It was a very musical few days.  We--that is , Urbana, IL and Amasong hosted a women's music festival under the name of "sister singers".  There were women's groups from   Portland Maine to SanDiego, CA, and many places in between,    including Chicago, Cleveland, Cinncinnati, Charlottsville, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Minneapolis, & D.C.  Groups ( Read more... )

The  weather was warm today, & the snowbanks are melting.  Result--I can't cross o'r the resulting puddles. I need a boat, though it does not need to carry two. Just something to  row.

It snowed for 24 hours.  Not heavy snow, but enough that there is a lot of the white stuff on the ground.  It isn't actually cold yet, though the temp is supposed to be dropping for the next 18 or so hours. But the response of the Powers That Be has been a total shutdown of all facilities, events, what have you.  All schools, including the U of I, ( Read more... )

I haven't been on LJ for a fair while--busy with bird counts. I just got the last piece I needed to finish up the data for the Champaign County count, done Dec. 14th.Which went better than I had expected:  the weather forcast had been for 3-5 " of snow & what we got was 3+5 = 8"..Still we tallied 65 species, including a Merlin and a very cold pipit ( Read more... )

In  3 days, I attended 3 very different musical events.   First, on Thursday evening ((/12), I was at Krannert for a concert by the Jupiter string quartet, who performed works by Hayden, Benjamin Britten, and Mendelssohn.  Then Friday was the park district's "jazz walk" at Meadowbrook park, where a bunch of different groups were set up along the ( Read more... )

This year, National Audubon is having a national convention for the first time in  several years.They used to have them every other year,  but it does take a lot of work on the part of staff & they apparently lost money on one or two.  But this year they are doing it again--in Washington State basically on the Columbia River,  The nearest airport ( Read more... )

This weekend was the annual meeting of the Illinois Ornithological Society.  Despite the fact that many roads were under water due to recent rains, (Some rather large fish were swimming in or across some of the roads) there were a lot of birds seen/heard.  My personal total was 101 species; I think there were 20-some more seen by others.  On the ( Read more... )

I'm back and slowly recovering from the OLLI trip to New Mexico.  We left Wed., May 15; bus from Champaign to St. Louis, fly to Albuquerque via Dallas/Ft. Worth.  Sounded easy--but Mother Nature did not cooperate..We sat on the tarmac in DFW for 3 hours; the pilot said there was some "bad weather".  When we finally were flying, we flew through ( Read more... )

I haven't been on line much lately--Bronchitis, dehydration, and 3 days in the hospital will do that to  you. Then--today was tax day.  I always have a problem making myself get  started on taxes, but normally, once I kick myself in the butt and get started things go reasonably smoothly.   This year, however, I just could NOT get going.  And when I ( Read more... )

due to snow.  Well, OK, the DAY exists, but all my scheduled activities are cancelled.  Except for shoveling snow, and walking the dog.Isn't spring wonderful?