Music of Heather McCready

We enjoyed a  wonderful evening of music at Crossroads last night.  This was a top quality performance that could play most anywhere but last night they were here in Winnsboro. Heather McCready is a singer-songwriter and when I attend a concert of a singer-songwriter, I'm happy if there are just a couple songs on the plus side of "just ok" but we both thought all of her songs were well into the plus side and we enjoyed them all.  She also has a band with a lot of credentials - and instruments like a cello, a stand-up bass, mandolin, and violin! Give it a Day  is the name of her latest CD and is the second song on this link.  Just skip the first one and go down to this one.

Rather than rewrite everything I'm just including some of the notice for her Crossroads performance below.

"I’ve always dreamed of being a songwriter,” she said. “It was in my soul. It’s who I am. I’m a writer and a musician. I felt like I was going to burst if I didn’t begin to express myself.” With a crystalline voice reminiscent of Emmy Lou Harris, McCready has released three CDs, “Finally Free,” “Neverland” and “Give It A Day.” She describes her sound as a mixture of Celtic, classical, bluegrass and folk music.

McCready shares co-production on “Give It A Day,” released in late 2010, with Milo Deering, a much-sought after Dallas musician and a member of the popular trio Beatlegras. “I was very impressed with her songwriting and singing,” Deering said in an e-mail. “Heather has a very good harmonic sense and understands how tension and resolution can help convey the emotion in a song. We put that to good use as we worked up string and vocal arrangements.” 

In addition to Deering, McCready has a strong roster of talent backing her up in the studio and in live performances.

George Anderson sits in on the upright bass. Anderson graduated from Grand Prairie High School, studied music at the University of North Texas, playing the upright bass in the world-famous UNT One O’Clock Lab Band. He began his professional career as the bassist with the famed Woody Herman Big Band and has played with Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Marvin Hamlisch, Chuck Berry, Joe Williams, The Coasters, Brook Benton, The Fifth Dimension and Doc Severensen. His 2003 CD “Faces” was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Jazz category.

John Landefeld handles the cello for McCready’s band. Landefeld holds a bachelors’ of music degree in cello performance from the Eastman School of Music. In addition to appearances with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Landefeld has performed with musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Milwaukee Symphony. Kade Eckhardt, a Sulphur Springs High School cellist, is one of Landefeld’s private students.

Sam Swank, who once served as Olivia Newton-John’s guitarist, is a recent addition to the band."“Milo and I co-wrote on this album, too,” explained McCready. “There is so much of a coming together on it. Where Milo’s talent starts to fade, mine picks up. Where mine drops off the planet, his picks up. We’ve made beautiful music together.”

Some pictures with the macro lens

I've been taking a few flower pictures using the macro setting on the 28-90 lens.  The pictures give the impression that we've got lots of flowers right now but it's still limited to these and just a few more.  The little plant at the bottom (and all of its' brothers and sisters) will hopefully be a garden of flowers in a couple months.  They are a new variety of Zinnia that I tried last year and really liked - a creamy color in low, compact plants - Dreamland Ivory!

Daniel killed a wild hog on the Red Trail

Daniel has been leaving bait for a couple weeks and it paid off last night.  This guy had his last meal just a moment before Daniel shot him.  (My flashlight was shining on his large tusks when Daniel took the picture with his phone camera.)  We are guessing that he must have weighed a couple hundred pounds.  Don't ask how we do know that his head weighed 25lbs. The hole in the ground where they have been digging for the bait is about four feet deep. How'd you like to meet him on the trail some day.  Glad this one is gone but there are a lot more where he came from!

This was in my blog comments for moderation today

 Actually it had been flagged as spam.  It was one of the posts about the zip line.  So I Googled the translation (Chinese to English) and it says "Really good. I might download. Thank you".  So I allowed the comment to post.  And since I was posting this I decided to add the below stats.  These are blog views for this month only.  The multiple counts are probably the same person returning I would think - particularly the Germany and Russia views. .

Treehouse Guests - Some statistics

 I was at the Treehouse and checked the guest book as we often do and realized that it's the middle of February and we haven't had a guest there yet this month.  And then the thought - "Would that be a first?"!  So - statistics - Yes, it would be a first month with no guests signing in. There was only one last February and there were two in July and two in August.  Keeping in mind that not everyone that visits the Treehouse signs the register and that some of the little ones sign it every time they come, and that many of us visit often and never sign (other than the first time), the stats are: 258 visitors to the Treehouse, 159 the first year, 94 last year, and five in January of this year.  We've had visitors from 48 different Texas cities, visitors from ten other states, and Brian and Pat visiting from England.  So I guess we need to get at least one visitor in the next couple weeks.  I think I know who that will be - we've got a couple invitations out.

Interesting!

I was playing around in Picasa the other day and did this collage - it's a photo of the medallion artwork stacked on the photo that they did the artwork from.

Springfest invitation for family and friends

Blog for Alex

Yesterday was a good day for bird pictures

Several male House Finches on one of the feeders.
The stick hanging out is for picture taking. In many of the shots
below, the bird is perched on this stick.

A couple female House Finches

A male House Finch - I like his quizzical look!

A female House Finch in a nice pose

I saw this one down by the Treehouse.  It's a new one for us and I believe
it's an Eastern Towee.  There are now 54 species on our property bird list.

Not sure what it is but I like the picture - taken by the Orange Trail East Bridge

Cardinals and Finches at one of the feeders

I just keep photographing Cardinals!

For some reason it's been hard to get a good picture of an American Goldfinch - but got a couple yesterday!

And got a better picture of the Brown-headed Cowbird.

And then came a huge flock of Red-winged Blackbirds!

Snow day!

We had about 5-1/2 inches of snow when we woke up this morning - an accumulation of four or five hours of tiny flakes,  It had stopped for a while but started again about half an hour ago - larger flakes now.  We've got 30-40 birds at a time in and around the feeder.  Several Brown-headed Cowbirds showed up today.  We haven't seen one of those in a long time.

The ruler has a quarter of an inch at the end before the scale starts

There are over twenty birds in this picture

Not a good picture - but this is the Brown-headed Cowbird

Maybe this is a little anal but -

. . . if you're retired and have the time to street view it, it can make the book you're reading a bit more interesting. The book says, " A tunnel-like alley called the Passage Saint-Jacques lay between a small pharmacy and several ATM machines.  A wrought-iron gate with a security touch pad secured the entrance to the tunnel, and that gate stood in sharp, contemporary relief against the passage's ornate stone arch . . . "

I'm not sure when the book was written or when the Google Street View pictures were taken, but in getting to this point the book said "there was no parking at all on rue de Vesles because of some road construction and repair".   Guess what I saw in the Street View picture!