Follow up appointment at my Podiatry Doctor.  Shockwave Ultra-Sound to follow.

Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy for right achilles.

Bank meeting at M&T in afternoon.

Attended High School baseball with K2 at the Hartford Yard Goats stadium.  

Brutally cold for baseball.

JMH in the morning.

Guitar IV

The Next Lesson Book I completed thoroughly was:

Nicola Mandorino's 120 Aprpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar.

Travel to north of Worcester, Massachusetts to meet with our nieces for lunch.

Stopped off at ICC to cement our Ireland Trip requirements, and  watched the end of Uconn Women's Basketball 2025 Championship game!

Visit with my Mom and Pop today.

Stopped off to shout "Hello" to Teeter, our old parrot.

Finished the trip with a bit of time with my sister, wishing her a Happy Birthday!

Beaver Pond Wildlife: Part 3 - Early to Mid Summer

Watched Part 3 today.  It is a wonderful video from RA at New England Forests.

According to the webstite, this film series spans a year's time at typical beaver ponds in New England. In this, Part 3, nesting season has wrapped up for most bird species near the pond, but there's plenty happening both above and below the pond's surface. 

Also, finalized our tax returns in West Hartford (great news for us).

Haircut in the 'Locks.

Guitar III

My on-going pathway of learning guitar...

The second Lesson Book I have completed thoroughly was:

Mel Bay's New Sounds for Electric Bass and Guitar by Roger Filberto.  

This was something I had learned long ago when I studied Bass Guitar during the summer I began High School.  

Originally completed from November 1977 through February 1978.  

Worked my way through this once again, but this time with the Guitar.

Shift at JMH & TA.

PT at LED late afternoon.

ArchaeoEd Podcast

Get ready to embark on a time-traveling adventure with the legendary archaeologist, Dr. Ed Barnhart!

Let's unearth the stories of the awe-inspiring civilizations of the Americas. These are the tales that only get a fleeting mention in western history books.

Episode 01 Nazca

The ancient Nazca in Peru were a lot more than just people who scratched huge geo-glyphs into the desert. This episode tells their wider story.

Watch and Enjoy NAZCA!

Michael Hurley, singer-songwriter and 'Godfather of freak folk,' dies at 83.

"It is with a resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden passing of the inimitable Michael Hurley,” Hurley's family said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The ‘Godfather of freak folk’ was for a prolific half-century the purveyor of an eccentric genius and compassionate wit. He alone was Snock. There is no other. Friends, family, and the music community deeply mourn his loss.”

Hurley, born in Pennsylvania, honed his cracked perspective on bluegrass, blues and folk in the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York in the '60s, after producer and folklorist Fred Ramsey picked him up on a hitchiking ramble. He released his debut album, 1964's "First Songs," on Folkways, the acclaimed home of Woody Guthrie and curator Harry Smith’s "Anthology of American Folk Music."

Hurley's talents were manifold — he designed and illustrated most of his charming hand-drawn album art, and learned a diversity of instruments including banjo and fiddle. His songs had a stark, strange quality that could be both beautiful (as on "Be Kind to Me" and "Valley of Tears") and surreal ("What Made My Hamburger Disappear?" or "You’re a Dog; Don’t Talk to Me"). He was a childhood friend of future Youngbloods singer Jesse Colin Young, who would champion Hurley's skewed vision by releasing 1971’s "Armchair Boogie" and 1972’s "Hi Fi Snock Uptown" on his Warner Bros. imprint Raccoon.

1976's "Have Moicy!" became an underground cult favorite, and his rapidly expanding catalog would grow to more than 30 LPs.  This collaboration with the Unholy Modal Rounders (a spin-off of the Holy Modal Rounders) and Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, received much critical praise. Music critic Robert Christgau ranked it as his favorite album of the year.

Along the way, indie rockers and like-minded singer songwriters like Lucinda Williams and Cat Power (who hauntingly interpreted his single "Werewolf" on her classic 2003 LP "You Are Free") would champion his work. 

"Calling me an outsider artist … yes, I think it’s apt," he told the Guardian in 2021. "It’s taken me a long time to join the gang... I didn’t enjoy the process of applying for gigs, that determination to penetrate things, all this trouble you had to go through. I preferred playing parties. Little gatherings. Drinking with friends, hopping across the river.”

