Fiona's Learning Plan

For the past two years various of my children have been part of the Wondertree SelfDesign program. It's a BC Independent school program that supports homelearners, particularly unschoolers. In exchange for some virtual paperwork, learners and their families are supported with a Virtual Village of Conversations, the sounding board services of unschooling-friendly Learning Consultants (known to the government as certified teachers, but playing a very different role indeed), and a thousand bucks per child for learning materials. The anecdotal reporting has been more or less onerous depending on the child, the stage of life, and the time of year, but I've consistently found the Learning Plan process to be valuable for both me and the children.

And so, with only two kids aboard the SelfDesign program this year, I'm still going ahead with the creation of Learning Plans for all four. Last year the Learning Plans were done in the back of the van during our long drive to Texada Island. This year we're at home until the middle of September at least, so our Learning Plans will be fleshed out at Panini's, a local café. One at a time I take the kids out to the café for a hot chocolate or decaf-au-latté, and we take a precious special hour to chat about their interests and ambitions for the next few months.

Today it was Fiona's turn. Because she wants to be treated like all the older siblings. Here's what we decided upon.

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Physical Education: Fiona wants to work on her 'dunking head' ability in the pool and on the 'waving your arms kind of swimming.' She knows that this requires bravery, but believes she is brave. She wants more opportunity for learning to rappel. She also wants to play outside lots, now that our dog is gone, and will enjoy two-wheeling, swinging, and running about.

Math: She will continue with Miquon Orange. She is interested in formal math bookwork any time her elder siblings are, and will likely pull out her own math book two to four times a week. She hasn't touched any written math work in over 7 weeks, and it will be totally up to her whether she gets it out again. She enjoys playing with the FlashMaster electronic math drill gizmo that no one else in our family has every found any use for and will likely make use of this, as well as enjoying numerous family board games, pattern games and card games. She will continue to experiment with origami and other forms of 3D papercraft.

Reading: She will listen alongside her siblings to nightly readalouds of young adult novels and non-fiction at a challenging level of grammar and vocabulary. She would like to have read to her daily some simpler books closer to her level, and would also like to do some reading practice with her mom perhaps once or twice a week. She currently reads at an early first-grade level, but is far from fluent. We will use simple phonetic readers and home-created stories to practice as she desires.

Writing: Fiona will continue to write with pencil and paper in an interest-driven manner. She will continue to blog on a semi-regular basis.

Humanities: Involvement in home and community will provide copious real-life exposure to topics in the humanities. In addition, listening to historical fiction readalouds, viewing documentaries and participating in our homeschool group's "World Tour" geo-cultural co-op will provide additional stimulation.

Sciences: Fiona will continue to participate in the GRUBS gardening and environmental club, which meets weekly except through the coldest months. She will watch documentaries about the natural world, play, camp and travel within the wilderness that surrounds her home, and help with the tending of our flock of laying hens. She'll continue to enjoy access to a variety of construction toys and scientific tools (eg. K'nex, SnapCircuits, Brio train track, Digital Blue microscope, building blocks, marble run kit).

Arts: Fiona will continue her self-motivated exploration of watercolour and acrylic painting. She will continue with violin studies and wishes to continue to work at music theory and sight-reading skills in this context. Although she hopes to study piano formally in the future, she will not start lessons for at least another year. In the meantime she will explore the piano keyboard with the aid of Alice Kay Kanack's "Musical Improvisation for Children" book and CD set.

Life Skills: As usual Fiona will participate in family and household tasks. She enjoys increasing her capabilities with housecleaning, dinner preparation (including chopping, peeling and grating), baking (kneading, mixing) and the consumer skils involved in the weekly family grocery shopping.

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There it is. The idea is that we'll revisit this plan in about 3-4 months' time and decide whether areas we've neglected need renewed focus, striking from the plan, or replacement with something else. I find these learning plans particularly helpful with my kids once they reach the age of 9 or so. I certainly wouldn't engage in this sort of formal process with a child this young if she weren't clamouring for inclusion in a family ritual (and the allure of the Panini's hot chocolate is not to be underestimated).

Family Choir

For us the highlight of the strings-and-piano program that brings 275 students and their families to our community for the VSSM has nothing to do with strings or piano. It's the choral option, and in particular the brilliant choral director.

