Merrimack Valley RingersThree of our ringers, Jenn Stack, Kim Whitehead, and Lisa Arnold had a wonderful week at National Seminar in Texas, learning new skills and sharpening their ringing. You can watch Kim and Lisa, as well as four Area 1 teens in the All Stars/Distinctly Teen Concert, available online through mid-August at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk83FU2biZI
MVR had a blast performing, teaching, learning, and hanging out with other ringers from Area 1 and beyond at the 2023 Festival/Conference in Worcester! Thanks to everyone from the organizers to the clinicians to our audiences in person and at home. And of course to all the other ringers. It’s an honor and a pleasure making music with you, and we look forward to doing it again soon!
This is the first year in 12 seasons – 9 with my previous bell choir Campanillas del Sol in Scottsdale Arizona and the past 2 with MVR – that I haven’t spent the fall practicing Christmas music in preparation for a busy month of Christmas concerts. By this time, I’d be in the middle of a fabulous routine each weekend of schlepping bells in and out of venues, playing for festive and receptive audiences, and enjoying the holiday season with my bell-ringing family. I’ll be honest with you, it’s been hard not to be with my fellow MVR ringers and with our audiences this year. Lots about this year, obviously, has been quite hard, though what I’ve tried to do is keep finding the silver linings, and that has helped make this difficult time so much easier.
The main silver lining this year has been all the extra time I’ve been able to spend with my family. My daughter, Libby, is 4 years old (3 when the pandemic started), and we took her out of daycare the day that my job told me to start working from home on March 13th. The first few months were rough getting into a new routine, but as winter turned into spring, we started working outside on our garden, taking regular afternoon walks and eating lunch out on the deck. We even jumped on the bandwagon and got 4 chickens, which my daughter named after some of her favorite TV and movie princesses: Ariel, Sophia, Aroura, and Elena.
Two of my family’s favorite activities are hiking and camping, and we did as much of both as possible. The week of 4th of July, we camped in the Berkshires and Central Mass for a week. Though it rained most of the week, we were able to play lots of games and hike between rainstorms. We also taught Libby to fish, went canoeing, and picked some of the season’s first raspberries. In the middle of the summer, we went camping near Mount Monadnock and enjoyed relaxing in the hammock and touring local covered bridges. Labor Day weekend, we went back to the Berkshires because we love it so much the first time. We stayed at the base of Mount Greylock and hiked around the mountain, went apple picking, and even got to listen to live music outdoors at the campground for the first time in months!
Though we haven’t seen many people because of social distancing, we have been lucky enough to see my parents outdoors a few times over the summer and for Libby’s 4th birthday. I’ve also found the joy in Zooms with family and friends that wouldn’t have happened without the push of a pandemic to make us reach out to one another remotely. And there’s still been some music with fellow MVR-ringer and best bell friend forever (BBFF) Jenn Stack sitting in my gazebo or masked up playing boomwackers! Check out of video here of The Holly and the Ivy on boomwackers!
I think I will look back at this year and remember how bonkers it was. But also remember that I was able to eat lunch with my daughter every day, grow a garden that produced what seemed like hundreds of tomatoes and cucumbers all summer, explore tons of local trails, watch dozens of movies since starting Friday night movie night early on in the pandemic, and focus on the simpler things in life. That being said, I look forward to next year when we will all get back to ringing together. Until then, happy Holidays, stay safe and find your silver linings.
I think it’s rather apropos that I’m writing this right after Thanksgiving, because besides my passion for handbells, I have a passion (some might call it an obsession) about cooking. I was fortunate enough to grow up with a mom and a grandmother who were good cooks, so I guess you could say it’s in my genes. I have many fond memories of being in the kitchen with one or the other of them, watching or helping out. Every Thanksgiving, my grandmother would typically host 25 or so people, not always counting the kids. We would always have a turkey that was at least 23+ pounds. It wasn’t until I moved to New England and started making Thanksgiving dinners with my friends did I find that it was possible to get a turkey that weighed less than 20 lbs!
