Whitewater Winter Stoke

As we quickly tumble away from summer into cooler weather here in the Kootenays, our thoughts move away from all the summer joys of beaches, bonfires, swimming in the lake and the like and we start to dream of the winter fun that lies just beyond the horizon. For many of us, that means Whitewater ski resort. Here, we love big, fluffy flakes the flutter fearlessly thick and carpet the mountains and tree tops. We love how the snow crusts over and sparkles like diamonds. We dream of deep powder that goes flying as we glide through it. Through those dark winter months, this is what keeps our hearts beating. If you are lucky enough to find yourself in the Kootenays in the middle of winter, tap into the pulse that keeps us going. Check out the magic of Whitewater.

Chocolate Moose

Morris stood there swaying on his gangly legs, munching on whatever tasty morsels he could find. Occasionally he would cock his ears and toss a completely uninterested glance in my direction, mostly at my pathetic whistles. Typical male, eh? Well, serves him right to serve him up with chocolate. There ain't no better way to eat moose. Let's be quite frank here, most things do taste better with chocolate. Melt it and then drizzle it lightly or thickly, add cream, because most things taste better with cream too...and yes, of course, it has to be real. Someone really was dreaming when they dreamt up Dream Whip and thought they could pass it off for the real thing. Well everybody, let's hear it for Morris! Mmmmm Mmmmorris.

*Thanks for being such a good sport, fella. You're pretty yummy. Don't worry...if they don't catch on, we'll post the real pictures later.*

Chocolate Mousse

1C Sour Cream
1C Whipping Cream
1 1/2 tsp unflavoured Gelatin
2 Tbsp Water
2 Tbsp Milk
1/4 C Brown Sugar (firmly packed)
1/8 tsp Salt
6 oz of Chocolate Morsels (of course you can estimate...I personally like using a rich dark chocolate)
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 Egg Whites

• In large bowl, combine sour cream and whipping cream. Refrigerate.
  
• Soften gelatin in water by heating.
  
• Heat milk with half the brown sugar, and salt until the sugar dissolves.
  
• Add chocolate morsels and continue heating until melted (be careful to not overheat...you may want to melt your chocolate first and then add to your milk/sugar mixture).
  
• Beat egg whites. Gradually add remaining sugar. Beat until stiff.
  
• Stir 1/4 of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture until blended.
  
• Fold in remaining egg whites.
  
• Whip cream mixture until stiff.
  
• Add chocolate mixture and fold until well blended.
  
• Spoon into dishes and chill until set.

Exceedingly Nice

I am so enamored with the delightfully delicious lyrics from Charles Edward Carryl's almost forgotten 19th century poem, the Sleepy Giant brought back to life by Natalie Merchant's smokey sweet voice. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. Who would've known? Little boys do not like being chewed.

Elderberry Magic

Here I've done it again. Life has gotten in the way, and I hardly have time to breathe, let alone blog. But for the past couple of weeks, I've been ruminating about everything I want to tell you about Elderberries and quite frankly October couldn't be more perfect month to broach the topic, for no tree is so magical, nor none surrounded by as much folklore and mystery than that of the Elder. Alas, it is the tree upon which it is purported that Judas hanged himself, as Langland's Vision of Piers Plowman stated:

'Judas he japed with Jewen silver, And sithen an eller hanged hymselve.'

Although the branches of the Elder are so willowy that I find it hard to believe that anyone could hang himself upon such a tree. But perhaps, as another tradition states, the tree only became that way after the cross of Calvary was made with it:

'Bour tree - Bour tree: crooked rong
Never straight and never strong;
Ever bush and never tree
Since our Lord was nailed on thee.'

But the Elder's mystery and folklore predate Christianity. Heathen myths of northern Europe talk about Hylde Moer, the Elder-tree mother who lived in the tree and watched over it. Should the tree be cut down and furniture be made of it, Hylde Moer would follow her property and haunt the owners. In fact, if one wanted to cut from an Elder tree, he had to first ask permission and not cut until consent was given through silence to prevent ill luck from befalling him.

Numerous other bizarre superstitions regarding the Elder extend well beyond the small borders of northern Europe. Russians believe the Elder tree to drive away evil spirits, Bohemians go to it with a spell to take away fevers and Sicilians believe that sticks from the Elder tree will kill serpents and drive away robbers. In England it was once thought that the Elder tree was never struck by lightening and that a twig of Elder tied into three or four knots and carried in one's pocket would prevent rheumatism. Some in Britain also collected Elder leaves the last day of April and affixed them to their doors and windows to prevent witches from entering their homes. In Denmark, one might see the fairy king and all his attendants go by, simply by sitting under an Elder tree on Mid-summer's Eve.