My older three kids participated in Allison's Nelson Youth Choir program for a couple of years at least, before the choir's realignment and our scheduling shifts forced us to part ways during the regular academic year. But then she was hired to take over the choral enrichment option at the VSSM, and it was a joyful reunion for my kids. There are two choirs that rehearse each day throughout the 5-day workshop week. Erin prefers the Adult Choir which mets around supper time and includes many adult community members, senior piano students and interested parents. The singing in the Adult Choir is mostly from written music and is traditional four-part SATB choral singing. The younger three kids and I enjoy the Family Choir together every day. This includes children from the community and the music school of a variety of ages, from 2 to mid-teens, plus any interested parents. The singing here is all by rote, with some unison, but lots of rounds and descant parts too. Many of these people have never sung in a choir before. The photo shows only about a third of the choir members; we numbered a little over fifty.

There is such joy and respect in what she does. I am left in awe again and again at her incredible ability to teach, model, express ideas and manage solo and ensemble assignments in ways that leave everyone feeling important and valued. The sight and sound of little mouths and large mouths opened together in harmonic expression after five short rehearsals never fails to make me weepy. The mp3 clip embedded here is the end of an English / Latin arrangement of the well-known canon "Dona Nobis Pacem."

Who needs Febreeze?

We are not really a TV family but my kids have seen enough Febreeze ads around the edges of their dad's TV-news-watching to delightedly mock the product and its marketing.

Here's a scent solution that trumps the Febreeze scene. Go to the garden, pick a couple of good-sized spearmint leaves. Tuck one up each nostril. Make an effort to look oh-so-casual. Breathe.

Aaaaah!!!

But don't laugh, whatever you do. No one will appreciate your nasal air freshener detritus when it is suddenly ejected in their direction.

Audience manners

This is a photo Fiona took at the dress rehearsal for the Faculty Concert last week. I haven't been VSSM faculty for many years, but I guess like a couple of the others I get included by virtue of being a faculty member / organizer of one of the other weeks under the Valhalla Summer School of Fine Arts Society's umbrella.

Anyway, it's fun to play a more or less professional-level string orchestral performance once a year on two brief rehearsals, so I'm more than willing. But I've got all these kids. Recently some of them are happy to stay home alone, but that doesn't always work out, and certainly for many years there was no choice -- if they couldn't come along and behave well, I simply couldn't play.

They've all come along to rehearsals and performances since birth. I confess there's a reasonable contribution from temperament here. I think I've lucked into children for whom learning appropriate rehearsal and performance manners has been possible at quite a young age. But I also think that early, consistent, effective teaching has helped.

Many people are amazed by my kids' good behaviour at concerts. I've been able to leave them unaccompanied in the audience to perform short- or medium-length concerts from the age of 4 or so (a little younger with the younger two who could be supervised by their older siblings). I guess I'm so used to their dependable behaviour that I tend to take it for granted -- until I see counter-examples amongst other (often older) children, or even adults. But sometimes there are incidents that remind me. There was a concert last winter where Fiona and Sophie (newly 4 and 8 at the time) were sitting in the front row unsupervised. Just as the performance began, Fiona's paper programme slipped off her lap and did a lovely swoop on a cushion of air, landing six feet in front of her, midway between the front row and the performers (including myself). She loves to have her own written programme, Fiona does, and I just assumed that there would have to be a few seconds' delay before the downbeat while we waited for her to scoot down off her seat and grab the programme. But no, she sat there, wide-eyed and halfway between guilty smirk and mortified grimace, and neither she nor Sophie moved a muscle. The downbeat came as originally planned, and the concert proceeded. They waited through until the next applause break, when Fiona executed a discreet retrieval manoeuvre. Mind-blowing impulse control! Or there's an occasion like the rehearsal photographed above, when I happily abandon my three youngest children in the balcony of the community hall trusting them to their own good judgement with respect to behaviour, and get on focusing on the rehearsal, forgetting they're there. Then I recall the sign that was at the balcony entrance the previous week banning unaccompanied children from the balcony -- for plenty of good reasons, like the amplified noise of footsteps from that floor, legs dangling through the balustrade, things dropped on people below. At a dress rehearsal I don't worry about any of that stuff, because I know that my kids, alone up there, wouldn't do anything instrusive.

