I'm that person that doesn't read the manuals. It isn't that I don't understand the value in doing so: I just don't do it. I’d like to tell you that the reason is because I enjoy the process of figuring things out for myself, but the truth is that I hate reading manuals more than I hate figuring things out. To me just looking at the manuals is painful. Put it in an online format and it becomes tortuous. One might say, “well, that is because you are a Luddite, Melissa,” and one would be correct in that assumption. But it’s not the only reason. As I get older I have come to realize some basic t ..read more

This weekend the clocks will spring ahead (that's how I remember which way to turn them) and we will begin to gain daylight into the evening hours. The mercury has climbed out of the negative digits and I can feel the increased warmth from the sun. We have had evenings of rain instead of snow and patches of hopeful grass peek out from still mounded snow. I watch robins navigate from ice caps onto dry land like explorers in the Antarctic. The other day I saw a robin slip on the ice, catch herself, give a bit of a feather shake and move on. I think that if she could speak there would be a blue s ..read more

We climbed into the truck yesterday morning and headed north to Shelburne farms, one of my favorite places on earth. Before leaving we checked temperatures for the day and, knowing that we were going to be in a barn for about three hours, began layering up. There are odd little things that Vermonters take pride in; good manure, worst mud season, cheese, and layering abilities. You can be standing in a grocery store talking about the weather (of course) and somebody is likely to pull up their coat to show you just how many layers they needed to leave their house that morning. Forget high fashio ..read more

Tuesday I pulled on mud boots to head to run errands. The temperature had climbed into the fifties and the warmer sun began to melt the skim off the top of the road, enough so that there were deep ruts to navigate. As I drove through downtown I noticed a few people wearing shorts, they were running to their destinations because it was fifty not eighty, but they looked pretty dang cool running. Being pretty cool myself, I had put on a vest instead of a full-on winter coat. Thursday night the temperature dipped below zero: no more shorts (save those diehards and we all know them). Friday morning ..read more

In the summer months, heading out to do morning or evening chores means sliding on some barn boots. In just a few minutes we can be up to our knees in straw, hay or poop. In the winter months it takes time to prepare ourselves to greet the cold: it is all about the layers; wool socks with some kind of under base (formerly known as long underwear) tucked into the socks. Durable pants that don't allow wind to slip through, then the whole thing jammed into boots that are warm down to sub-zero temps. Two layers on the upper torso then the barn coat, dirty, dependable, durable (DDD) I like a wool ..read more

My studio has two recitals a year, without fail. We have our winter recital after the holiday-hoopla and then spring recital in late May. Last year our two recitals were both virtual. This year, as did most people, we zoomed into the new in-person fall semester full of hope for a “normal” season. I don't need to tell you about the actual Zooming that we did. As the winter recital approached so did a new Covid variant. Feeling the need to respect everyone's right to decide whether or not to play in-person, I sent out a poll to the studio. The results were a bit lackluster (it is a recital, aft ..read more

The year is brand new and, as we turn the page of the calendar, the cold arrives. There are two kinds of cold; December cold which is moist: you can smell the possibility of snow but that can, just as easily, foretell rain, The weekend before Christmas we had a rainstorm that, because the temperature was (oddly for rain), in the 20F region, it was a freezing rain storm. The holiday season almost in full swing and we were left with patchy grass spots and an overall brown pallor. However, Sunday morning of that very same weekend, we awoke to white. It was as if someone had shaken a blanket over ..read more

The wind began to pick up in the early evening: I went out, like I do every evening, to check animals: chickens were contentedly clucking on their nighttime roosts, slightly disgruntled at my turning on the light. The sheep, repeatedly chewing dinner, looked up at me, hope in their eyes that I might have come bearing gifts of more hay. As I opened the barn door to leave, the wind grabbed it from my hands and slammed it against the side of the building. I trudged across the road up toward the house and stopped, listening for a moment to the sound of the wind coming down the mountain: beginning ..read more

T’is the season: Latkes and applesauce, caroling, Christmas trees, winter boots, Poinsettias and...auditions. As an instructor, it can be challenging to convince kids, who are looking forward to some time off from the pressures of school, that it is a good thing to work twice as hard at their instruments this time of year. I try to space out the practicing of some of the basic [festival audition requirements like scales and sight reading, over the course of the school year. There is method to this madness; if there is consistent repetition sprinkled in among lesson assignments, the rote work ..read more

Driving home last evening we noticed several houses with holiday lights strung. It surprised me because most years we are one of the earliest to decorate, starting the day after Thanksgiving. Paul chuckled as I swore competitively each time we saw a sparkling house. I admit there was a temptation to get home and begin climbing the ladder to the overhead storage, we have headlamps for a reason, right? But Paul reminded me that today was Thanksgiving and that it was important to honor this day for the important day that it is. In our house that is less about Plymouth Rock and more about the big ..read more