If Rip Van Winkle had just recently awakened from his lengthy sleep and viewed our Midwestern surroundings, he might be very unsure of which 2013 month he has just re-entered. Temperatures have been varying constantly while the expected parched grass remains summer-lush. However, the calendar states that summer-time has ended and it is time to prepare for a long winter. It has been an unusual and almost amazing summer for it’s variety of weather, fires, droughts and floods. It will end with preparations for winter.

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The practice of summer farming has been widespread over most of the country. In general,
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Cattle-calls of these young farm-girls began to be widely used in a manner that began known as kulning, a high-pitched vocal tone we may associate with yodeling. This vocal style was also used by Sami herders to call their reindeer.
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This vocal style also served to scare away mountain predators as well as having the singers enjoy the echoing sounds of the mountain songs during the long days and evenings.It also served as a method of communication.
Other means of communication and herding-calls included fashioning pipes of reed or hollowing branches.
A wooden trumpet , called a “Lur” was played in Scandinavia by shepherds, with the shepherd's instruments being held together with strips of birch bark instead of willow bands . It is believed that the lur was considered a musical instrument as well as an instrument of communication during the Viking Age. A lur similar to the Viking war instruments has been played by farmers and milk maids in Nordic

These instruments are still used, however, the practice of “summer farming” has ceased importance to Scandinavian farming practices today. Still being heard is the singing style of the girls and young women tending the herds in modern song-forms, while the pipes and horns have evolved into modern-day instruments. One such instrument combined a number of hollow reeds or hollowed wood of different lengths strapped together.
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The lur is still in use today in the folk music tradition. Egil Storbekken who died in 2002 was famous for his work with the lur. Other variations included an instrument of several hollowed reeds or wood of different lengths strapped together to form an instrument we know as panpipes. Several modern musicians have recorded musical selections utilizing this instrument based on Greek legends of a creature resembling a goat.
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In Greek mythology, Pam was the god of the shepherds and their flocks in mountain wilds and hills. He was believed to be a man with horns, a tail and legs of a goat who had fashioned a clumps of reeds into the famous Panpipes while tempting the girls in the mountain farms with the sound of his pipes.
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Although, the god Pan is not a modern issue and the practice of “Summer Farming” has been altered by modern motor vehicles, the music remains. To salute the closing of our unusual summer season, we might stretch our imagination as a musician performs on panpipes. The mountains might be the mountain farm areas as the herds come home from the mountain pastures at the end of summer. Click on the link. Skip the ad and enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3h6--fMBA
It has been an amazing summer!