Art Attack

I went into T's class last week, with the purpose of asking her teacher whether it would be a nice idea for the class to do a series of Birds of Minnesota pictures for the class-room. The idea was that I could find all the local birds in Latin and French, get the children to draw them, and we would label them aka the Voyages of the Beagle Botanical sketches.

Today - I had to give a presentation (with print-outs!). And I am proud to say that my feasibility study has been accepted by the Gala committee, and not only will each child produce their own volucrine masterpiece as a limited print for the grannies to swoon over, but we will present the originals in a leather portfolio for one of the auction items at the end-of-year auction. And then, we will be rolling out coasters and place-mats (really).

A sign went up in the school corridor this afternoon: Remember, that unless then temperature falls below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, the children will be going outside to play and will require their snow-suits, mittens and hats.

They make them tough around here.

And I cannot find my Christmas tree. It was suggested that maybe the stagiaire took it with her when she left on her road-trip, but even I had a job imagining just how she would sneak it out. But, quite amazingly, I have all the boxes of decorations AND the empty tree box, but no tree or lights.

I had to sort out two grown-up things today - getting the local lad to dig our drive of snow (I know he was a lad, because when I asked for a written quote he said "Yeah, OK, I'll just ask my M...Secretary to get one out to you"). The second one was that my car battery has suddenly started coughing on me each time I try and turn on the ignition. The chap asked me when I called up, if I had checked the contacts. He had to ask me twice as the first time I must have phased out and thought "Oh, bridgjo can answer this one", even though I was the one actually on the phone.

The temperature has plummeted, and the poor little critters in the back garden are getting fluffier. We have grey foxes (the only ones which can climb trees), a family of raccoons (which can also climb trees and attempt to swing off the bird-table), two opossum (which are completely blind it seems, and are also the only marsupial outside of Australia. I have not seen pockets) and a myriad of local birds, including the blue jays, cardinals and, possibly, turkeys.

I buy the cheapest dried cat-food on special and put some outside each evening. Not in a bowl though, as the only time I did that the raccoons ran off with it and hid it somewhere.