Shopping

Willie Nelson wrote this...

... beautiful bit of poetry.  "I bring you one autumn of dry leaves.  Dry leaves will be helpful, you know, to soften the fall of your snowflakes when I bring you your winter of snow."
He also wrote "Crazy".
And the Quebe Sisters. Oh, my.

More Teaa Goans

Gorgeous.  Love the musicians, too.

This song...

 ... reminds me of what Christmas meant when I was a child. 

Love this one

Hey! Listen! It's Christmastime!

Modern Musicals

all musicals sound like this to me pic.twitter.com/RnqhpiUxM3

— Matt Buechele (@mattbooshell) December 14, 2018

November snow

This is the most wintry November I can ever remember.  We've had something like two feet of snow in four or five storms -- one that dropped 9 inches and the rest, 2 or 3 inches each -- though most of it melted in heavy rain the other day.  We've been out skiing a couple of times. As for cold, the lake has been frozen for a couple of weeks, and the low temperature reached 10 below a few nights ago.  The birds are already swarming the feeders -- we've been through one 50-pound bag of seed already and have made a big dent in the next one.  Will it keep up all winter?  And are the glaciers next?

Cousins at Thanksgiving

The road to work in April

Reservoir Hill Road in theoretical April, with knee-deep snow still lurking in the dark hollows of the woods and ice covering most of the Reservoir. This is spring?

The mergansers and buffleheads and wood ducks who showed up a week or so ago have mostly disappeared. The geese are still here but don't know what to think, stalking sulkily around on their cold feet on the ice, although Mrs. Goose is nursing a clutch of eggs in her nest in the usual spot on the stumps marooned in the ice in the cove just past our yard. The ice is piled up on our shore in ragged chunks and still taking up most of the lake in a great big sheet, with patches of slowly widening cold, open water around the edges. The howling wind and snow were so wild a week or so ago that our power was out for a couple of days, and it went out again for a few hours the other day. I'm still wearing my down coat and pashmina scarf to work, and turning on the heated seats in the car. Again I ask you - this is spring?

Happy birthday, Margot!

We hope you're having fun celebrating on Cape Cod!

Three days before the first day of spring at Plymouth Reservoir

 This icicle was at least 8 feet long. 

Yes, there's some green for St. Patrick's Day. But you can barely find it. 

Now We Are Six

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now
for ever and ever.

 by A.A. Milne

Happy birthday, Jamie!

Birthdays

This blog has been overlooking some of them lately. Today is the 32nd anniversary of the arrival in this world of Laura Mae Murphy Bencze, who could not have been and still could not be more welcome. Other recent birthdays have been Caleb's (36!), mine (64!!) and Luke's (30!!!), not to mention that this blog turned 13 years old two days ago. Another teenager in the family, just when we thought that was all in the past, or at least for another seven years.

Happy birthday to Laura! And happy next year on this planet to all of us. 

Quite a year!

Happy birthday, dear Sam!