Hi again, everyone! Time has been flying along at break-neck speed around here, hence the sad shortage of blog posts recently! Hopefully that shortage will be fixed soon. Anyway, to get to the exciting part, we have now released our next YouTube video!!! Granny, Does Your Dog Bite? You can watch it here, like it at the link below, and subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you will be notified when our next video comes out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4UHmlMz0kg

Time for some behind-the-scenes details and pictures!

Do you see the stream? It's deeper and more slippery to cross than it looks! We threw one pair of mud boots in the van when we were packing and used those and a handy stick to ferry people across the stream... put on mud boots, hold onto stick, wade across stream with expensive instrument, have someone on the opposite bank toss your shoes over to you after you've crossed, toss the mud boots back over the stream, repeat!

Yep. It was interesting getting the piano and the bass down there.

Toby, our dog, was hilarious! The out-takes of him are definitely worth watching. After we told him to "go get it!" to eat the sandwich, Luke was on the opposite side of the camera with a dog treat to call him after he snarfed down one sandwich quarter. After doing the take a couple of times, Toby got wise, looked at Luke, and then snarfed down a second sandwich quarter before running to Luke. It was a riot!

Getting the cellos safely into the watery cave!

Our two cellists! You can't imagine how cold the spring water was coming out of the cave!!! The boys' feet were quite cold at the end of this scene!

Icey cold!

To get to the next location meant packing up all the various instruments and camera equipment, and carrying everything to the next spot where we unpacked it all again! Generator, amplifier, piano, bass, instruments, etc....

Of course, for this video we had Toby with us, so we all had to make sure all the dog hair was gone from our clothes before each take! It was worth it, though, to have him along!

Well, I'll leave you with this image - our very buggy scene! Bugs in our eyes, bugs in our mouths, and so on!

It was a fun, exhausting, and rewarding day!

P.S. Our next video is on track to be released in two weeks!

...for a dog, that is!

Our dog Toby doesn't let us down when it comes to musical abilities! Toby is "rug-trained" to the door mat at the front door entrance (meaning that when he is allowed to come inside, he is required to stay on the little door mat). He greatly enjoys this privileged, and begs to take advantage of it whenever possible! Anyway, we practice together as a family almost every evening that we don't have a concert, and some times, Toby happens to be inside and on his little rug during those practices. On certain pieces, as the music gets more intense and emotional, Toby will start to howl. (I'm sorry to say that he hasn't learned how to hit the right pitches yet and, therefore, is ridiculously out of tune!) The howling will increase in volume and number of times per minute as we hit certain pitches on our instruments. (Have you seen a dog howl while he is lying down and his head is flat on its side on the floor? Toby's got talent.) Sooner or later, several of us will break down and start laughing, and the piece we are playing will suffer dreadfully! (It's worth it though to hear his wonderful voice and slightly out-of-tune notes!) Seriously. You gotta hear it sometime! Toby's favorite numbers to join us on are The Orange Blossom Special, The Nutcracker, and The Hallelujah Chorus. :)

Our favorite (and only) dog! He's a great furry friend.

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