Saturday, April 16, 2016: A light snow falls on my front yard
from before 6:30 a.m. until sometime after 11:30 a.m.
If you like snow, Star Wars, and live concerts as much as I do, then yesterday here on the Mountain would have been a pretty much perfect day for you! When I got up at 6:30 to drive Mark to work, I found a fine swirl of pebbly snow falling from the sky. By the time I returned home, it was starting to stick pretty well.
We had such an early spring, and now it feels like the end of winter is tardy but finally here. It just got lost for awhile but found its way home to finish its job. Unfortunately, my lone little apple tree was covered with blossoms, promising a harvest of sweet little red apples, but now those blossoms will probably freeze off, killing my dream of juicy, fresh apples in the fall.
We had such an early spring, and now it feels like the end of winter is tardy but finally here. It just got lost for awhile but found its way home to finish its job. Unfortunately, my lone little apple tree was covered with blossoms, promising a harvest of sweet little red apples, but now those blossoms will probably freeze off, killing my dream of juicy, fresh apples in the fall.
37 seconds of peaceful, silent snowfall at 7:05 a.m., after I got back from driving Mark to work.
To my surprise, the snow continued to fall solidly for several hours. As the day warmed up, the snow that had adhered to the ground, cars, and buildings melted off and the snowflakes became fat and fluffy, falling more gently. That's my favorite kind of snow.
One minute of my favorite fat, fluffy snow, three hours later.
That's our "zombie-cat," Gimli, that you see at the start of the second video clip. He is old, he drools (as you can see in this clip), he's lost most of his teeth, his ratty hair is falling out, and we expect to find him dead daily.Yet he keeps on going. He even brought home a baby rabbit and killed it on our porch a week ago (and ate all but the bones and head). Broke my heart, but you gotta give the old guy credit...
White Mountain Symphony Orchestra in concert.
April 16, 2016
By the afternoon, the snow had mostly stopped, except for a flurry here and there throughout the day. That was good for the driving I had to do later in the day. A little after 2:30 I picked Mark up from work and we drove straight to Blue Ridge High School to attend Sarah's concert at 3:00.
This was a special concert by White Mountain Symphony Orchestra, because it featured movements from John Williams's score for Star Wars: A New Hope. If you know me, you know I'm a big Star Wars fan. Jake loves Star Wars at least as much as I do, but he and Dylan both had to work and thus missed the concert. Jake was extremely disappointed that he wasn't able to attend.
So I did the next best thing: I filmed it for him. The first half of the concert featured a series of classical concertos and performances by the two high school students who had won a concerto competition, but, after the intermission, the second half of the concert was dedicated exclusively to the music of Star Wars.
The first 27 minutes of the Star Wars half of the concert.
I don't know why, but for some reason my camera shut itself off at this point.
I thought maybe my battery had died or my memory card was full, but
I started filming again and captured the final 9 minutes (below) without issue.
It was awesome. There were moments when it seemed like I was listening to a soundtrack directly from the movie. Amazing sound from a small orchestra from a small, rural community.
Unfortunately, you can't see Sarah in the photo or video clips, since she was seated toward the back. But she was there! We occasionally got a glimpse of her between two other people's heads and saw the tip of her bow gliding up and down behind the others.
The final 9 minutes of the concert. By this time my hands were getting a bit shaky
from holding the camera up for 36 minutes, and it may look somewhat tipsy at times,
but the music is still good! A little boy was seated in front of me
who was getting pretty antsy by now, but I don't think he was too disruptive.
but the music is still good! A little boy was seated in front of me
who was getting pretty antsy by now, but I don't think he was too disruptive.
After the concert, Sarah, Chris, Mark, and I went out to dinner at Denny's. It was after 6:00 when we left the restaurant. By then the snow was just a memory, leaving behind icy wind and cold fingers. At the end of the day it was wonderful to step into my warm house and curl up with a great book (The Fifth Wave) for the evening. It truly was a good day.
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