This Thanksgiving, as in past ones, I was the one doing the turkey, and most of the fixings. It was just the four of us (my partner, Chris, me, and his two Millennial kids), but I still wasn’t able to stop making enough food for an army. We had the usual things … turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, squash, roasted root vegetables and biscuits. I have a go-to turkey recipe that I follow from “America’s Test Kitchen”, that makes a great turkey every time… just chop a big pile of parsley with sage, rosemary and thyme, mix it with a stick of melted butter, with some chopped garlic and salt and pepper. Rub it all over the turkey, and roast it in a 300-degree oven. Easy peasy.
It’s the GRAVY that always gives me fits! I remember my grandmother making it in the roasting pan that the turkey came out of, and just doing it over the stove. I tried that once, and it came out awful, so I know I was doing something wrong. Or maybe I just wasn’t used to all of that fat. Who knows. I think that after many failures, I’ve figured out that the easiest thing to do was to just go back to making a basic roux in a saucepan, and then slowly adding the stock I’ve made from simmering the neck and giblets with celery, carrots and bay leaves. It’s never quite right (at least to my taste), but it’s pretty close, and everybody likes it.
Every year, I’m always looking for something new to add to the menu, so this year, I decided to try a new vegetable (at least to me). I found a rutabaga that I peeled and cut into chunks, and added it to the Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes and beets that I roasted.
I was actually pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I had coated everything in a mix of maple syrup with cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and pepper, so that sweetness might have had something to do with it (but not TOO sweet)!
And of course, we couldn’t go with just one pie, so I made my mom’s apple pie recipe, along with the tried and true Libby’s pumpkin pie.
When all is said and done, I enjoy sharing my cooking with my family and friends. And besides, I didn’t have to do the dishes!
(True confessions… this was from a couple of years ago when I tried a bunch of new ways to cook the tried and true dishes. Suffice it to say that it was one of my more memorable disaster Thanksgivings!)
I consider myself lucky that COVID-19 hasn’t affected me too much, other than not being able to be with my MVR buddies! I’m grateful that my family is healthy, and that we can put food on the table. I look forward to the day when I can share my cooking with my friends and family from away again!
Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season!
Greetings to old and new MVR friends!
I really like to travel, a love acquired in adulthood as there was very little opportunity in my childhood. Most of my traveling these days happens in early October when my husband George and I attend the Livorno American High School annual reunion. LAHS was the school for Army and civilian dependent kids near Pisa, Italy, where my husband attended junior high and the first semester of high school. Anyone who was a student the high school is an alum; graduation is not a criterion. We go a different place each year, depending on who volunteers to be the host. Every so often we go back to Italy.
Probably the LAHS trip that stands out most in my memory is the one that almost didn’t happen. This reunion trip that year was back to Italy, and one of the members arranged a tour- 10 days at a hotel in Tuscany and taking bus tours each day. Plus an optional follow-on trip – three days in Venice, how could we not? We also had two Iceland Air tickets from a cancelled trip to Norway. Could we possibly use them to get to Italy? And since that was also the summer of our 50th wedding anniversary, we had decided to treat ourselves to a week in Rome before the Tuscany tour.
Iceland Air was willing to swap our tickets. And wouldn’t we like to stop over in Iceland for a couple of days for no extra airfare? However, they didn’t fly to Rome in September, but they did go to Zurich. Okay, my Swiss railway fan husband was in favor of that. So our trip would take us from Boston to Iceland to Switzerland to Rome to Tuscany and Venice. We started making some arrangements ourselves, then threw up our hands and called a travel agent friend. Sheryl would be delighted to plan the rest for us. It would take several weeks to get it all set up; she would send all details shortly before we were due to leave.
Did I mention she lives in Florida? Where they get severe hurricanes? And have to evacuate? Yep, about ten days before our departure date, she did have to evacuate. Upon her return, she had no internet connection and an unreliable phone connection. Many promises were made to her–it’d restored by tomorrow for sure. But it wasn’t. Our departure day arrived with many incomplete arrangements. The theme of our next many days became “What do we do now?”
