June 8, 2010  

Dear Diary,
    I'm sorry it's been so long since I've written to you (almost four months!).  It's not that I've forgotten; I've just gotten busy with so many other things (which is never an excuse, I know).  But I've been taking pictures of events all along, and now I've got them organized.  So here goes:

    There wasn't that much snow this winter, but February had some damp snow that lined the branches beautifully, and the last snow (a powdering) was April 16 (see pictures). There were 2.5 inches of rain in 48 hours in March, which flooded the brook behind the house.  But it wasn't as high as in 2007, and it's never endangered the house.  However, both beaver dams were busted, and the beaver seem to have given up and left.  In April there was more rain, which saturated the ground and flooded the front yard.
    Lynn went on her quilting retreat from February 19–21 at the Barbara Harris Center in town.  The "heart" quilt she made for Addy is now done.
    On February 27 we went to Sarah's to celebrate Alex's 7th birthday (it's actually on March 3rd).  See pictures.
    After reading some of Shel Silverstein's poems in his book "Where the Sidewalk Ends," I was inspired to set five of them to music.  However, the owner of the copyrights to Silverstein's works denied my request to produce such music.  Oh well, I was left with five songs without words.  So I wrote original lyrics for three of them, resulting in: "Hello," "Where'er You Go," and "When the World Was Young."
    On April 3rd Lisa Ebert and her daughter Bailey visited us from Wisconsin. They are the wife and daughter of David Ebert, Lynn's nephew.  They had never been to an ocean, so we took then to a beach near Gloucester, MA.  Bailey had to stand on every big boulder (see pictures).  We took them to lunch at a lobster shack.  When we got back to the beach, the tide had come in and eliminated most of the beach.
    On April 4th Matt's family came here for a visit.  Ozzy is walking all over the place with confidence.  He has a great swagger!
    We took care of Alex and Addy at our place for three days in April.  Alex loves our pond because of the frogs he can catch (see pictures).  One of the days we took a trip to "America's Stonehenge" near Salem, NH.  The rock structures are the oldest man-made construction in the United States (over 4000 years old).  See pictures.
    The Souhegan Valley Chorus concert was on May 8th.  It is our 30th anniversary, and we sang our favorite songs from past performances.  We hired a drummer (Adam Soucy) to accompany us on a medley of big-band tunes, while I played the string bass and Laura Kennedy played piano.
    Mother's Day was the next day, and we went to Sarah's for the day.  We looked at their horses and pigs.  See pictures.
    Lynn has been inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" to plant vegetables.  I built her some raised garden beds in the front yard (see pictures).  Most of the work was in getting rid of the grass sod.  But now I'll have less yard to mow!  She has planted green beans, green peppers, squash, tomatoes, herbs, and poles beans (for pretty).
    We visited Matt's family on May 29.  Lynn played jigsaw puzzles with River and Ozzy, and I played customer at a "store" where River and Ozzy were selling ice cream.  See pictures.
    On May 23 we became a foster home for Harry, a Jack Russell terrier.  His owner is divorced and can't care for him during the day at present.  We'll give Harry back sometime after July 4th.  He's a cute dog that follows us around all the time.  The only down-side is that he's territorial, often growling if we approach him in his bed or whatever he's claimed as his own.  See pictures.
   In late May it starts to get light about 4:30 a.m.  I'm sleeping on the screened porch, and a bird starts singing about then every morning—really close, like 30 feet away.  He's sort of my rooster.  Here's his song.
    Here's a picture of the front garden with back-lit poppies.
    Here's a page of animal pictures.
    Here's a page of plant pictures.

Features: Mysterious "bloop" in the ocean

Quotes: "Operator! Give me the number for 911." — Homer Simpson

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