A Water Toy

I don't know what we'll call this if it is built but for now it's just the Water Toy. This is a model for the children's museum we're involved in here. It's kind of a Rube Goldberg type thing with water coming down from the bottle and going up with an Archimedes screw. Also one of those Chinese things where the water flows in and then drops. There is a Loch Ness Monster you can't really see and kayaks and ducks that will swim down stream. Kids will be able to change the water flow.
Next to it is the puppet theater we are going to build as our donation.

I am re-writing Maggie by Moonlight for a workshop in Vermont in March. It is with Carolyn Coman, Norma Fox Mazer and an editor from Candlewick Press in Boston. Expensive, but limited to 20 people and you get a lot of critiques on your project. I looked at it and Olof agreed I should do it. If I don't get some real encouragement with the writing I won't pursue it the way I have in past years, except for client projects. But I am excited about going to this one. I haven't been into going to these kinds of things, for one thing, they are usually expensive and for the other, I figure if you are going to write then you might as well spend your time writing. But this one looked good.

Working on the children's museum we got to meet Ed Emberley who is a well known children's illustrator. It was funny because I knew I would like him and his wife as soon as we met and we ended up going to our house for lunch and talking about all sorts of possible projects. Ed and Barbara come up here to ski so I hope the skiing improves soon so we can hit the Ellis together.

Weather has been very very mild. That's a good thing for our heating bills and the fact that we haven't had a working furnace, but a bad thing for the skiing. Today the sky is grey and it looks like rain. Rain is predicted for the next few days. I think it's about 40F out and the snow has become soft. It really isn't that great to slouch through it. So we will probably have to hop on the exercise bike. Or, we can put on our back country skis and go up to Jeff the Neighbors, just to get out. But you can make a mess of your ski bottoms if you hit rock.

The furnace did arrive today and Olof will be finishing the duct work. Then it will get hooked up Monday. We haven't needed it so far. Unusual. But we could suddenly get a spell of 15 below with wind and that is when we do need it. The no skiing is making me a lilttle gloomy. I love blue winter skies and white snow. I hope we'll get more of that soon. The few days we have been out have been wonderful.