February 6, 2009  

    The Souhegan Valley Chorus had their Holiday Concert despite the ice storm and power outages.  There was a good audience turnout, and we performed well even though the weather cancelled the dress rehearsal.  Our A LA CARTE quartet performed a couple Christmas pop songs. Here's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."
    Our best Christmas gift this year came in January, when Matt and Crystal's baby boy Ozzy arrived on the 9th.  His full name is Ozland Hugo Wolaver, and he weighed in at a 9 lb 1 oz.  He's a beautiful, wonderful baby who only cries when he's hungry—at least as far as we've seen.  During the birth, Lynn and I had the fun of taking care of River, and the next day went to the hospital to visit our new grandson.  Here's a page of pictures of Ozzy and family—included are the hospital pix and more from a later visit at their home.
    On the way home from Matt and Crystal's house, Lynn saw a penguin standing on a frozen lake.  I stopped the car and went back for a picture.  But after I watched him for about three minutes and he hadn't moved, I figured it was a statue somebody placed there for a joke.  It worked pretty well; we saw another car slowing down and looking.
    The Holzers have a new puppy—a three-month-old black Lab.  He was bought as a Christmas gift for Steve, but the kids are sure he's all for them!  His name is Ratchet, and he loves to play with stuffed animals, with their cat Olin, and with most anything that fits in his mouth.  Here's a page of pictures.
    January was unrelentingly cold, rarely going above freezing.  Lows were in the single digits, and highs were in the 20s.  As a result, the ice on the roof never got warm enough to slide off, and we got ice dams over the eaves.  I thought our standing-seam metal roof would be tight enough to be water-tight, but we got water leaking through it and forming icicles under the eaves, so I had to go up and break channels through the ice with a hammer.  We've had the metal roof three years now, and this is the first time we've had problems with ice dams.  On the lighter side, snow piled on a bird feeder and left an animal-like snow sculpture as it melted.
    A flock of 17 turkeys had been visiting regularly, so we started spreading cracked corn for them.  Their habit is to scratch the snow to uncover seed on the ground.  It's not necessary with our corn, of course, but it seems to make them happy.  After two weeks the flock disappeared, and we haven't seen them since.  Oh well, they know where to find corn if they get hungry.
    We get mostly chickadees at the bird feeder, but they also enjoy peanut butter-filled pinecones that Lynn has tied to our Christmas tree.  Occasionally we get a flock of goldfinches (can you see 11 in the picture)?  Here's a video of them swarming around the feeders.
    Lynn's quilting group has been making strips of patchwork for each other's quilts—it's called a "row robin.".  Here's a strip Lynn made for a quilt with an African theme.
    I composed a song titled "New England Dawn" for a cappella voices (with optional timpani).
    I notice that the water going down the drain in the half-bath forms glowing drops when the water is turned on to a trickle.

Feature: The child in space

Quotes: "Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."  James Thurber

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