LIVE IN THE BARN ~ THE MAIRTIN DE COGAIN PROJECT

 Sunday, December 5 · 4:00pm - 7:00pm

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Location The Barn Bar at The Sanborn Sanctuary

8002 11th Ave NW

Rochester, MN

 DO NOT MISS THIS BARN BAR CONCERT!

The Mairtin De Cogain Project CD release party "From Cork To Love"



http://mairtinmusic.com/



Party starts at 4 pm , music at 5 pm



BYOB and a dish to pass

bring a friend, bring a stranger



Donations will be collected



Dianna Parks, Roger Nelson and Bob Sanborn will open with their 'Songwriters In The Round' performance

I WENT UNPLUGGED - AND I LIKED IT!

It happened - a complete week, all 7 days, all 168 hours - without a computer!  (well except for the two times i checked email for the online class i teach - part of the job, really). Yes, it worked.  i actually enjoyed it, became friends with myself, got stuff done and i didn't die!  As my friend responded when i put on Facebook that i was back and felt rejuvenated she said, and i quote,

 "i would rather die, but i'm glad you had a good experience. :) ok maybe not DIE, but unless i have some pretty reinforcing things to replace my technology, i probably would die." 


Scary, right?  no offense my friend, but honestly technology is in no way everything.  


So what did i do with all this "free time?"  I:

• played ball with my puppy
• set up my office
• took a nap
• read a book
• cleaned my kitchen
• took my camera for a field trip
• put the spring on the barn door (been wanting to do that for years)
• made cheese
• made lots of soup
• trimmed the goats hooves and gave the babies their shots
• cooked dinner - a lot
• went to the movies
• wrote in my journal
• went through all the old pictures (yes - prints!) and picked out some favs to put on the blog
• played my guitar
• talked with friends

Overall it was a perfect week off!  Can't wait to try do again. 

What if it was your downtime, your lounging-in-bed-too-long time, your walkabout time, and your blow-Friday-off time that made possible your greatest achievements?
Would they still make you feel guilty? Or would you allow yourself to enjoy them?
 
After all - life is too short to be sitting in front of a computer all day, every day.  There is this thing called the outdoors that needs exploring.

The Amazing Feat: NO Computer or Cell Phone for 7 Full Days! Can She Do It????

yes, the snow has arrived, well a little anyway.  But honestly - its November!  And the entire month of October and these two weeks in November have been the best weather i think, since we moved here 7 years ago!  It was beautifully warm - 70's most days- i have no complaints about this fall.

 But i still am not ready.  I have a long list of things to get done:  put up the snow fence for the hens, put the spring on the barn door, give the goats their shots and trim their hooves (way overdue for that), and the list goes on.  So i decided that this was not going to be finished unless i got my sh#% together and i decided to eliminate the computer and cell phone from my nimble fingers, my mind, and my life for a entire week!  yes, this can be done!  I certainly got a lot of "likes" on my Facebook page when i announced that last week! Yes, I will be away from my computer,  but i will be setting up my new office, cleaning the house; all those things that have not been done, or put off because i had too much work to get done elsewhere. I have faith that i can do this however it is now 9 pm the day before this amazing feat was scheduled to begin, i am rushing to get all these things done on the computer before the midnight deadline.  So here i am, typing away, announcing my amazing feat to the world, but i am filled with this strange feeling that i will not be able to prep for class, get the new website done, and upload the pictures of Laura & Jordan's wedding on it, by midnight!  The clock is mocking me: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.....But maybe i can.  How the hell am I gonna pull this off i don't know, seeing as 90% of my work lately is on the computer.


Anyway -- have no fear, my friends!  I will be blogging away this week, because i will not be on the computer, i will actually be doing this the old fashioned way:  I will be WRITING, with INK, on PAPER, and remembering things that happened and thinking of all those other events and animal stories i have to share.  I thought of some of the amazing people we met over the last 7 years, and the things we have done, and i must get it down on paper. I will share all these with you next week.

And if you are worried about this, thinking, "Gosh!  What will she do with her time?"  Really?  I mean, Really?  I might actually read a book!  Or actually spend some down time with myself, my farm or take my camera on a trip.  A vision quest sans technology! Sounds like i will have MORE then enough to do.  And its ALL Amazing!

BoBo guts everywhere!

Meet Edy!  She came here oh, about a month or so ago.  And I have had to search for my shoes in the back yard every morning since.  A Border Collie, she is.  Smart they claim, however i think mine was the last in line for brains and got the short end of the neocortex stick, so to speak.  She's definitely all puppy though!  And she actually fetches!  Which is a strange concept for us as dog owners, or should i say - Basset Hound owners - because no Basset Hound fetches.  They just look at you after you throw it and think to themselves, "Really, if you are gonna go so far as to pitch my ball across the room, you may as well go get it your self."  Why waste precious energy is there motto.  Save it for important things like barking at the jogger going by the house, or that UPS man. I don't know what it is about men in brown uniforms but they hate them with great passion and verve.  He may be dangerous after all.  The trick though is to bring meat.  If you have meat, a Basset will immediately become your life long friend and go with you anywhere.  This is why Bassets do not make good guard dogs, watch dogs yes, but guard dogs, no.  They would leave home with the thief if presented with a large hunk of pork product.