When people ask how I got my kids to be so well-behaved, I usually explain that I drug them beforehand. (I hope they get the joke.) But the real answer, beyond the temperament thing, is probably in clear expectations based in empathy for the performers, and speedy non-punitive intervention in case of transgressions. I have always been clear about exactly what behaviour is acceptable, and why. For musicians, noises, even loud whispering or rustling programmes, are distracting and annoying. Quick movements can distract the performers' eyes. Attentiveness is a sign of respect for the musician's work. Movement and whispering should occur only during applause breaks. Because my kids perform too, they understand how inattentiveness and distractions feel when you're on the receiving end.

Because they've attended so many rehearsals over the years, they've had a chance to practice good audience manners where it doesn't count quite so much. I wish all children were given the opportunity to practice being an audience. I think that with that skill nurtured, there would be a lot more interest in the performing arts by families, and less prejudice against children in the audience.

My kids know that they never have to hold out past the next applause break (or equivalent, in the case of rehearsals). If they can't be good listeners any longer, that's fine. We will leave, and I won't be angry. Sometimes there are itches, wiggles, conversations or frustrations that can't wait through an entire Haydn string quartet, and that's just fine -- that's what it is to be 2 (or 4, or...). If a preschooler swings her legs or flops down on her seat or starts a sotto voce chat with a sibling, they get one instantaneous gentle reminder (usually one finger and eyebrows raised), and if that's ineffective as soon as possible I will quietly and sympathetically swoop the child up and make a discreet exit. And outside, without a trace of annoyance (because when I think about it I am truly amazed at what my kids can do), I will explain that we can't do that while others are playing, and I try to help the child deal with whatever was interfering with "good audience manners." Biding time in the lobby or outside is always an option. But amazingly enough, my kids almost always want to work out the issue and get back in to the remainder of the program.

Thank goodness this is a skill that my children have gained. My life is so much more personally fulfilling for it.

Another music week down

The first week of August is the busiest for us, as all four kids are involved in the Suzuki Valhalla Institute. The second VSSM week is less busy, but still very hectic. Erin is fully enrolled each year as a piano student, with choral and string add-on ensembles, while the younger three attend family choir, and I work as full-time taxi driver to my kids running between two communities several times a day, rehearsing and playing in the faculty concert, and looking after various organizational and logistical duties around the music school.

Erin had a reasonably good week, considering that anything would have felt like a let-down after the heady SVI week. She reconnected with some piano friends from last year, and sang a brilliant solo with the adult choir. (Or so I'm told; she informed me that she would not agree to sing the solo on the concert unless I was out of the building, so I dutifully left.) Her orchestra experience was a bit of a disappointment. She had chosen the orchestra option in the hope of being in the most advanced orchestra which has in the past done some brilliant performances of advanced repertoire. However, this year the most advanced kids were skimmed off the orchestra to do exclusively chamber music, and so the challenge in the top-level orchestra was not to Erin's liking. She coasted through. The performance was excellent, very polished and tight, but it was of fairly tame stuff, at least for a 13yo in the second violin section -- Bartok's Rumanian Dances and the first movement of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Still, there was lots of busy-ness and stimulation during the week with piano friends, all the choir music to learn, and the various performances (mine, hers, the younger kids').

By contrast the third week is much tamer. Only one of mine (Erin) is involved, and only in the evenings. There's only one concert. Wow, piece of cake!

So this weekend really represented the end of the craziness for me. It feels great! And how did we celebrate? We invited two of our favourite faculty members over for brunch and then they and the kids washed their car.

It was a lovely fun time. The car-wash was by necessity, but has the feel of an annual tradition. I wouldn't be at all suprised if next August 16 finds us all washing that white Toyota again.

Erin also managed to squeeze a lesson in with T., who has, I think, given her a little to go on in her Kabalevsky concerto and made suggestions for one or two new pieces -- like the Kreisler Praeludium & Allegro which I'm sure Erin will love.

Where has the summer gone, though?

Insurance

Look what we bought. Shiny, spanking new and with an 11-hour run time. It will easily power a freezer or a fridge, and a computer. We got through Y2K without succumbing to the paranoia and purchasing one, but the time has come.

