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April 24, 2009
Today was the
first really spring-like day—a high of 70°, and we had lunch down at
the picnic table. Just a week ago I was walking through patches of
snow in the woods with the neighbor's dog. Snowy loves the snow, rolling
in it when we come to a patch. Now all the snow is gone and the
grass is no longer yellow. Here's Snowy
at a brook on our walk.
Some new birds have visited the bird feeder
during the feeding season just ending—redpolls, grosbeaks, purple
finches. Here's a page
of animals we've seen on the property since the last blog.
On February 24th we spent the day at Sarah and
Steve's with Matt and Crystal. This was the first that all four
grandkids got together—Alex, Addy, River, and Ozzy. Here's a page
of pictures.
I laid out the lettering of a sign for Greenfield's community
gardens. Neal Brown organized the project, and David Bridgewater
did the routing and painting. Here's the completed
sign (Neal is kneeling, of course, and David's on the left).
The Greenfield town meeting was March 14. One
Article in the Warrant proposed putting $10,000 into the budget for
improving the heating system for the Town Offices Building. As
chair of the Town Energy Committee, I spoke in favor of the Article, and
a reporter from the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript took my picture.
Lynn is part of a group of quilters that is making a
row of quilting squares for each other. That way they'll each end
up with a quilt made by the seven people. Lynn's April contribution
was a strip of Sunbonnet Sue
squares.
On March 21st we went to the annual play put on by a
home-schooling group in Massachusetts. Four McLeod-Warricks from
Sunday School had parts—Peter, David,
Matthew, and Rachel. The play
was "As You Like It," and the acting was excellent!
Because we live on a dirt road, "mud
season" has special meaning for us. The sides of the car are
perpetually tan, and the car fish-tails through the mud
ruts.
On March 23rd we went to Matt and Crystal's for the
day. Here's a page of
pictures.
Our whole quartet went to the A
Cappella weekend in Washington DC this year. That meant that
we could sign up for coaching. We got an hour of coaching from Larry
Detwiler from Jakarta, Indonesia. Our favorite of the
professional groups that performed is Vocaldente
from Germany. They have fun
and have a quality sound—much like
the King Singers.
Our quartet "A La Carte" has been looking
for some up-tempo songs, so I arranged three—"Blue
Skies," "Opus One,"
and "Fascinating Rhythm."
Some of the arranging takes place at the
piano, but just as often I go straight to a MIDI file on the
computer.
The Nashua
Community Concert series featured the Side
Street Strutters on April 2nd. These seven guys play both
big-band music and Dixie-land jazz, and I've never heard better
playing. Here's a clip from "Sing,
Sing, Sing." Here's a clip from "Bourbon
Street Parade," which includes some tap dancing by the
trumpeter.
Since the last blog (eleven weeks ago) I've been
spending 10 to 12 hours a week on a series of lectures for a
home-schooling group. We met
for two to three hours every Tuesday and talked about the physics of
energy in different forms—kinetic, potential, electrical,
thermal. There were eleven
lectures that included mechanical concepts they encountered in their
Rube Goldberg project last
fall. The challenge for me was avoiding calculus, keeping it to
simple algebra, and coming up with experiments where the students could
get quantitative results. It was good to get back into teaching
and to work with young people again.
Feature: "Danny
Boy" sung by The Vocal Majority. Other
audio clips.
Quotes: “It seems like the less a statesman amounts to
the more he adores the flag.” - Kin
Hubbard
The Philosopher's Cornered
- Archives
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