'Tis the Season...

...for school concerts.

We went to one last night. It was a band concert. Plant-crazy played the flute. A fine time was had by all. Imax may get to play clarinet with them next time, by special permission, as well as playing the recorder in a different class concert. But that will be in the spring.

Next week will be copper's concert. They'll be singing.

All of our friends are busy with the winter concert schedule, too. I include those who are performing in various ballets, ice-skating programs, etc., as well as those who are musicians.


There's something special about making music in a group. There's also something special about having an audience.

In our household, various family members have experience with the following instruments. Some of it is merely beginner/novice experience, self-teaching and noodling around. Some of us have had actual lessons and more serious experience on some of the instruments. Most of these are instruments we have around the house, available for impromptu music-making.

piano (and keyboard)
flute
clarinet
recorder
Irish tinwhistle (aka pennywhistle)
ukelele
baritone (tuba)
French horn
drums/percussion
autoharp
melodica
ocarina
harmonica

plus a few more.

We played a hammered dulcimer and a bowed psaltery at the most recent Renaissance Fair and liked them, too. Perhaps we'll add them to our household inventory.

We also have some interest in making our own instruments. It would be fun to play instruments we built ourselves. As usual with these kinds of things, the internet has much useful advice (no doubt along with plenty of useless advice). Our local library has some good references, too, especially through Inter-Library Loan.

Another foot of snow, another snow day

The title of this post says it all. There's more than a foot of snow on the ground and it's still snowing. It was windy last night, so of course everything is drifted. The sun is trying to come out from behind the clouds, so perhaps this snowstorm is winding down.

I didn't really want this evening's events to be canceled. Oh, well.

The Palmer Divide creates interesting rain-shadow effects. The area to the south of us didn't get as much snow as we did.

Most of last week's snowfall is melted, at least in the sunny areas. We did have above-freezing temperatures, which helps. Even with sub-freezing temperatures, the strong sun combined with the dry air leads to rapid snow disappearance. Some of it is melting and evaporation, and some is sublimation. Areas in the shade stay snowy for a lot longer.

Oregon Photos

Here are a few photos from our trip to Oregon this past fall.


The above photo is from Macleay park, one of the parks that makes up the Forest Park system. It's a small stone structure at the point where the Wildwood Trail intersects the Macleay trail. It's called the Stone House (duh), and was originally built by the WPA in the 1930's as a public restroom. It was seriously damaged in the Columbus Day windstorm of 1962 and never repaired. These days the building looks like some kind of otherworldly ruins in the forest, something out of a fairy tale. Ferns grow on the railings and walls and roof. Kids (and adults) love wandering around in it and on it.

The WPA and similar Depression-era projects were considered to be frivolous even at the time. But I'm glad they happened. They've left us a treasure trove.

Here's a photo of the ferns on one of the stone railings leading upstairs.


The small room behind the door show in the top photo often has interesting graffiti on the walls. I have no idea what this example means, but I thought it was both aesthetic and enigmatic.


The Macleay trail is a nice one for fall and winter hiking. Ditto for the Wildwood Trail and all the other trails of Forest Park. They are pleasant at all times of the year, but especially when snow and ice cover the high country trails. Some of the Forest Park trails can get astonishingly muddy, but that's about it.

Winter Weather

Brr! Today was cold! It was about 10 F at 6am, and down to 9 F by 3pm. It snowed all day, a few inches of pretty fluffy flakes that piled up but squooshed down under any weight at all. The roads are a bit slippery, but it's not too bad.

Yesterday, we had ice fog. After a day of sub-freezing temperatures, low clouds, and fog, the trees were coated with small ice crystals on the upwind side. It's pretty. The crystals are still there under the snow.

Our evening activities got canceled tonight due to the weather. Bummer. What's the problem with a little cold and ice and snow? I had to go to town anyway to pick up children from school.

Just for the heck of it, here's a photo.



This is from our September trip to Oregon. It's South Falls, one of the waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park. The trail goes behind the waterfall. This photo shows a few small specks that are people walking along the trail. The falls are close to 200 feet high. The entire hiking trail visits close to a dozen falls, often going behind them. It's one of my favorite places to bring visitors. Even those who can't hike very far are often willing to walk the short distance to South Falls.

One often sees photos of the various waterfalls in the park on scenic-vista calendars. Usually, the leaves will be turning or flowers will be in the foreground or everything will be covered in snow and ice or something equally dramatic. This was taken on a normal late-summer day, nothing terribly dramatic except for the falls themselves. Even the falls aren't terribly dramatic, since late summer water flow isn't as impressive as it is earlier in the year. It was a worthwhile visit anyway. It always is.

claranet

I`m lerning how to play claranet.
playing the claranet is fun.
my favoret music is FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HI

hi evrebody! how you doing

I like sleding!

you shoud see shaghinights!!!!!

by

Snow photos

We had a snow day for school today. The sun came out and melted some of the snow. I'm sure we'll all be back in our regular routine tomorrow.

EE has posted today. I think Imax might make a debut on the blog today, too.

Here are a bunch of photos. Also notice the new header photo, taken this morning. Well, if you're reading this in a few months, it will have changed. But I assure you that it's very appropriate for December!







The view this morning:




And a visitor who strolled by while I was taking one of the above photos:



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Here are a few more photos, assuming I can fight blogger long enough to get them posted and stuck in the right place. These are geraniums. (Duh.) The striped one is a rescue. A family member found the plant, sans pot, in a dumpster and asked if we could bring it home. Sure, why not? So we did.

It survived the trauma of abandonment and is doing well. The flowers are cute.

The other geranium is a plain old normal geranium. It's happy enough to bloom in December, which is good enough for me. It's been growing in our house for several years. We're rooting some of its branches to give it a few clone-siblings.

The holiday cactus bloom from earlier this month is history. There are more buds on the plant that will open soon. The other impulse-purchase holiday cactus also has some buds that will open soon. Our older plant is setting its buds, too. They weren't there when I took the original photo, but they were there a few days later. They are still small. I expect we'll get flowers in January, as usual.

Astral Conjunction

Venus, Jupiter, and the crescent Moon will be very close to each other in the sky at sunset tonight (about an hour from now). Looks like it will be clear weather for viewing. When I looked last week with my son's telescope, Venus and Jupiter were still quite a ways apart, but Venus has been moving at close to its maximum of 1 degree (about 2 moon widths) per day!

See this NASA briefing.