The first weekend we moved into our house in '94 we had a power and telephone outage, and things haven't improved much since then. Winter and its snowstorms usually brings us several significant outages, lasting the better part of a day or two. Spring and fall rainstorms can do the same as trees fall on power lines anywhere along the miles and miles of remote power grid here.

Mostly we greet power interruptions with an enjoyable sense of adventure. The kids grab board games and books and we hunker down together in the living room to enjoy the simpler pace of life off the grid. We're pretty well set up for most outages. We have a wood stove that keeps our house warm even in the depths of January. The stove has a small cooking surface. Our water is gravity-fed, not relying on a pump. We have corded telephones. We have plenty of lanterns and candles, and a wind-up radio.

But we've never, until this summer, had a significant (i.e. more than a few hours) electrical outage at the peak of summer. Food was the main issue, especially with all the music school busyness and entertaining we had just been preparing for. With the temperature well over 30 Celsuis, we couldn't just put a cooler of food outside once our refrigerator warmed up, which it did, fast! There wasn't ice and snow all over the landscape with which to keep things in the chest freezer frozen. We certainly weren't about to build a woodstove fire to heat up hot water for dishes and bathing. We managed, thanks in large measure to the goodwill of a friend with a generator. Lesson learned.

So our little blue friend has joined the family as a form of insurance and peace of mind.

Noah's Nina

Noah was assigned to learn the "Nina" by Pergolesi in late June. It's a viola rendition of the Italian song "Tre giorni son che Nina." Intensely passionate lyrical stuff. His teacher heard it at his lesson two weeks later. We had been away at camp, and he had missed a few days of practicing, but it was obvious when he played it for that first lesson that it was His Piece. It was a piece he loved, that he had learned well and easily, that fit him like a glove.

Whenever he performs it, the last note is invariably followed by "ahhhs" of rapture from the audience. I thought he stole the show at his SVI recital in a way he's never really be situated to do before. He was left feeling, quite rightfully, that he'd cast an exceptional spell with this piece.

Today the younger three kids and a friend had agreed to provide some musical entertainment at the "Art at the Kohan" event. The stunning Kohan Garden provides the setting for a two-day festival of visual arts. Local artists work and display their work. They worked out a set of two- and three-part arrangements of simple tunes, and the oldest two also agreed to play a solo each. Noah chose the Nina of course. Afterwards, riding high on the "ahhhs" of appreciation, he lingered with his viola at the ready. I had planned to rifle through some unaccompanied Bach on my own viola, but after I played one movement, I realized Noah was still eager. He decided to play a couple more pieces, and he and I did one movement from the Telemann Double Viola Concerto together.

Tomorrow is day 2 at the Kohan, and Noah is keen to perform again. This is new for him, this interest in being in the spotlight and pouring out his musicality with pleasure. We'll do three movements of the Telemann together, and I think we'll save Nina for the end.

Easterly connections

Is this where things are leading? I cannot imagine a person with more goodness in them than this violin teacher. Not only that, but she's experienced, gentle, funny, compassionate, effusive and talented. She likes teens. She likes Erin. Erin likes her (no one gets this physically close to Erin unless they are very very much liked). Unfortunately she lives 7 1/2 hours away, across the continental divide.

Whatever. I guess we'll deal with it.

She's here right now and she and Erin, who have known each other a few summers, are going to get together for a lesson or two in the next couple of days. And then we'll go to Calgary for some violin shopping in September and we'll try to hook them up again. She may not end up being Erin's Teacher in any long-term formal sense, but maybe Erin will come to see her as a mentor. Maybe she'll help give Erin another violin connection that will help her keep going.

Violin issues, chapter 2

As I wrote last March, Erin's violin teacher, with whom she had been studying for just a few months and had been just beginning to gel, retired unexpectedly, leaving her without a teacher in the region. She's not a self-structuring "driven" music student at this point. Heck, she's thirteen -- it'll probably come, but she's young. She works consistently when she has a teacher-student relationship she's comfortable with and committed to, but it takes her a while to get to that stage with someone new. To find her someone experienced at her level would require a minimum 3 1/2 hour drive, something we'd be unable to do on a weekly basis. Maybe monthly, but at that frequency how long would it take her to get comfortable, and how often would she practice? I resolved to wait and see how her inclinations panned out over the next six months or so, especially after the music summer school weeks that we're now in the thick of. Since then she's been coasting along, practicing every once in a while, playing with the community orchestra or the Osprey String Quartet at rehearsals and performances, but not really doing any work to speak of. She began, for the first time, to express a preference for one instrument over the other: piano over violin.