But more exciting than all this folklore, is what I shall get to in my next post: the medicinal benefits and folk remedies that come from Elderberries.

Yum, Yum

Awhile back Pandave told me that it was about time that I posted another recipe. Well, truth be told, I haven't been in much of a cooking mood lately. It's been way too warm to think about putting anything in the oven. So I got to thinking, why not ice cream. I had some blackberries in my freezer that I wanted to use up before the next crop started coming on. And voila...what's not to like about this recipe? With only three ingredients it couldn't be easier. And trust me, this one tastes as good as it looks.

Blackberry Sherbet

4 C of fresh or frozen blackberries (thawed)
2 C sugar
2 C buttermilk

In a food processor, combine the blackberries and sugar; process until smooth. Strain and discard seeds and pulp. (I strained through cheese cloth but couldn't bare to throw out the seeds and pulp, so I threw it all in my teapot, added hot water and had delicious blackberry tea.) Stir in buttermilk. If you have an ice cream maker, throw the mixture in and let the machine do its thing. If not, pour the puree into a 9X13 pan. Freeze for 1 hour or until edges begin to firm. Stir and return to freezer. Freeze 2 hours longer or until firm.

If you like, just before serving, transfer to a food processor; cover and process for 2-5 minutes or until smooth. This step probably isn't necessary if you use an ice cream maker.

Tyger! Tyger!

Take a walk through the urban jungles with this magical short by Guilherme Marcondes of Brazil loosely based on Blake's, "Tyger! Tyger!" This mesmerizing little production combines puppetry, illustration, photography and CGI. Wow!



Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symetry?

The Visitor

This cute, thieving little bandit decimated my tulips a couple weeks ago. I apologize for the photo...but dusk had already fallen when I took the snap, so I had to lighten it, giving it a rather grainy texture. Animals are quite abundant at this time of year. As soon as spring hits, they make their way down the mountain side looking for some tasty morsels after the bland winter fare. One evening I came home to find three in my yard, or rather on the outskirts. This one was a loner who was quite startled when I opened the door to try to get a shot...shot with my camera that is. He immediately took off at a trot, but not before he had bitten off almost all of my tulip heads. Tulips are apparently quite sweet. Ironically, they never touch the daffodils. I have a ton of them. Deer aren't the only beasts lurking about in the spring. Last week a bear took apart my compost box trying to find a good feed. I didn't actually see the spectacle as occurred, but witnessed the mess later. Luckily a kind neighbour put the box back together for me. There was a Grizzly just this past week who was wandering about a neighbourhood just a few miles out the lake. A conservation officer had to be called in as apparently nothing was scaring this fellow off. These aren't overly common occurrences, but do occur regularly in the spring.

Life Over 100

Perhaps some of you have already read this, but it is too beautiful not to share. This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News.

In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. I hope you laugh as much as I did.

---------------------

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.

He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

'In those days,' he told me when he was in his 90s, 'to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.'

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
'Oh, bull!' she said. 'He hit a horse.'

'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. 'No one in the family drives,' my mother would explain, and that was that.

But, sometimes, my father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one.'

It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts,
loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.

So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. 'Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?' I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.

(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests Father Fast ' and 'Father Slow.'

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: 'The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.'

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along
to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?'

'I guess so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

'No left turns,' he said.

'What?' I asked.

'No left turns,' he repeated. 'Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.

As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.'

'What?' I said again.

'No left turns,' he said. 'Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three right s.'

'You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for support 'No,' she said, 'your father is right.. We make three rights. It works.' But then she added: 'Except when your father loses count.'

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.

'Loses count?' I asked.

'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again.'

I couldn't resist. 'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.

'No,' he said ' If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week.'

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.

She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.' At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer.'

'You're probably right,' I said.

'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.

'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.

'Yes,' he said, 'you're right.' He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.

He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:

'I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.'

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.'

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns.

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

So love the people who treat you right.

Forget about those who don't.

Believe everything happens for a reason.

If you get a chance, take it.

If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.'

Miracles

Saturday ten guardian angels floated through the mountain mist and landed upon my sandy shores.



Absolute bliss.

