In spite of the days atop days of poor air quality and too little rain, the pockets have flourished and continue to attract pollinators. We’ve decided to add three more raised beds and two “prairie lawn” patches.

In other news…

Earlier this year, when I registered for a partial semester of lessons in order to have time to address a health concern, I was already experiencing ambivalence about my flute adventure: I love the instrument and the pursuit, but the program no longer met my interests and needs, and practice had become a self-defeating slog. My teacher’s recent retirement represented an opportunity to rethink my expectations, though, and after a four-month break, I scheduled a trial lesson with a teacher whose approach in nearly every way differs from my previous instruction. Focused on (re)building my foundation, we’re using Marcel Moyse’s 24 Little Melodic Studies and On Sonority, Art, and Technique, as well as Taffanel and Gaubert (particularly Exercise 4 to prepare for Michel Debost’s scale game). Encouraged to bring a solo piece I had never presented, I sorted through my library of music before impulsively choosing a simple but lovely arrangement of Holst’s “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” I had heard on Tomplay. The challenge for these first few lessons is simply creating a great sound with excellent support, so why not skip the usual suspects for now? What a great piece for improving phrasing and expression. (You may better know it as the patriotic hymn “I Vow to Thee, My Country.”)

Speaking of pursuits… It’s been nearly a month, but “On the nightstand” in the sidebar has been updated to reflect my current studies.