I was rummaging through some photos from last year, and I stumbled across this shot of a bunch of Calla lilies growing up out of the water in the pond at Kelley House Museum in Mendocino. The Kelley House pond was built by William Kelly in the 1850s for his kids. In recent years, the water level has been low because of lack of rain. We’ve been catching up on our rain the last couple of years, though, and the pond is full for the resident geese. I love the blue gradient in the background—this is reflected sky, not Photoshop.
A couple of months ago, somebody in the group submitted a CD of our music to the Bay Area Harmony Festival. This is a regional competition, with the national competition in May. Groups come from all over Northern California for the Bay Area contest, and we were one of nine groups selected to compete. They accepted us on the basis of our CD from 2 years ago, which is a good thing. We are significantly better than at the Mendocino Music Festival performance in 2008, from which we created the CD. There are a couple of pro or semi-pro groups in the competition, in addition to amateurs like us. We may be amateurs, but the eight of us collectively have over 250 years of singing experience! I’ve been singing and sightreading since Mrs. Dixon’s class in the seventh grade, and that’s a pretty typical story in our group.
The 