Coloring the season

The fall season is here.  The gorgeous autumn-colored hill of Duluth is nice to come back to after a day in Superior.  Even the trees along our tree are on display with their colors.  The white birch trunks shine in the sun and are a sight to see.  I enjoy trees.  The growing ones and the ones that have become parts of our lives in other ways.  I visited a friend who is a librarian at WITC in Superior and the wood table in the side room of the library was fascinating to see the wood grain.  At home I have a couple petrified wood samples and marvel at life from long ago.   On to dulcimers - if you have a dulcimer you might right away notice the beautiful song of the instrument.  You might notice its shape and its weight.  Have you looked at it more closely though?  Have you looked at the wood grains?   Some dulcimers are made of all of one time of wood - such as all walnut.  It's also fairly common to have a dulcimer made with walnut back and sides but a spruce or cherry topic to give it a little more bright sound.   When I was on a trip once I met up with a dulcimer player who had a dulcimer that was painted bright red with a shiny red paint.  I knew the dulcimer was still made of wood and not plastic or metal like a car but it was that shiny.  The sound was fine.  The player said the dulcimer was also waterproof!    I like to see the wood and staining brings out some of the grain and helps protect the wood.  Enjoy your dulcimer - its sound, its shape, its history, and the beauty in the wood.