The News from Four Quarters

March 11, 2019

The Members Muse in Waiting

The 2019 Members Muse is, even as I type, being prepped for our annual Members Mailing. It will hit the mails as soon as we receive our shipment of 2019 Wheel of the Year calendars, also ink hitting paper even as I type. Generally we arrange to have our bulk mailing of calendars go out while we prepare the Muse for our Members Mailing, so if you’ve gotten a request in by … um… mid-February, your Wheel may already be on the way!

Februrary 17, 2019

2019 Wheel of the Year on Press & Schedule-At-A-Glance Available!

We have spent much of the past few months busily at work on the 2019 edition of our Wheel of the Year Desk Calendar, and are happy to announce it has gone to press and should be headed for your eager hands very soon, with general distribution shortly following!

Our coffee-addled den of crazed ferrets that is our 2019 Wheel of the Year Production Team has been sequestered away ignoring snow and ice storms to hammer together as many of the coming year's event dates as we could procure, cajole, threaten, or torture out of various interested parties and event leads to get the coming year’s schedule fleshed out. We’ve also been pulling together our other content from whatever slow-moving authors and volunteers who didn’t have their coffee and run fast enough. Even though he has a home-based studio, Kurt is looking forward to seeing his family again.

January 14, 2019

More Beef!

    Out in the pasture we have greeted the arrival of our first calf from our Scottish Highlanders, with two more calves on the way.
    This young one was born into a very cold night to a first-time mother, and they failed to hook-up! Chris Engdahl brought the calf into the office for the day and patiently got the pump primed by bottle feeding the little guy. A day later and all is well.
    Chris has also taken a real interest in managing the Highlander herd, and has begun training Mr. Copper in his future role as "Stock Dog."  Copper takes a keen interest as you can see. We will keep you updated.

December 18, 2018

Update on the Road Case

 


    We have very good news with the roadway case after our third court hearing on Friday Dec 18th.

    As you know, in our first hearing the court basically threw the book at us, and issued a ruling worded in such a way as to allow the court to order the closure of Four Quarters.

     In our second hearing of Aug 3rd the court reversed its position and recognized the engineering plans we had created at great expense, and perhaps hastened by the fact that the roadway had washed out just two days before, granted us emergency powers to proceed with the reconstruction of the washed out crossing according to plan. The court reserved for a future hearing any decision on "reasonable use," the legal doctrine on which it had based its threat of closure.

December 3, 2018

The Nightmare Festival at Four Quarters

It was a dark and stormy night...

It was a dark and stormy night again...

and again, and again.

And mud too. Lots of mud.

Such was the NightMare Festival at Four Quarters, our emergency response to 4,000 young people losing their longtime venue at Camp Ramblewood in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Seems some poor fool parked their car in someone else's front yard (that someone else being the local Judge) but that's another story!

The compelling story is that over the course of five years, Chad Bozzarelli and his organization, ProperOps, had proved the critics wrong by developing a very late season outdoor music event. So late season it was held on Halloween Weekend, with all the cold and wet weather that implies. There had been plenty of cold, wet weather, and in the early years, financials that were just above break-even. But by 2017 NightMare had become a stunning success, and had grown a small army of smiling, loyal supporters, all apparently to end not with a bang, but a whimper.

October 24, 2018

Our Wettest Year... EVER

Just about anyone who has been on the Land this year, at any of our major events or festival weekends, got rained on. And by that, I mean got rained on a LOT. Deluge Rain. Biblical Rain. Epic Rain. Wickermuck. Mud ’N’ Splash. Flood’s Rising. Big Mud. … you get the idea.

Since Beltaine, we have seen something like five out of six weeks wet at Four Quarters. Not till Stones Rising and immediately following, other than a brief bit of relief in July, did we see any real period of dry spells. Extended meaning – more than 48 hours rain free. Go mow the lawn while you can.

Where I live in Berkeley Springs, downtown got flooded three times. In the worst event in June, we lost roads, bridges, and the Cacapon Dam was overtopped and nearly breached. Ellicott City, MD had its downtown devastated by a muddy flash flood. In July, Baltimore received rainfall in the realm of 18 inches, normal is about 3.5. While I write this, from my studio window the lawn is still almost May-green in mid-October, even as leaves begin to fall. They don't seem to change color much this year, they just kind of get tired and fall off. Those of us with older houses are combating fierce outbreaks of mold in basements, kitchens, and between the walls thanks to the relentless wet conditions.