We flew off to Iceland hoping she would have info when we arrived. Alas, no. We had booked a rental car but nowhere to stay. What to do now? Trip Advisor to the rescue for a hotel in Reykjavik. We visited geyser sites and a geothermal generating plant, and saw some amazing scenery.
We still needed a flight to Zurich. Got one, it left at 7:00 a.m. It’s an hour to the airport… short night, we were pretty bagged when we arrived. Still no Sheryl and no place to stay. “What do we do now?” Sheryl had suggested Lucerne as a Swiss destination, so we drove there, arriving at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. Every car and bicycle that wasn’t being driven was parked on the street. George dropped me off at a Tourist Info where after much consultation, the two ladies there found us a perfect hotel across the lake from Lucerne, with fabulous lake and mountain views. We rode the train up to view the Jungfrau, spent a day with friends in southern Switzerland, toured Lucerne, tempted to cancel the rest of the trip and stay there.
In the meantime, we were still without a Rome hotel. Cue the refrain…. We booked a hotel through the USO just outside Vatican City. The top floor of the building had apparently been a grand apartment, taken over by the hotel and divided into guest rooms. Fabulous furniture and enormous paintings on the walls – it was like sleeping in an art gallery!
But we didn’t spend much time there, too much to see!
All-day tour of Forum + Capitoline Hill + Colosseum (I think our guide could have been Lisa’s sister), an evening tour of Rome’s fountains, eating real pizza for lunch every day. Walking about 18,000 steps a day! Too many museums, churches, sights and definitely not enough time! Must go back!
The last hurdle – meeting up with our tour group outside Florence. We decided to rent a car and drive there from Rome. Getting out of Rome on a Sunday afternoon was no picnic. We eventually managed to meet our friends and proceed to our hotel in Montecatini Terme. We spent the next several days all over Tuscany – Pisa, Siena, Florence, winery tours that included not only samples of the wines but usually a very big meal. One tour even included a cooking class where we made pasta and crostini.
Finally we were off to Venice, first class on the high-speed train. Our hotel was just down from the train station – good for finding it after we got lost wandering through the city. We took a boat tour of the lagoon, a day trip to Murano, Burano and Torcello islands, of course San Marco and the Doge’s palace. Plus our gondola ride!
Finally we got to the end of our trip that ended well. We left Venice on the bus boat across lagoon to the airport. One more night in a hotel, then a long day of flying from Venice to Zurich to Reykjavik to Boston. Finally home, and never so glad to sleep in my own bed!
In addition to music, I have always loved camping and hiking. It’s been a family tradition since I was very young, and now I’m sharing it with my daughter. I have traveled all around the world, but there’s nothing quite the same as experiencing the exhilaration of making it to the top of a mountain and enjoying the sheer beauty of nature.
In 2016, I went on a cross country road trip with my parents and daughter from the west coast to the east. Over 10 weeks, we traveled 7700 miles, through 18 states, and visited 12 national parks (Redwoods, Grand Teton, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Grand Canyon, Arches, Yellowstone, Badlands, Wind Cave, Mt. Rushmore, and Pictured Rocks).
We touched all 5 Great Lakes and both oceans – we called it our sea to shining sea cross country road trip. We saw so much interesting wildlife and were literally on natural beauty overload. It was an unbelievably amazing trip of a lifetime!!!
Since then, we have spent as much time camping and outdoors as possible each summer. We really got the camping bug back in full force! With all the craziness of this year, it was even more important to us to get outside as much as possible and have a change of scenery. My parents traded in their camper for a big upgrade. What’s a more perfect way to travel in a pandemic than with your own “house” (beds, kitchen, bathroom, food) everywhere you go?
We camped from July through the middle of October. We went to Michigan to visit with my sister and spent a long time in Maine enjoying the ocean. This time, my husband took very rare time off to be with us for almost 3 weeks.
My dad could still teach via zoom from the campground. I homeschool my daughter, so we can take our show on the road. All of our regular activities were cancelled, so we took advantage of the “free” time, and spent it outside.
Quality time with family and enjoying the great outdoors “filled my cup” to keep me going into the winter. We also had fun taking pictures and capturing the memories along the way!