See how the Bassets can stay REALLY still.

Zoom!  See the bassets never moved and inch!

BoBo Guts!

Now, Edy, she's something else.   A puppy?  what was i thinking!  They need to be taught stuff like not to jump on people and not to lick faces.  And a Border Collie does best when having a'job' to do, that's what i read anyway.  So her 'job' is to go with when i milk the goats.  She is responsible for sitting there watching me while i milk, and her favorite part of the job is take the used baby wipes (i use them to wipe the goats teats off before milking) and to shred them into tiny, little pieces.  Just like the BoBo.  And the other toys. There is something amazingly interesting about stuffing to a dog.  Well to this dog, not the Bassets.  They never tore up the toys, or even really looked at them, so we had a lot for Edy to work with when she got here.  Training?  Well, i thought to myself, "what the heck was i thinking taking in another dog, that needed training?" (it was a favor for a friend who couldn't keep her anymore)  But then i was gently reminded that i have broken several horses to ride and if i can train a horse i could certainly train a dog!  I mean training a Basset is like teaching a cat to use a litter box, just show them once and they now what to do.  Edy however is a little more complicated.  But she's coming along.  She just needs some time and a little love, we have the love, time however...that's another story.......

And remember: never leave anything unattended

"He has really big nuts!"

So the other night when we where filming Barn Bar, Bob come up to me and hands me a wad of cash and says, "I completed the goat transaction."  What?  "The guy, he came and got the goat."  What?  "The goat, the little buck, the guy came and picked him up."  I have no idea what you are talking about!  "Well the guy handed me the money, grabbed the goat and as he was heading down the driveway, exclaimed 'He has really big nuts!' He said it proudly as he pranced down the driveway, carrying the goat in his arms. And to know that those big nuts were a part of our breeding program, made me proud."

So this story all began about July after i put an ad on Craigslist.  Young Buck available. Can be registered. Well my only problem was the gentleman who ended up wanting to buy him, really wanted him registered.  So i thought to myself, 'oh, my! the long phone conversation with the Dairy Goat Association, trying to figure out if i registered the mom, cuz i can't find the registration papers and can't remember from, what 4 years ago? if i actually did register her.  I know i registered Ezzy but i am so disorganized, i don't know where i put the papers.  At least they weren't in the filing cabinet with the other vet papers.'  So i put it off, then i went to Chicago with Madison to Lollapalooza, then after we got back Bob's dad passed away, then I found out that the class i was hired to teach at the college actually made the cut, so i had 5 days in which to prep the class, then well, whatever life brings.... this poor guy was waiting for me to call and let him know if i could register him.  Well he showed up last week, "Do you remember me?" 'Oh my yes!  You still want him?  I was just thinking that i really needed to get rid of him before he becomes sexually mature and starts an in-breeding program.'  I let him know that i would work on that as quickly as i could but never thought that we decided he would just take the goat.  But i guess he did.

The sad part is i didn't even get to say goodbye to that handsome young man.  This is only the second goat i have sold.  Last one was to my best friend from Illinois, and there's a long story there, maybe she will share that one someday as my guest Blogger. I love all my goats so much, I've had a hard time selling any of them.

Hope you will live a happy, long, life Dionysus!  I will miss you!

Barn Bar production Season 3 Episode 6

Here we are filming the Season 3, Episode 6 for Barn Bar.  What is Barn Bar you ask? Wellllll........
www.barnbar.com
"What if," a man reasoned, half asleep at 3:00 in the morning, "a bunch of my friends, experienced actors or not, showed up at a bar I will build out in my barn and improvised "theatrical" material based on all our individual struggles to make sense of life in SE Minnesota and the known universe?"  In what can only be described as a dream come true, we are now making this up as we go along.  Characters will come and go, and evolve as they pass through the doors of the Barn Bar.  Stuff will happen.  It will be light-hearted, satirical humor for the most part, but it could get serious if it wants to.  We'll also feature lots of talented local musicians in a number of ways, so it's Cheers meeting up with Prairie Home Companion with a touch of Monty Python or Twin Peaks thrown in to keep it fresh.  We don't know what we're doing; maybe you do.

We also had the pleasure of having some of the town's most popular and elite personalities join us in the filming: Pam Whitfield; recent covergirl of Rochester Women Mag, Bari Amadio; Executive director of the Rochester Arts Council - among other things, and Jen Koski of the Post Bulletin's column Jen's World. Hopefully they will return, cuz when they don't go running from the barn screaming, its a good sign that they weren't scarred for life.

Jen was kind enough to even write an article about her experience.

http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=479506



Halloween Party 10/30/10

Here they are!  The Halloween pics!  And thank you dear friend, Susan Waughtal for taking most of them. I get a little busy trying to wear too many hats on a night like this, photog gets put on the back burner sometimes! 

Anyone that shaves their head for just a party, wins a prize!

Pam said she always wanted to a Red Head and well, she's darn good looking as one, don't ya think?

Susan the Good Witch.

This one is my fav!  "Yes, we play all kinds of music: Country and Western!"

So we kept calling them a Rubik's cube but now that I look at it, maybe they were more like Tetris.  They fit together so well!

It certainly was a good time!  Thanks to all that came out and had fun!