I've had a long time to mull this over and have reached a few conclusions. First, this kid is a musician right down to her bones. Not just because she's been steeped in it, but because of who she is. She's bright, intense, intuitive, passionate, and music has become her voice and a strong part of her identity. On the other hand, she does have the piano still, and has reached a level on violin where she can continue to play easily at a recreational level -- and that would be okay. But the biggest realization has been that if the violin drops off her horizon, it will be simply for the lack of a musical relationship with someone significant outside the family. She has everything going for her on violin, this kid -- technique, instincts, astonishingly efficient sight-reading and note-learning ability, a love of chamber music, brilliant ensemble-style musical responsiveness, musicality oozing out her pores. All that's missing to carry her to a very high level is a relationship with someone out there, some musical commitment or pursuit that is not organized or directed or taught by a family member -- not by her mother, not by her grandmother, not by her aunt -- to inspire her to make this area of study her own. Just one long-term connection wit hone teacher or mentor, and she would jump right in with both feet and get on with it with a high level of commitment and exceptional ability. Almost every other violin student has this. Is it really so much to ask for?

Her Beethoven string quartet playing last week was jaw-droppingly brilliant. Her coaches and teachers were raving about her abilities. She had a wonderful time musically and socially and told me that she wants to come back to SVI in 2008 so badly that she figures she'd better find herself some violin lessons. She also said that violin is now her favourite instrument.

So where, where oh where do we find her this relationship with a teacher? Oh, and she also needs a full-sized violin if she's going to carry on. She's pretty much outgrown her wonderful three-quarter size. If only life were simpler!

After the institute

How cool is this?! Here's my family and our friends from Scotland. We 'met' them about 7 years ago when Linda and I connected via the SuzukiChat e-mail group. Over the years we've shared a lot of conversations, ideas, book recommendations and musings about stages along our kids' musical journeys -- but all at a distance, through e-mail and the post. But finally, finally, we met in real life when they made the intercontinental trek and joined us at the 2007 Suzuki Valhalla Institute.

I had feared that with the full-on busyness of the week and all the organizational and social demands on myself during this heady week that we wouldn't get a chance to connect properly. But connect we did, and it was as comfortable as if we'd been living in the same town all along. The kids got along brilliantly. No surprise there, as all six of them belong to the neatest-kids-in-the-universe club.

Here we all are together -- Ewan, Megan, Linda, Erin, Charles, Sophie, Fiona, Miranda, Noah and Alex -- after the brilliant final concert at the community hall. Now it's all over. The next few days will constitute a period of mourning for us as we try to get used to not having all our Old-New friends around. How does life go on after a week like this?

Tutti Night

Here is the SVI event I enjoy the most of all. We call it "Tutti Night." It happens in the early evening on Wednesday, and it's just for fun. Faculty, teacher-observers/trainees and community members come together to create the core of a string orchestra. Our students come and play together on the solo parts of various Suzuki repertoire pieces, chiefly concerto movements like the Telemann Viola Concerto and the Bach "Double" Concerto in d minor for Two Violins -- though we also play a selection of simpler repertoire for the youngest students. The children play whatever pieces they know, and watch and listen as the more advanced students or cellos or violas take their turns. The children love playing with orchestra backup rather than simply a piano accompaniment. They also enjoy seeing their teachers playing together under the direction of our conductor. The parents love watching and listening. For an unrehearsed event, the quality of the music is pretty darn high, because the 'soloists' know their parts exceedingly well and have learned through years of group classes how to play well together on the fly.

But there's a lot more magic that happens beyond that. The orchestra members have a blast, making mistakes, bantering back and forth between sections and with the conductor, and the sense of humour and good fun permeates. The children enjoy the orchestral blunders a lot, because they are pretty bomb-proof on their parts. It all feels real and collaborative, and not the slightest bit 'top-down.' We're all in it for the fun together. Erin was thrilled that the Bach Double solo lines were played by two student groups without any adult leaders playing along -- and they sounded great!

