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.

Nocturnal heroics

The deed is done. Under cover of darkness, we managed the Stealth Wasp Manoeuvre suggested by Rebecca. First the bucket, then the blue plastic crazy carpet, then the piece of 3/8" plywood. Noah eagerly documented the whole affair with the camera. Chuck and I managed to walk without tripping up to the steep bank at the northeastern edge of the property and place the board on the ground. He stepped back and held the flashlight. I removed the bucket, then picked up the plywood and gave the whole nest a mighty heave down the bank. No swarming ensued.

Altogether I think the kids were disappointed by the lack of drama.

However, we'd just come from the lake, where we'd been watching the nearby forest fires flare in the dark. The drama there, under a dome of bright stars, definitely outdid the Wasp Stealth Manoeuvre. There are two fires visible down the lake, one near Enterprise Creek and the other further south at the head of the lake in the Springer Creek drainage. They're both pretty big and uncontained, but mostly burning upwards, away from homes and roads. Bright bursts of orange flames were visible on the ridges. Things are hot and dry here again, despite the almost two weeks of rain and cooler temperatures we had in mid-July.

High-rise tragedy

For the wasps, that is. They've calmed down and have stopped swarming, but they're not a very happy colony. Erin was able to leave the cabin easily after a couple of hours. We can now walk calmly by the nest without worry. We can squat a few feet away and watch them busily rebuilding their nursery.

I don't want to kill the poor guys with some noxious chemical or even with heat. I'm currently trying to come up with a safe way of relocating the nest.
Original Bug Shirt, gloves, shovel, bucket, garbage bag, smoking branches? Suggestions welcome!

Trapped!

You'd think that if Erin were going to get trapped in the cabin by creatures of some sort, it would be by bears, or a cougar, or a pack of coyotes. But no, for almost two years, she regularly got trapped out there by our family dog. And now that we've re-homed the dog, she's still getting trapped out there due to the most unexpected types of wildlife.

Today a wind blew up and out of an overhanging birch tree fell a large wasps' nest. At least a hundred very angry wasps are currently swarming around her door.

At least she has the 7th Harry Potter book out there.

A Simple Curve

We finally got a chance to see this movie. I missed the local screening, and while we had the DVD zip-listed for ages, it never quite percolated to the top of our queue. Friends kept offering to lend it to us, but we all kept forgetting.

It's a pretty enjoyable film. I think it's well-made. The casting is good, the story line is believable and, while not complex, there's a depth to it. It won a number of prestigious awards, and I think rightfully so.

What fun, though, for a family who knows every nook and cranny of the Slocan Lake area, and that knows most of the minor actors and extras. An independent film, it was filmed on a small budget without elaborate sets. It was filmed in the local hotel restaurant (we even knew which table they were sitting at), at the little bay a few minutes north, on main street across from our second-favourite café. And, since the film is set in contemporary New Denver, we didn't see our town blurred by the filter of history, like we did with The War Between Us, which was also set and filmed here.

I would swear we know most of the characters in the (fictional) plot. Nealon sure captured the spirit and personality of the area he grew up in. I'd highly recommend this film to anyone who is curious about the kind of place we live. Not for young children. There are some suggestive scenes and some discussion of sex and drug use.

Babies

Fiona spends most of the night in her own bed these days, but about half the time she shows up at first light either in my bed or in the little nest on the floor beside my bed. This morning she came for a cuddle and then sidled down onto her sleeping bag on the floor, leaving Chuck and me hoping for another half hour of sleep.

Silence descended. My eyes closed. Minutes passed.

Then suddenly an eager little face popped up over the side of the bed, mere inches from mine.

"I have baby tomatoes!" it whispered. "At home!"

I'm not sure what possessed her to shared the excitement of yesterday's discovery with me on the wrong side of 7 a.m., but what could I do but surrender to her wide-eyed excitement and that smile? We got up and as soon as I'd pried my eyelids up with a cup of coffee, we headed out to look at her little plot. It was true! Her garden at GRUBS has had baby tomatoes for a couple of weeks, but here at our higher elevation, it had taken longer. She was so excited -- not only to have the tomato babies, but to have been the first to discover them.

It wasn't only tomatoes. Miniature cucumbers were discovered, and two brilliant squash blossoms were trumpeting high on the trellis, heralding their own small squashy swellings.

Siblings

It was the night the bear ate Skunk and more than half a dozen of his hatch-mates and I couldn't bring myself to post about anything else at that point. But I love the photo, so I'm posting it now. We were at a retirement potluck for two friends. Most of our friends in this particular social circle are older and their children are grown; the only couple who also had younger children moved away last year. But the adults all enjoy my children, and my children enjoy the doting interest the adults always express in their doings and goings. So it was without a single complaint that my kids allowed themselves to be herded off to the group area at the local park & campground for a potluck with a bunch of retirees and near-retirees. The food was great -- lots of salty munchies and freshly harvested Okanagan fruit to start, Judy's famous fruit punch and even meat, a rare treat for our two omnivores.

After dinner the adults played bocce on one of the pair of sandy courts and my kids acted as cheerleaders, photographers, referees and entertainment from their positions in the other court. Look at how much they enjoy making fun with mostly just each other for company. It's not that this is their only fun, or that they are their only social circle -- it's that when the situation presents itself, they enjoy each other immensely. The express genuine delight and energetic enjoyment of each other's company. This is so precious to me, one of the secret perks of homeschooling. At least when it's not 11:49 pm and happening in our living room.

Power llama

Some day I hope we'll have a couple of llamas to do this job, but in the meantime, we have a teenager who enjoys honing her driving skills on the Toro tractor.

Erin tends to disappear out of our lives at times. It waxes and wanes; sometimes she's quite involved in family life, but other times, she prefers her own space. She's very private, enjoys spending lots of time alone in her cabin, and keeps very different hours than the rest of us much of the time (she's either up until 5 a.m., or up for the day at 5 a.m., it seems). Sometimes I miss having her around. I feel like saying "hey there, stranger!" when she wanders into the house to pee or grab a bite to eat. She's funny and fun to be with when she spends time with us. We actually get along pretty well most of the time. I wish she were around to interact with a bit more. And I confess I miss her partly because she's actually capable of providing a lot of good help.

Like when she becomes our power llama. She just gets out there and whizzes around on our acre of lawn. And before I think to check on her, the mowing is done, and I haven't had to lift a finger.