Hello to our lovely and loyal audience! In my short biography, I mentioned that my husband Charles and I both love to travel and that we both play handbells. We have managed to combine both loves on many wonderful trips and plan to continue doing so, once travel becomes safe again. In an ideal world, where money and time present no obstacles, we would travel every month to the far reaches of the world, and playing handbells gives us the perfect opportunity to do just that while seeing the world. Come with us as we plan our dream year of traveling and ringing — and given the year we have had, we need this, even if it is just a fantasy.
Let’s start our year off with a quick weekend trip in January to western Massachusetts for the Area 1 Winter Workshop, featuring two intensive ringing tracks for handbell musicians who want to stretch their ringing skills. As a bonus, Amherst in the wintertime is beautiful.
Next, in late February we head to New Bern, North Carolina for Distinctly Bronze – East, a Handbell Musicians of America national event, scheduled for February 25-28, 2021. We purchase our music and receive our bell assignments months in advance and spend hours practicing on our own to be ready to play with some of the most advanced ringers in the country and the world. In addition to playing challenging and beautiful handbell compositions, we get to spend time with handbell friends from across the country whom we’ve met over the years at Distinctly Bronze and other events.
March 18-21, 2021, we head to Clackamas, Oregon for Coppers Classic, run by Area 10 of the Handbell Musicians of America. Like Distinctly Bronze, musicians purchase their own music and learn their parts on their own before getting together as a group for rehearsals and a final concert. Organizers provide detailed feedback to participants during and after the event.
We will stay local and attend state Spring Rings in April. Each year, our state chairs put together an amazing day of ringing and workshops. In Festival Conference years, it also gives groups an opportunity to practice the music we will be ringing as a massed choir. These events are always a good opportunity to ring and to socialize with our local handbell friends throughout New England.
Our favorite trip of the year happens in May, when we travel to the Tuscan region of Italy with Resonate Tours. It is open to people of all skill levels, and spouses are welcome to come along and enjoy sightseeing, food and other adventures. Again, you get your music ahead of time, and practice on your own before coming together for two days of final rehearsals before heading out on tour. Those two days aren’t all work… we always enjoy a cooking class at a cooking school in the mountains near Lucca, as well as local sight-seeing and plenty of gelato. The tour focuses on traveling to lesser known regions of Tuscany, where our audiences often know very little English, and don’t usually see a lot of tourists. More importantly, Resonate Tours treats each meal as a culinary adventure, so you can be rest assured that you are eating authentic and unique Italian meals cooked to perfection. I’ve even started learning Italian so that I can feel more comfortable speaking with audience members after the concerts.
In June, let’s join up with Witte Travel for a handbell festival in Poland, The Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Last year, we travelled to Spain with this group, under the direction of Deborah Rice. We played concerts in some of the most famous landmark churches in Spain to standing-room-only crowds every evening. During the day we took in some of the most beautiful scenery you can imagine, and tours of historical and architecturally important buildings throughout the country.
In July, it’s time to attend National Seminar! Occurring July 13-17, 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona, National Seminar is Handbell Musicians of America’s annual event for all handbell musicians. The four-day event offers classes and activities for directors, ringers, educators, worship leaders, and composers. It also features two amazing concerts every day by handbell choirs from the region that audition for the opportunity. In 2019, we traveled to St. Louis along with several other Merrimack Valley Ringers – Sue Lee, Karen Leonard, Carlene Ruesenberg, Jennifer Stack, and Kim Whitehead.
August brings us the International Symposium, which takes place in even years, and is held in a different country each year. In 2022, the International Symposium will be held in Nashville, Tennessee! In September we take a break, since that is when community and church choirs start back with rehearsals, and it’s time to focus on learning our new music for the fall.
In October, we head to the suburbs of London, for UK Bronze! Four fun filled days with Fred Gramann, ringing beautiful music with ringers from across the United Kingdom, plus a few friendly faces flown in from the US. The event is modeled after Distinctly Bronze, and there is always plenty of time built in for sight-seeing and a show. In 2018, Sue Chamberlin and Holly Cerullo joined us, and we saw The Book of Mormon in London’s theatre district.
