I managed to charge up the solar batteries on the holiday star (there's always a question if they system will work after 48 weeks in storage) over the weekend, which was relatively sunny.
I had fun putting it up. I was on the roof when a neighbor came out to his truck, so I hailed him. He wasn't sure where my voice was coming from. I did shout, "I'm up here!" but I guess he didn't hear me clearly, because he looked around, pulled out his cell phone, and then checked it. I know it was wicked, but I did have to laugh a little (behind my hands, while muttering "Oh, I shouldn't laugh..."). A minute later, I successfully hailed his wife.
While I was wiring the star in place, it struck me that the pitch of the northern side of our roof is nearly the angle of the the winter sun in its meridian.
Then we all trundled off to the local-ish U-cut tree farm and murdered a small tree to decorate for the holidays. The weather was sunny and bright, and the temperature was in the 50's, which was a pleasant change from the times we've been slogging through acres of firs, pines, and spruce in the middle of a drizzle that threatened to turn into a snow storm.
The new twist was that this was the first time we've transported a tree with the car Mark commutes to work with, and the top rack was so aerodynamically designed that there were no real corners to anchor the tree to. It took a little trial-and-error -- when we stopped to check the ropes in a parking lot about two miles away from the farm, I was not happy about how much slack was in the rope -- but we got the tree home in one piece without fresh lumber flying into a highway lane.
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