June 2008

Greetings Family and Friends,

It’s time we play catch-up with everyone. This has been an intense winter. We got the metal roof on the new house, concrete poured, new paint job and my FIRST ever flower and herb garden. I think I’m getting the BUG and it scares me to death… I don’t need ANOTHER project in my life BUT it is so wonderful sticking stuff in the ground!

Our ball collection has SNOWBALLED! Our dear friends from Athens, TX, John and Dirje brought us a 4,500 lb. steel ball on a trailer. (It’s actually a propane tank). It took five of us to roll it off the trailer and onto a stand in the front of our yard. It is amazing. Kelly is going to paint it up like a circus ball. There is a little hole in it and we are going to have it be the WAILING BALL (like the Wailing Wall).

We want to encourage each of you reading this to send us a message of hope for the world, or a grief that you want to let go of… and we will place it in the WAILING BALL. No one could ever look at the messages unless someone cut the steel ball in half! SO your secrets are safe within its magical sphere!

You can either email it to us at still@stillonthehill.com or send it physically to 885 N. Fritz Dr. Fayetteville, AR 72701

The next exciting thing was our CLUSTER BOMBLET. We had a wonderful blue metal ball the size of a tennis ball for over a year. Found it at some flea market on the road. It looked like something out of a Buck Rogers Sci-Fi movie. Had little silver tabs holding it all together. It was one of our FAVORITES.

Anyhow… we were listening to NPR and heard a report about un-exploded Cluster Bomblets and they described one. It sounded like our cute little blue ball… so I googled Cluster Bomblet and there it was….YIKES.

Of course we called the Police to come take it away, they in turn called the Bomb Squad… who wanted to quarantine off 10 city blocks… OH MY… but they decided just to take it away. Come to find out it was loaded and dangerous. Thank God it never went off… we are blessed and BOMB FREE!

So…. we are still taking BALL OFFERINGS… if you have a ball with a story or something unusual… we sure would love to add it to our museum! The only rule we have is that it must be round…no flat bottoms… it can be a little ‘off’ round, that gives it character. The other rule is that it can’t be inflatable…. although we have a few in our collection.

Hope y’all are having a wonderful spring. We are working on our OZARK grant. Creating a CD/Booklet and Documentary. We will also perform 12 FREE concerts around the state… where the characters we’ve written about hail from. All the money raised from this project in Arkansas will go to get fiddles, banjos, guitars… for rural, underserved children. We are so excited that we got a Heritage Grant to do this project. It has been a 10-year dream for us and is finally coming true. Yesterday we went out with Jones TV crew and started filming the documentary. We will keep you informed of the progress!

Have an amazing SUMMER!

Donna and Kelly
Still on the Hill