Join us for another Distinctly Bronze event in November, this time in the west! Distinctly Bronze West takes place each year in Portland, Oregon. You will need to audition for this event, unless you’ve attended a previous Distincly Bronze event, but again, it is totally worth it. Portland is lovely this time of year.
That brings us to the close of our year, where we will enjoy attending the concerts put on by the many community choirs and local church groups in New England throughout December. And maybe, just maybe… we will pop over to France for Christmas, and attend Christmas Eve services at the American Church in Paris, where Fred Gramann directs the church handbell choir, and has been known to arrange a new handbell composition written specially for that night.
Safe Travels to all! I can’t wait to see you at one of our concerts and learn about where handbell travel will take you.
Let me first try to explain my headshot. Think I was about to sneeze. It doesn’t look like me. Carlene tried to reassure me, by saying her photo was worse. That worked, not because her photo actually is worse, but because her words brought to mind the truly welcoming nature of MVR ringers.
This post is intended to expand on the bio, which already recounted highlights of my music career. Furthermore, Covid (temporarily) dashed the previously touched upon travel plans. A lengthy, yet restorative physical therapy commitment, after simultaneous double knee replacement, put the Masters Swimming on hold. (The knees warrant a separate post.) The best part’s still going on: enjoying life with husband.
My husband’s parents savored watching TV during dinner. After each nightly cooking spree, I’m queried, “Honey, would you like to dine, or be my parents?” More often than not the reply is, “Oh, let’s be your parents!” Nightly dinner theatre has updated us with The Crown, Bosch, Game of Thrones, Ratched, Ozark, True Detective, Westworld, Chernobyl, Treme… the list goes on.
Cooking is quite a sensual retreat. Friends know they can text me various ingredients, such as disparate farm share veggies, and then I’ll text back what to make with them. Sometimes this even inspires unusual kombucha flavors. Once I got stumped! Someone texted a photo that was more suggestive of a large, smooth turnip with a navel. Turned out to be a jicama. Who would have thought, especially in agricultural zone 5? Anyway, when binge-watching and doomscrolling (and addictively wolfing down potato chips) gets old, cooking becomes the healthy pastime.
The “garden” here is more of an obsessive, environmental mission. Our entire property was a serious fixer-upper. It had Japanese knotweed, about 10,000 square feet, and invasive phragmites grass in a large pond, all replaced now with native elm, birch, dogwood, viburnum, blueberries, sweetfern, etc. I had to get good at driving a large Kyoti tractor. The animals here largely have to fend for themselves, unlike Dianne’s lucky wild charges and Colette’s family’s fortunate ducks and chickens. Aside from fostering their plant community, we do little for the bunnies, turtles, frogs, snakes, otters, herons, weasels, groundhogs, foxes, ducks, birds, etc. See my blog, landremedy.com. (Because Covid times have been so demanding, I’ve been trying to wear the fact that it needs updating like a badge of honor.)
The blog is not exactly current, partly because like many of us, I’m often tethered to my computer. Instead of seeing students, conducting choirs and leading hymns, I’m teaching online, chairing virtual creative meetings, performing Zoom piano/vocals and producing music videos. Here’s one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lERYG5HfjWU
And now, instead of being chained to the computer, I’m going to go outside and blow leaves off the paths and back into our planting beds, using a battery-operated leaf blower. It’s free mulch, perfectly crafted for its purpose. Nature has been powerfully healing during the past year. I hope you all have a patch of healthy native plants and/or wildlife nearby, to walk through, be inspired by, and to enjoy. May you stay happy, healthy and safe!
So, how are you doing since the world stopped March 16, 2020? Did you start a new hobby? Take up ringing? Dancing? Covid social distancing?
As a family we are surviving and thriving. As a mom, I gave in to my 8 year old daughter in April 2020 when she said, “Mom, the ducks are soooo cute. Can we get them, for me? I will take care of them.”
What do you say to your wonderful daughter— “yes, we will get these ducks. And these chickens of course.”
