19 JAN 26

It's another squirrel party in the attic early that morning... and a surprising amount of songbirds for an hour that is only fourteen degrees with the sun fully up...

With Oxbear off work all week and it being a holiday anyway... the kids are free for fun... and fun for Patience includes co-babysitting her two year-old cousin twenty minutes east...

...while my boys are very busy with things like Yali trying to feed his calculator to the dog... and making his snake dance to jazz on the dinner table...

Afternoon is almost as cold as the windchill cranks as high as about eleven...

Oxbear and Patience return from shopping and babysitting as Yali and Patience form an assembly line with me to stock groceries into the fridge and pantry while Patience details all of her babysitting adventures from the morning...

Awhile later Puck comes out to annoy his sister which is always a favorite pastime... they start arguing about push-ups and muscle endurance for awhile until this somehow turns theological and arguments ensue in the living room for the next hour or so... almost everyone in the family participating...

And things eventually roll over into bowls of chili mac on a cold cold night of clean stars and stillness...