We had an unusually heavy “people” day today. 😀  It’s amazing how quickly I got used to not being surrounded by people all the time.

Aside from an unusual amount of phone calls from different family members, my sister and her husband were able to come for a visit!  They picked up their carpet shampooer, and were kind enough to lend us their record player – and a box of records!

Also, they gifted us with more potatoes.  Another big bag of them!  That was sweet of them. 🙂

Oh, I discovered something from them.  They maintain a bird feeder by their dining room window, and after checking out my set up, they corrected me.  The chipping sparrows?  Turns out they are redpolls.  Which weren’t even in my bird book. 😦  We do have chipping sparrows in our region, but not this time of year.

Dang.  I’m going to have to fix all my old tags and posts, now.

After they left, I found an outlet I could plug the record player in, and the first thing I did was break out the old 78s.

It’s one of those new players that can play cassettes, CDs, is Bluetooth enabled, and has the ports to use USB and headphones.  It even has a remote control.

There was also, thankfully, a record cleaning cloth.  Those 78s were shockingly dirty!  We will have to take some time to very carefully clean them.  Until then, we used the cloth, then, after doing a bit of research, the carbon brush for our camera lenses.  It’s just enough to get the big, loose stuff off, but they are so bad, they’ll need more work.

The 78s we have are in a book of sleeves, and this is the first time we’ve actually taken any of them out.  Sadly, two of the ones we did take out had chunks broken off of them!  We could still listen to parts of the songs, but it was a sad thing to see.

I’ve come to realize my family is extremely rough on things!

After listening to several 78s, I then brought out the 45s, including…

Who Stole the Kishka.

Oh, did that ever bring back memories! 😀  Going to socials with my parents at the old hall, dancing the polka and the butterfly, with a live band (all locals, playing drums, violin, guitar and, of course, the accordion!) on the stage, and the guy that would walk around in between the dancers, scattering those wax granules on the floor, so dancer’s feet would wax the floor, but would send people’s feet skittering around for a while first!  I recall seeing a few people go flying, and I know I did a few times!

Our parents were real party animals!  They really loved to dance.  And drink.  Then dance some more!

I am pretty sure I saw the Chicken Dance among the albums.  Oh, how much fun I remember we had, dancing to that!  I can’t wait to play it for the girls!

My daughters are quite amused by my recollections!

After listening some 45s, we moved on to some 33s, including this gem.

Interesting to read the “Arrest Warrant” for Mickey, where it says “Divorcing Bunny.”  There are two records in my mother’s stack from Mickey and Bunny. 😀

Check out the songs list!

I’m pretty sure the “Recipe for Homebrew” really is a recipe, but it’s in Ukrainian, so I can’t quite understand it.

I think we’re going to be listening to records a lot over the next while. 😀  Among the discs my sister brought is some Queen and David Bowie, and in my Mom’s stack, there’s an album from Danny Osmond!  There’s quite a variety of classical music, which I’m quite looking forward do.  For today, we listened to some German Brass from my sister’s stack.

I especially want to check out those post card records I found.  I’m not sure what speed they’re supposed to be played at, but I figure they’re most likely 45s.

Should be interesting!

The Re-Farmer