Mmmmoooo

When I was a child, I remember my mother drinking buttermilk. She said it reminded her of the fresh milk she drank as a child, the milk you get straight from a cow. It's tartness made my lips pucker and I never fully appreciated its tangy flavour...that is until traveling in southern Germany. I can't say precisely what triggered this new found appreciation. Perhaps it was the fresh mountain air, seeing the cows grazing on the hillside, the abundance of food that flooded my mind with childhood memories, food that felt like home. Whatever it was, I felt compelled to give buttermilk another chance. I don't know why I didn't appreciate it sooner, I had always loved everything else dairy (even though I try to limit it in my diet these days) and there really isn't much of a jump from yogurt to buttermilk. In fact, it's kind of like drinking Yop, although much more economical. I simply throw some buttermilk in my blender along with some fresh or frozen berries (today the feature fruit was blackberries, gathered fresh last summer and lovingly stored in my freezer). Sometimes I add a little maple syrup if the fruit is especially tart, and voila...instant meal chalk full of nutrients. I guess tastes change, because I love the stuff now. Or perhaps the appreciation was there all along and I just didn't know it. Is this sort of stuff hard wired into us?

Beauty in Unexpected Places

Perhaps some of you have already read about the social experiment organized by the Washington Post on perception, taste, and priorities of people. If you haven't, it went something like this:

A man stood at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin.

It was a cold January morning in 2009. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the case and without stopping, continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for awhile. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

Now here is the real shocker. No one knew, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston with the average seat cost being $100.

This experiment leaves us with several questions. In a commonplace environment, at an inappropriate hour do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing? Today, take the time and truly look for the beauty fully expecting to see it.

Addiction

Any foodie on Canada's west coast is probably addicted to Leslie Stowe's "Raincoast Crisps." So imagine my delight, when, while visiting a friend, she serves up what I am convinced are none other than the Raincoast crisps with an assortment of cheese and I discover that she has made them herself. Of course I just had to have the recipe and make them as soon as possible. These little bites are chalked full of goodness and absolutely amazing with raw goat cheese, brie or even just on their own. The raisins, or whatever dried fruit you use, add just a hint of sweetness and I love the nutty flavour. My tastbuds are still dancing.


2 C flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 C buttermilk
1/4 C brown sugar
1/4 C honey
1 C raisins (or other dried fruit...try cranberries, orange peel, or a mixture)
1/2 C chopped nuts (I used almonds, but you could also use pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc)
1/2 C roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
1/4 C sesame seeds
1/4 C flax seed, ground
1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat oven to 350 F

In large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, salt. Add buttermilk, brown sugar and honey. Stir a few times. Add dried fruit, nuts, seeds and rosemary and stir until just blended.

Pour batter into two 4 x8 greased loaf pans. Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until golden and springy to touch. Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.

Next you must slice very thin. This step is easier the cooler the loaf. Leave until the next day, or pop in the freezer to cool. Slice as thin as you can and place the slices in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. Reduce oven to 300 F and bake for about 15 minutes, then flip them over and bake for another 10 minutes until crisp and a deep golden.

Guaranteed to become an addictive habit.

Sleigh Bells Ring

Are you listening?

My mother lent me her beautiful antique sled for the holidays. I've filled it with fresh boughs...plenty of those around here, and put it on my front steps. I keep thinking that the bright red would look smashing against the snow. Presently we're in the middle of a snow storm so I don't dare set it out or I won't be able to find it by morning. I've had to shovel my driveway three times today. That's right, you heard me. We're going to have a white Christmas.

Winter...the Best Time of Year

This video clip captures the mountain culture in which I grew up absolutely perfectly. It somehow conjures up all kinds of bits and pieces of memory and feelings from my childhood. Perhaps it's because for years I skied at WH2O...spent many hours on her powdery slopes watching some of the best skiers in the world hotdogging down her cliffs. Perhaps we weren't quite as hippie as those portrayed in this film, but there certainly were a good deal of VW vans. And all of us experienced fishtailing on icy roads. It was all part of the thrill. And those straight skis! When's the last time you've seen those? We all learned on them.



Bill Heath, a local film maker, spent a good deal of his career learning from the father of ski filmmaking, Warren Miller. Last year I had the honour of viewing his newest film "Nine Winters Old," the stories of random snow lovers and their mountain experiences. The cinematography is stunning and you will see some of the best scenery this area has to offer. See trailer below.

Sacred Waters

A certain magic always hung in the air as we drove past the spotted lake in the South Okanagan. We would hang from the windows of the car with our eyes glued to the side of the road looking beyond, just a ways down the hillside…watching … watching for that magical lake with spots…the Spotted Lake. And the first to see it would cry out, “There it is! The Spotted Lake!” It held us captivated as I’m sure it has many others throughout the years.