His song, "Hog of the Forsaken", was used in the closing credits for the pilot episode of the series and the closing of Deadwood: The Movie.

Discography

• First Songs (1964) (Folkways)
• Armchair Boogie (1971) (Raccoon/Warner Bros.)
• Hi Fi Snock Uptown (1972) (Raccoon/Warner Bros.)
• Have Moicy! (1975) credited to Michael Hurley/Unholy Modal Rounders/Clamtones (Rounder)
• Long Journey (1976) (Rounder)
• Snockgrass (1980) (Rounder)
• Blue Navigator (1984) (Rooster)
• Watertower (1988) (Fundamental)
• Land Of Lofi And Redbirds (1988) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Excrusiasion '86 (1988) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Growlin' Bo Bo (1991) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• The Woodbill Brothers (1992) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Wolfways (1994) (Veracity)
• Parsnip Snips (1996) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Bellemeade Sessions (1997) (Blue Navigator)
• Weatherhole (1999) (Field Recording Co.)
• Live in Edinburgh (1999) (self-released CDr)
• Blueberry Wine (2001) (Locust Music)
• Sweetkorn (2002) (Trikont/Bellemeade Phonics)
• Down in Dublin (2005) (Blue Navigator)
• Ancestral Swamp (2007) (Gnomonsong)
• Ida Con Snock (2009) (Gnomonsong)
• Blue Hills (2010) (Mississippi Records)
• First Songs (LP rerelease on Smithsonian, 2010)
• Wildegeeses/South in Virginia 7" (Mississippi Records)
• Back Home With Drifting Woods (Mississippi Records/Nero's Neptune Records)
• Fatboy Spring (Mississippi Records)
• Land of LoFi (2013) (Mississippi Records)
• Bad Mr. Mike (2016) (Mississippi Records)
• Redbirds at Folk City (2017) (Feeding Tube Records)
• Living Ljubljana (2018) (Feeding Tube Records)
• The Time of the Foxgloves (2021) (No Quarter)

Locally, I Unloaded fifty bails of Hay with my Pop at the Auction mid-morning, and another two pick-ups worth from other farmers dropping off hay,

Shift at JMH early.

Beaver Pond Wildlife: Part 2 - Late Spring

Watched Part 2 today with DL.  It is a wonderful video from RA at New England Forests.

According to the webstite, this film series spans a year's time at typical beaver ponds in New England. In Part 2, we follow wildlife in late spring, as nesting season progresses, new life develops, and young beavers disperse. 

Also, attended my scheduled MRI for the sore right Ankle / Achilles tendon in the morning.

Beaver Pond Wildlife: Part 1 - Early Spring

Watched Part 1 today with DL.  It is a wonderful video from RA at New England Forests.

According to the webstite, this film series spans a year's time at typical beaver ponds in New England. In Part 1, we'll look at what takes place in early spring, as the pond comes back to life after a cold winter. 

Visit with my Mom and Pop today.

Brought our bird "Teeter" with me to leave at her new home with cousin W.

After much thinking over the past three or four years, we've decided to finally transfer ownership of our yellow nape amazon "Teeter" to cousin W.

Not easy decision, we've had Teeter for thirty-years.

But,  we are getting older, and we are trying to travel as much as we can in the next decade or so.  So it seems we are constantly either leaving home or planning to.  Not exactly fair for a bird who enjoys companionship.

Counting on W providing a long friendly relationship with our bird.

Truthfully, I try to adhere to the idea that it is better to make a change when things are going well, not when they are not or you are backed into a corner and have to react.  All is well, this change in home for Teeter should be a wonderful move.

"Black Lizard / Vintage Crime #13 for 2025...

"The Fifth Woman" by Henning Mankell, published in 1996.

6th in his acclaimed Wallander series.

Swedish: Den femte kvinnan

The English translation by Steven T. Murray, 2000.

Guitar II

The first Lesson Book I completed thoroughly was:

A Modern Method for Guitar by William Leavitt.   

This is published by Berkley.  

I managed to complete Book I Section I.  

I feel I can play all the material well.

Shift at JMH & TA.

PT at LED late afternoon.

Visit with my Podiatrists today, for the right achilles tendon.

MRI scheduled.

Had front door and storm door key issues addressed later in the day.