For real, why would any sane person buy ducks when you just walked into the hardware store to get a flashlight. So….we bought and hand raised 4 ducks and 4 chickens. But where did they stay? In our bathtub of course. because that is the perfect place to have ducks and chickens for 8 weeks. And, everyday we had the “walk of the ducks”. In the morning, I directed them outside and they waddled out the door and down the steps. Now when I come home and the ducks hear my voice they squawk and want me to come and play.
We have also done a lot of hiking, biking and camping over the past 7 months. As I’m sure most everyone has. Outside has become an extension of who we are. It is our second home. I am so thankful that Brian bought a camper, it makes going away on the weekends so much easier.
As a teacher, it’s been a bit interesting. I have had to learn a ton of new technology. I have had to buy a ton of new technology. My hours of work have tripled. For a 30 minute online phonics lesson, it often will take me 2 hours to build the powerpoint and jamboard lessons to teach it. I can’t wait to go back completely in person, or rewind to January 2020.
I mentioned in my bio that I live with a tabby cat named Perch- but she’s just part of my indoor family. Caring for her is easy- fresh water and dry food in a couple of bowls around the house, cleaning the litter box, and petting her in my lap. Outside in my back yard, however, I have another family that comes and goes with the seasons, and some who live here full time- and caring for them can be a full time job!
I love animals, and when I moved into this house 16 years ago I started feeding a feral cat who lived out back. Our neighbors below us had been able to take in her kittens, but she wouldn’t come in, and when they moved away I made sure she was still fed and had shelter through the winter. Word got out in the neighborhood (and by this I mean communication among the animals), and ever since then I have had a full menagerie to care for! Once animals find a safe place to stay (and in many cases to have their babies), they tend to return each year, so I have had several litters of kittens born in and under our shed, and lots of possum and raccoon families take up shelter there as well. I’ve been able to trap/neuter/return almost all of the cats to make sure they don’t have MORE litters, and several of the kittens have been adopted while they’re still young enough to socialize. The wild babies? I tend to leave that to Mother Nature
Feeding this crowd in the summer months is quite an endeavor. Right now I have 4 feral cats who come regularly- one I’ve been feeding for 10 years!- 3 skunks, 2 possum, a woodchuck, and in the height of the season there were 2 raccoon families of SIX cubs each, not to mention the usual squirrels, birds and an occasional fox. In these sad days of restaurants closing because of lack of business, my backyard outdoor dining is fully operational and constantly at max capacity, and I am the hostess, the cook, the waitress, AND the dishwasher! What’s on the menu? Friskies, Meow Mix, Fancy Feast Creamy Delights,
sunflowers seeds, peanuts, water, and half and half.
As long as there is enough food available, everyone gets along for the most part. I can look out at dusk and see a skunk, a feral cat, a possum and a couple of raccoons eating within inches of each other, quite politely. Two of the ferals and both families of raccoons come for a second feeding on our upper deck, and during the summer once the cubs are out, they are an unending source of laughter as they roll around wrestling, climbing and trying not to tip the water bowl over. I’ve learned that all species love to drink half and half, that possum prefer wet cat food and skunks dry food, and raccoons will eat just about anything!
As I write this in early October, all but 2 of the raccoons have gone, there are still 3 skunks and a possum, and my ferals are waiting for me to update their individual shelters in the shed for the winter. Soon it will be just me and the cats, ready to tackle the cold and hunker down until Spring when it all begins again. The Circle of Life!
In 16 years I’ve missed a handful of feedings, and I can count on one hand the number of times I haven’t brought food out at least once in a day- usually because of snowstorms. When my husband and I are away, we have 2 stalwart friends who stand in for me, and I know the first time they saw the list of who gets what and where to put it all, they probably wanted to rescind the offer….but I’m grateful they understand that’s it’s all about consistency. These critters depend on me, and I won’t let them down as long as I am able!
Here is a gallery of my outdoor family over the years:
Oh, and I also love event decorating, designing Christmas cards, and creating gifts for my ringers- but that’s another blog altogether! 😊😊
Diane Burke