And this year, the most senior violin, viola and cello students began drifting into the orchestra when they were not needed on the solo lines. It started with Erin and a few of her violin cohorts padding out the violin section during the cello solos. And then, after the cellos and violas had had their moments of stardom, while Erin and her buddies pulled off their lovely Bach Double, Noah drifted into the viola section, quickly followed by the rest of the brilliant quartet of advanced student violists. In no time we had eight violists playing together -- and then the senior cello students joined the orchestra too, and the teen violinists drifted back in as we moved to repertoire for the less advanced violinists. Our orchestra got bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger and there were the kids playing alongside their teachers and mentors, sharing stands, being part of the same good-humoured banter the adults were sharing.

And why did we all rush our suppers and hurry back after a full day of classes for an optional event that involved yet more music playing? Just for the sheer pleasure of playing together. What an amazing experience the week was. Tutti night epitomized the joy of the week for me.

What it's really about

Yeah, they're working on technique. They're refining their ensemble-playing skills. They're polishing their shared repertoire, getting the input of new teachers, performing, sharing ideas and inspiration. But this, this is what it's really about.

It's about the pleasure of being in the same place at the same time, and doing the same thing as a bunch of like-minded families and their amazing kids. It's about the chemistry between kids like these, who are having the most fantastic week getting to know each other. Hurrah for trips to the beach, for picnics and barbeques, for time off between classes spent playing on the teeter totters in the children's playground, hurrah for improv class where they tease each other both with words and by playing musical jokes on each other with call & response improvised riffs, and hurrah for the amazing faculty who clearly love working with teens.

A P.S. for those wondering about the fires. The major fire nearby seems to be burning itself out against some rocky bluffs in the high country. A single lane of the highway re-opened this morning with pilot-car shuttling. Half-hour delays to wait for the convoy, but that beats a three-hour detour hands down.

In like a dirty shirt

A year ago I wrote a post about the 2006 Suzuki Valhalla Institute experience for my kids. About Fiona, then three, I wrote:

"For at least a year she's been eagerly joining in on her siblings' lessons and group classes, but I didn't realize how much it was their presence that drew her in. In her own class of 3-to-6-year-olds, without her siblings there, she was much more reticent. She was the youngest but almost the most advanced in her group class, but struggled to leave my lap at times."

Different year, totally different kettle of fish. She is so into the whole institute experience. She doesn't need me to help her unpack her violin, get tuned and get lined up in class. She doesn't need me in view, nodding and smiling to reassure her. Heck, she doesn't need me in the room at all. She cares not one whit that she's in different classes from her siblings, or that she'd never met her master class teacher before. She is smiling, keen, and totally rapt. She even commented tonight that she thinks her master class lesson is shorter than that of her classmates' (it isn't!) and she wishes she could have a longer lesson -- that she would like to work even harder.

The touch

That's Noah, bottom right, playing first chair in the two-viola section of the 'mini-orchestra' at the Suzuki Valhalla Institute. They're working on a few movements from the Warlock Capriol Suite, a fantastic challenging work for an orchestra of this level. For most of his viola career, Noah has been able to ride on the coat-tails of his elder, more experienced buddy P. But P. is doing quartet as his ensemble this week, leaving Noah in a leadership position in the senior orchestra.

He knows his part -- his sight-reading has improved dramatically in recent months. And he plays with confidence and most especially musicality. He got the detached brush stroke intuitively. Over and over again the director was heard to say "listen to the violas -- they've got the touch! The violas have it -- the touch." He felt pretty good about that, I could tell, though he probably wouldn't admit it.

He's brilliantly placed in his classes this year. In viola master class and viola repertory class he's not quite the least advanced student in a group of pre-teen and teen boys, wonderful kids, all of them very likeable. Super role-models, all fairly close in playing level, the oldest ones just the right amount more advanced than he. They're playing four-part and two-part viola pieces together, revelling in their chocolatey viola sound. In orchestra he's confident and a leader. And in the Exploring Musical Styles (jazz/fiddling/improv) class, he's in with his older sister and several of his friends and managed to survive some improv, which he was dreading, and emerged in good humour.

They came! They came!