The native people in these parts consider the lake sacred and the therapeutic quality of the waters have apparently been known throughout time as far back as their history goes. In fact legend tells that warring tribes once declared a truce in the middle of a battle so that both sides could tend to their wounded in the lake. Throughout history, tribes from all around came for the “medicine” the lake contains. Stories told by these peoples’ ancestors tell of the cures the lake has provided, both physically and spiritually through its medicine powers.

“Its medicinal powers are not to be taken lightly. This Lake is a Chief among lakes, its powers are above the purely physical. It contains 365 circles in various shapes, sizes and depths. Each particular day of the year, anyone who goes to this lake will find the right circle if he seeks.”

I have never confirmed the statement regarding the circles, however, I can say that the lake has drawn me. I feel its pull, the magnetism of its call. Even now, many years later, whenever I drive by, I cannot pass without looking.

Spaghetti Western

The sun dances high in the sky as it beats out its last rays of summer heat. Our car slowly ambles into the sleepy little western Canadian town of Keremeos. Little do we know that the emphasis is on “Western,” and one never knows what one will encounter when setting foot in a “Western.” We round the corner and smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk tied up to a tree I find this absolute beauty. I call her Winnetou.

I quickly glance around expecting to see the swinging doors of a saloon just a few steps away. Despite the odd dreamlike quality of the horse, the parked cars and grocery store down the street assure me that I am still in the twenty-first century. Being the first on the scene, I snap a few pics and make friends with Winnetou. Shortly thereafter a few others begin to gather obviously as taken by the situation as I am. Eventually a drunken cowboy comes stumbling onto the scene to collect his horse.

He poses for a few photos hamming up his instant celebrity status. The local sheriff arrives and assures us that riding a horse drunk is not a criminal offense. He tells us that the horse knows the way back home better than the cowboy and just to make sure that we know, that the cowboy is totally harmless, even drunk. Eventually the cowboy saddles up and rides off into the sunset as I play all possible soundtracks in my head.

Gone Fishin'

Hecktor has been out fishing almost daily. He says that the fish flit and flitter and flash their shiny silver scales. They are just so vain and oblivious of their surroundings these days that each time he goes down for a quick dive he comes up with a mouthful of flopping fry. They don't even know what hit them. He doesn't like me getting too close though. Says I scare off the fish. Can you believe it? It's apparently bad luck having a female around while fishing. He obviously doesn't know know about the large salmon I caught, and the even larger one that snapped my rod clear in two. I know, it's always the same old story about the "big" one that got away. But sometimes that's just how life goes.

Observations

Mutti has been busy cleaning, cleaning, cleaning...purging, emotional cleansing, whatever you wish to call it. In the process, she has rediscovered some long since forgotten treasures tucked away quietly at the bottom of some drawer. Notice how in one year I've developed defined feet and hands. Yep, clubfoot was not a good look for me. It looks like my circulation has also improved significantly. I'm pretty sure that this was before the time of skin coloured crayons, but obviously I made do. So what sort of things do you have lying quietly at the bottom of your drawers?

When Inuit Move South

Nuff said.

There's No Place Like Home

Many a voyage has carried me far from home and I have seen numerous interesting sights. The whispers of adventure secretly seduce me at my every turn. They continually pull at my heartstrings drawing me on. But in truth, adventure and excitement never lurk far from the streets of Nelson. Summer is a special time here. Festivals and celebrations abound and bring out the masses. This past Friday was no exception, in fact, it was double the pleasure with the launch of Art Walk and one of numerous Market Street Fests in full swing.

Every summer Nelson's Art Walk invites locals and visitors alike to take a stroll downtown and view the very best work of local artists and craftspeople. Local businesses host the artists and shops and boutiques become instant galleries. They put on splendid receptions, wine, cheese and other appies. Everyone mulls about, snacking while chatting with the best artistic talent in the area.

Meandering back out onto the main street, I am confronted with the city's undeniable bohemian undercurrent. It's impossible not to be drawn in. The crowds, the music, the food, the entertainment...it's all there. I happened upon a troop of belly dancers with the emphasis on belly, at least for the woman who was eight months pregnant. I half expected her water to break during the course of the performance.

And then the motley of a band...an odder collection of musicians thrown together one just couldn't find, I'm quite sure. There was the yahoo cowboy, hat and all, the two who looked like they had just stepped out of Barvaria, the one with the punkish style hair, another who was a frat boy I'm sure. How they found each other must be a story within itself. But boy could they play music. It made us all want to dance right along. For your viewing pleasure, the following video snippets will almost transport you there. Now close your eyes and click the heels of those ruby slippers together. There truly is no place like home, at least not if your home is Nelson.