End of February

While we only received about two inches of snow this past week, the end of the week were cold and windy enough to remind us that we are in New England in February.

We got to watch my youngest grandson ( he'll be seven in June - if I let him survive 'til then) from Thursday evening through Saturday night, and except for locking me out of the kitchen and having a meltdown during one dog walking episode, he was an ideal guest. Well maybe not ideal. He did beat the socks of of me in a game of Othello.

Speaking of the dog, not ours, theirs: his name is Ernie and he is a mix of Beagle and Australian Shepherd we are told, although  I am sure that a box of rocks or a small pile of gravel is somewhere in his ancestry. Ernie is the dumbest canine in the northern hemisphere. It is only my lack of travel that limits my claim of his championship of ineptitude to only one half of the earth. Call him and he runs away, sit means leap up as far as he is concerned. Anything that has any smell, preferably associated with putrefaction or at least morbidity, is infinitely attractive. For two years he has been trying to play with the three cats who share his home.
For two years this home has been a constant display of fur bearing projectiles launching themselves to high shelves and the top of the refrigerator in usually successful attempts to avoid Ernie's affections.

Come in the door, he needs to rush out, only to come barreling back in the next instant, or show up three hours later end the end of an exasperated neighbor's leash. Ernie just knows that a leash is something to be tangled in and that everyone's greatest interest in life is to wear his paw prints and rub his belly.

For two middays, I got to take this four legged intellectual disaster for  exercise and other business. He got plenty of exercise, but he saved his other functions for the house. This despite being walked three times a day. Cleanup was not pleasant.

His one outstanding virtue is that he is incredibly good natured and friendly and this has probably saved his life.

Got a little bit of work done on building interior buttresses ( short stub walls) in the loft, but I decided I need to sheath them as they are too ugly otherwise. Hope to finish it by midweek.

This weekend the Village of Deerfield commemorated a devastating attack by French and Indian raiders that nearly wiped out the village on February 29, 1704. I went to some events yesterday and a concert of music for organ and soprano at the Brick Church in Deerfield with my wife today. We then went to the Northampton Brewery for dinner only because they have Irish folk music on Sundays. The beer is something we just have to suffer through. After all this music we still listened to some operatic music on the way home. One piece among the many beautiful melodies that really captured our thoughts was the intermezzo from Mascagni's "Cavalliera Rusticana". I strongly recommend that next time you are feeling quiet and thoughtful and want something to enhance your mood, listen to this piece. Here is one link to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSL4pPVf9rE&feature=related
I suggest you skip the visuals and just listen.


I have started two woodworking/ decorative projects and I'll discuss those in a separate post.