the robins from helping themselves to everything they could pull through the net on the top of the tree.

 “I hate wittle gway wobins.”

Finally the tree got so big that buying netting was costing us more than purchasing cherries at a fruit stand.

One year our sons asked permission to take their BB guns and use the robins for target practice.  We knew the boys were pretty good shots because all their ninja turtles and a couple of old Barbie dolls had already been assassinated by their firing squad.  So we made them promise to all kinds of safety measures and let them go.  They killed dozens of robins and dumped their poor carcasses in the trash which stunk like a gut wagon in the warm summer weather.

 We did have a tree full of cherries at the end of the battle but the neighbors weren’t happy for a lot of reasons.  And the next summer we had even more robins to deal with.  In fact our tree seemed to be the only one for blocks that was being poached.

So we’ve given up and now just think of our tree as a very large bird feeder…

 … and remind ourselves how much of a hassle it is to pick cherries and pit them…

 … and put them in jars, and how much our doctors have advised us against raising our blood sugar.  But we still look out our windows and think, “Ooo, wait 'till I get you. You wotten wobins.”