Despite the road closures, the power outages, the wildfires and evacuation alerts. All these amazing kids and all their amazing families came to our Suzuki institute. Eighty-one students and their families. Friends from Scotland, SelfDesign friends from all over BC, locals, SVI friends from last year and the year before, faculty who are like second family to my kids. Kids who can play Seitz Concerto No. 5 1st movement without being forewarned at the opening "play-in" with polish and aplomb. Kids who can make parents get teary-eyed with their big unison sound, playing the international Suzuki anthem "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to finish off the Sunday afternoon welcome. Kids in mixed-age groups who run and shriek and play together on ropes and lawns and playground equipment as if they've known each other for years when it's been just a few minutes. It's going to be a great week.

Martin Mars

The magnificent Martin Mars water bomber was working the Springer Creek fire here on the lake yesterday. It can scoop and drop 60,000 pounds of water in a single drop. Its aerodynamics defy belief -- how can that thing stay aloft at such slow speeds?

It's not just air tankers they're bringing in. There are a lot of people being brought in from the outside to help out with fire and emergency services. Tonight we were driving to the Kohan Garden for a walk along the lake, and to take photos. We got stopped by a highway flag-person whose job it is to inform people of the road closure 10 km south. He was standing at the main highway intersection in New Denver. I rolled down my window to reassure him that we weren't heading that way.

"We're staying in New Denver," I said. He nodded and started to wave us through.

"Wait!" he said, second-guessing himself. "New Denver ... that's the town on this side of Silverton?"

"Um, yeah," I said. "It's here. You're standing in it."

"Okay," he replied, not even looking sheepish.

Wonder where they find these people?

Saturday evening wildfire update

Nothing of note to report since this morning. People are arriving for the SVI. The air quality remains pretty good. There are no new evacuations. The highway, which runs just below the bright orange spot in the photo, is not going to be open for a while yet obviously. The fire has grown a lot in the last 24 hours, but most of that growth has been in an upwardly, easterly direction. (This photo looks due south.)

This year's SVI T-shirts are white and orange on dark green. Fitting, somehow, don't you think? We won't be repeating that colour scheme in future years, let me tell you!

Saturday morning wildfire update

Our power has stayed on. There was a community meeting last night. With just three hours notice the word got out and the school gym was packed. The good news is that if the phone line goes out, there will be an alternate line linked up within a couple of days -- they're already working on it. More good news -- there are two routes into our community that are not threatened. They require large detours (up to two or three hours) if you're coming from the south, but they're open. And our power is not in jeopardy. The back-up system they've placed is functioning fine, and there are back-ups for that back-up.

The bad news is that whether the fire grows aggressively towards homes is entirely dependent on weather and geography. The firefighters are throwing lots at the fire -- the magnificent Mars waterbomber has been working here, as well as four helicopters and over two hundred firefighters.

The meeting certainly displayed an interesting cross-section of our community. Our emergency co-ordinator, a middle-aged lady who runs the natural foods store, proved herself clear-headed, resourceful, witty, diplomatic and incredibly efficient. The village mayors were their regular common-sense nice-guy selves. Most people were very respectful, understanding and willing to offer help and do what was necessary if things should deteriorate. And then there was the lady who asked why no one was organizing an effort to help wild animals like birds that might get injured by the fire. And the other woman who suggested community prayer circles and a rain dance.

The fire is 10-12 km south of us. A few homes have been evacuated. No homes have burned. About 200 people have been placed on evacuation alert. The town of Silverton, 5 km south of New Denver, is not on evacuation alert. There are two big creeks between us and the area the fire has spread to so we do not feel at all threatened.

We certainly feel a bit guilty about the fact that we're in a sense responsible for bringing almost 200 people into the area tomorrow for a week's music workshop. But it's too late (and would be incredibly costly to an organization that has no financial reserves) to cancel the institute. Our faculty are already arriving, thousands of dollars of accommodations costs and honoraria are payable. The skies are clear and the whole situation will likely just gradually resolve over the next few days.

Wildfire update

The sky is almost clear of smoke today, but the fires are behaving badly. The one to the south has jumped the next creek, the highway has been converted into a firebreak (meaning they've bulldozed rubble onto it) and is closed indefinitely. Friends are being evacuated up towards us. Our phone line out of the community is threatened by this fire. They've brought in the big water bombers but winds were picking up this afternoon and the fire is still 0% contained. We're safe, 12 km north, but feeling increasingly cut off.

