October House Concert

Wed. Oct 12.  My, how the time is flying by!
On Friday, I worked at the Whirlwind Winery in the afternoon.  It was a quiet day and I listened to the Glenn Roth CD "Welcome Home” while I got caught up on some writing.   

Thursday, Oct. 6,  was a busy day -- cleaning house, doing laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, and getting ready for the House Concert with Merry Ellen Kirk, Ruth Acuff, and Drew Lance.  Everybody pitched in – Jenna offered to make a beet, quinoa, and spinach salad for dinner; Drew made hummus; we had cheese curds, pate, and dark chocolate with wine and champagne. The B&B and events we host for Phoenix Circle Foundation take all of our efforts, working together. 

The Chaparral Retreat was the first stop on the second leg of Merry Ellen and Ruth's "EARTH ANGEL" tour.   

           

One of our friends from Tulsa drove in for the concert.  I promoted the show via multiple venues: flyers posted locally in windows of businesses, and  posters distributed to  shops in Weatherford, Canton, Geary, and Kingfisher, and at the Student Union, University Press, and Music Dept. at SWOSU.  I set up a facebook EVENT and posted on all of my facebook pages (my personal page, Oklahoma House Concerts, Phoenix Circle Foundation, Blaine County Community Events, Red Carpet Country Tourism page) and shared with all of the groups I am a member of.  We promoted on the Chaparral Retreat website, TravelOK, and the KOSU radio events calendar.  I sent out email invitations.  The week before the show, I sent in a press release to the local newspaper -- since Phoenix Circle Foundation is a nonprofit AND we pay for a weekly ad in the paper, I had asked that they print a listing in their “What’s Happening” section.  Sadly, the newspaper has not printed anything about the House Concerts sponsored by Phoenix Circle Foundation.  We do, however, receive a lot of response to our social media posts.  

Even though it had been a beautiful day on Thursday, we decided to set up indoors for the concert.  It had rained the night before and the forecast for rain on Thursday night was uncertain.  As it turned out, it did not rain until the late evening.  The audience was small but that just made for a more intimate evening.  We did have one new visitor and he was excited to learn about all that we are doing in the community.  Everything works out as it is supposed to be! 

Though Merry Ellen Kirk has played here before, and I knew her music to be fresh and beautiful, I did not know what to expect from a harpist.   Ruth Acuff's  songwriting, storytelling, her voice, and the way she was able to transport me to another plane with her fingers on the strings of the instrument was not like anything else I have ever experienced!  Merry Ellen's voice and songwriting are like fairy dust .... Drew's percussion work perfectly complimented both singers' music.   Our time together and conversation after the concert made it a magical evening.  I didn’t want to go to bed!

Before the musicians packed up for their trip to Tulsa on Friday morning, we all took a walk through the woods, checked on the chickens, and “toured” Drew and Jenna’s building project.  The air was chilly but it was sunny.  Autumn keeps threatening to begin, but we’ve had temperatures this past week as high as 90 degrees and overnight lows as low as 45.  On Thursday it was 66 degrees in the morning; on Friday morning it was 50 degrees.  We all needed sweaters for our morning trek.   The trio planned to go to Roman Nose State Park before leaving the area.

After breakfast on Friday morning, Andy and our friend from Tulsa took off for Dallas, to go to the Texas/OU game on Saturday.   [AND OU WON!!]  The TX/OU game has always been on the second weekend of October, the same weekend as the Watonga Cheese Festival,  but this year the Festival was moved to the weekend of Oct 14-15.   That actually works out better for us and our business.  In past years when Andy and I were involved with helping run the Cheese Festival, we devoted time not only before the festival, but from Thursday to Sunday we were in town from 9:00 am until 7:00 pm setting up, making sure everything ran smoothly, and then cleaning up; we were not able to tend to B&;B guests and ended up turning down business during that weekend.  Last year Andy went to the game in Dallas and I stayed here, and we did have house guests.  This year, since the Festival is a week later, we have a full house booked and Andy will be home to help. 


This week is time to do some cleanup outdoors - rake some leaves, trim some overgrowth, sweep and pick up some of the billions of acorns that have already fallen. 

HAVE A GREAT DAY!