Walk up Brown's Mountain, Charlottesville, Va.

We were doing our walk up Brown’s Mountain, although this time we were walking without talking. It became much easier to get immersed in the sound environment, and I began to listen with enough intent to quiet my thinking to some degree.

We came across a pileated woodpecker, at least we heard it, and after some walking, the trail went by the dead tree it was working on. It fell silent and shifted to another tree until it knew we had continued. As we climbed up the mountain trail, the woodpecker could be heard all the way to the top. Sound is remarkably able to indicate direction, and as the trail twisted upward, the woodpeckers sound gave an immediate indication of our winding upward path.

The tree cover is in full Spring mode, so the sun poked through, sending beams down to the forest floor. It reminded me of theatrical spot lights, the beams illuminating areas of detail on the forest floor. Some of the areas brought me to a halt to take a better look. I ended up taking a photo of a leaf that had some water sitting in it. No clue as to ‘why.’

Gone but back now . . . .

Well, I'm an infrequent blogger, which is supposed to be the kiss-o-death for click-throughs, traffic, etc. Eventually nobody reads your blog and soon you dry up and blow away in the next stiff wind.
In any event, if "you" happen to be still reading, I ran off and became re-acquainted with my guitar. It is and old Ovation I bought from Boe's Strings ages ago when I had signed up for one of the Guitar Craft classes.
I was playing it in the "heathen tuning," which may just be appropriate for me. I also was playing with a Zoom digital recorder, and I ended up with an mp3 to share. Its short. My repertoire is mighty small lately as I rarely get around to giving the guitar my time. This is the classic "over popped and plucked" method I've been perfecting, ahem. There's a sigh towards the end. It was someone stuck with reading in the multi-use studio (the living room) and they simply passed out with excitement. Here it is