We're told power will be off again within the hour. I only got 6 of the 10 dozen muffins & squares done, but we'll make do -- and hopefully this is a briefer outage. Take note of the things I've done since getting a call twenty minutes ago: put the Nanaimo bars in the fridge, melted some cheese on corn chips for "supper", run through a pot of coffee, run the load of laundry with my new shirt in it, and posted on my blog. Now you know what's really important in my life. Pathetic, isn't it?

Burned off the grid

On Wednesday we had a (rescheduled) piano lesson, so we planned that trip to be our major grocery expedition. We have three intensive weeks of music school coming up and I know from experience that there is no time to shop. I'm also hosting about 35 kids and parents of SelfDesign families attending the Suzuki institute here for a barbeque on Sunday. So to say this was a major grocery shopping trip would be an understatement.

On the way to Nelson we drove past the forest fire south of us. It's about 15 km south, no threat to us, but the smoke and flames have been visible from town, so we were interested to see what the fire was like as we drove south. It was pretty impressive. The sun was an orange disc that would could look directly at through the smoke. The fire was within about 150 metres of the highway in one spot. The photo above is SOTC (straight off the camera, no digital editing) at our place. The yellow-orange cast is on everything and it's really obvious at a casual glance in real life.

Piano went well and we did our grocery shopping and headed for home, with a pit-stop for lunch at a café we like that's closed on our usual Nelson day, and to check out the little archery supply place at Noah's request (he's now eagerly counting his pennies).

When we arrived home the house was dark. We discovered that a small fire 50 km west of us had burned through the sole power supply lines to our region and power was off to our entire region. It seems beyond comprehension that there is only one line supplying our area. Isn't it called a "grid" after all? I mean, doesn't grid imply interconnectedness? Well, apparently we're on a power spur, not the power grid. There are areas to the east, south and west of us that have no electrical supply, in other words, they're off-grid areas without power poles and transmission lines. I knew this but I hadn't thought it through. One line -- gone. Estimates were that depending on the fire conditions, restoring power could take as long as a week or two in a worst-case scenario.

Well, my worst-case scenario involved $400 of rapidly warming groceries, an empty gas tank, a Suzuki institute with 81 students starting next Monday, 12 faculty to provide for, the aforementioned BBQ and a heck of a lot of computer work left to do before the institute starts. Not to mention children and laundry and dishes and cooking and bathing and all those mundane things. One to two weeks???!!!!

Things are never as bad as they seem, though. The big faculty welcome dinner happens to be in the restaurant at a backcountry resort that is off the grid anyway and has their own power-generating system. The dental clinic had a generator they were willing to let my mom hook her photocopier up to in order to churn out the last few hundred pages for the registration packet. Around the 24-hour mark our friends offered us their generator for a couple of hours to re-chill our freezer and refrigerator. I made a solar shower out of garden hoses and found the camp stove and the bulk propane adapter. I managed to send a bulk e-mail out to the institute registrants via the hospital computer system, as they have an emergency generator. And one of the local gas stations had generators running on their pumps and despite long line-ups and a lack of cash, I managed to dredge up enough small bills and coins to purchase a third of a tank of gas, enough to get us through the institute at least. I had just purchased some solar garden lanterns last week, and they screw off their spikes nicely and come indoors at night, providing ample clean-and-green lighting. Our wind-up radio has been terrific at keeping us informed.

The kids played outside, and with each other, and practiced their instruments. Noah and Fiona played numerous games together this morning, totally self-motivated and with great enjoyment of each other's company. Erin and Sophie counted, sorted, folded and labelled the 80-something SVI T-shirts. Kids did chores, read fiction and history, made their own fun and hardly complained at all.

And then, amazingly enough, the power came on late today. They say it's temporary, that there will need to be more significant interruptions for a definitive repair, and likely some brown-outs as well. But life is good. I'm madly trying to get 10 dozen muffins and squares baked for next week before the power goes off again, but since I know people have been wondering (our valley has made the national news on CBC radio today!) I thought I'd post an update.

We have lots of ash drifting down, but the smoke isn't bad and the fires are still far away. And we're so thankful for friends with generators, and our cold deep-freeze.