Christmas and warm memories

A few days of storms with tree-felling winds were followed by freezing cold clear weather, but so far there has not been any measurable snow.  Christmas Day was mostly dreary and drizzly. I captured a Christmas Black-capped Chickadee through the window, perched in the small White Pine:

As if to lessen the disappointment of a such a gray Christmas, the few days of sunshine did deliver a brief  flash of color when three Golden-crowned Kinglets appeared along the back fence. They were very active and it was difficult to get them in the view-finder. These were the best of a couple of dozen near misses, all from a single male:

A Song Sparrow scurried in the shadows amid the weeds:

A White-throated Sparrow was easier to capture when it chose to perch on a boulder:

Cazador, the family standard poodle, is very sensitive to the cold and really enjoys his Christmas sweater:

Earlier, Cazador greeted our granddaughter when she returned from college for her Christmas break:

On December 27, dense fog crept up from the Connecticut River Valley:

This week's reflection harks back to a Great Blue Heron photographed in Florida in August, 2015:

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MaryLou and I just celebrated a couple of anniversaries. Our first date was 70 years ago, on December 27, 1953, a semi-formal dinner dance at the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. My sister Ellen and MaryLou's best friend, Betty Jane, in cooperation with my friend and classmate, who happened to be MaryLou's brother Larry, conspired to "set me up" with her. 

As Part of the plot, Ellen would be Larry's date and Betty Jane would go with Tommy, another of our long-time friends. The six of us fit comfortably into Tommy's two-tone cream over cranberry-red 1952 Plymouth Cranbrook. Three could sit in the front seat in those days before center consoles.  

We all dated others after this, but whenever I saw MaryLou with someone else I knew they were not the right match for her. We married in 1960 when I was a medical student working part time as a lab technician and supermarket cashier and she had a steady job. 

In this photo, MaryLou and I are seated to the right. Sadly, all of the other four have passed away.

When I was drafted out of private family practice in 1966 we had three children. I was commissioned in the US Public Health Service and we moved about the country. Our children consider Dallas, Texas to be  their "home town." This conjured up the memory of another anniversary, I chaired the Dallas Military Ball in December, 1992:

This week's header: Foggy morning, December 27, 2023: 

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Linking to:

Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

Garden Affair

All Seasons

Image-in-ing

Nature Notes

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World
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Please visit the links to all these posts to see some excellent photos on display
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