Baby Snakes

Living in the country is great. I love it. No neighbors, yard golf and loads of wild nature to contend with. I've seen Bambi, tangled with wild boars and coyotes, seen strange lights in the haunted woods. You name it, we've got it. There are aspects to this lifestyle that others might chaff at, but not me. We live in Ohio's largest state forest and one of the many things we have to contend with by being so far away from civilization is that there is no water service out here. We drink delicious spring water and get the rest of the water for household use from rain collection off of our roof into a cistern. You have to watch out because sometimes critters get in the cistern and can cause problems. When I checked it last week, I found... a nest of snakes! This was a situation that needed immediate attention. My daughter graciously climbed down in to the cistern (it's underground) to collect them all. Did I mention that my daughter is FEARLESS & AWESOME?! Seriously, she went down into this dark underground lair, captured 6 snakes by hand and brought them out in a bucket. She rocks. If you look close at the picture, you might be able to see all six snakes.

So, if you need some snake wrangling, give me a call and I'll see if she's available.

Rock Star Moves

Last Friday Earwig played the CD101 Summerfest/Bacardi party at the Basement. We gave it our all and had a blast. Every time we have a show at the Basement all I can think of is when we played an Abercrombie & Fitch Xmas party there a few years back. I got pretty riled up and started working some “rock out” moves on the last song. I was fist-pumping and making faces. It was then that I noticed a heating duct that runs directly over the stage where I was standing. For some reason thought that it’d be cool to punch the duct with my fist during the solo for Rumplestiltskin. Big mistake. It was not a flimsy heating duct after all. It was solid concrete. I dislocated a knuckle and had to finish the song with a broken hand. All of my cries of pain and the awful faces I made were construed by my band mates and the audience as just more “rocking out”. Yeah. To cap it off, I ended that night with a gash above my left eye that required 6 stitches. Good times.

I guess that sometimes I just don’t know when to quit. But who wants to watch a band that just stands there and plays, right? The picture above is from Lobsterfest in Athens. I actually didn’t hurt myself at that show, but I came close. I’m wearing a brace on my arm because I had recently broken my elbow skateboarding. I had reconstructive surgery and now I have a titanium implant in my left elbow. Bionic elbow. Now that is sort of cool...

If you want to see me possibly destroy myself on stage for the benefit of public amusement, you can come see Earwig this month when we play the big outdoor show at the end party for the Pelotonia ride in Athens. I’ll be making sure that my insurance premiums are paid and up to date.