oddly enough
oddly enough
Just a kangaroo in vineyard during Australian snowstorm
SYDNEY
Kangaroos are a common sight for Australian vineyard owner Bill Shrapnel. But a winter storm last week was the first time he’d seen a ’roo in the snow.
Shrapnel guesses about 30 of the “timid” and “watchful” creatures live on his 77-acre Colmar Estate vineyard in Orange, New South Wales.
But before he peeked out his back window Thursday, he had never seen one of the kangaroos in the snow.
“They just turned up and started to feed. The younger ones boxed with one another as if it was just another day.”
A surprised Shrapnel snapped a photo, which his daughter shared on social media.
Shrapnel, 62, and his wife, Jan, moved to Orange earlier this year from Sydney, which hasn’t seen snow since 1836.
Though the couple had prepared for their first winter, he says, “having it snow three times in a week is not what we expected.”
The winter storm caused traffic accidents, school closures and power outages around the state on Australia’s southeastern coast.
Thredbo, a ski resort in New South Wales, recorded almost 12 inches of snowfall, and highs in Orange and other wintry towns were below 41 degrees Fahrenheit.
Instant opera: 2 days to write, compose, rehearse, perform
NEW ORLEANS
You could call it instant opera: A New Orleans nonprofit will create and perform a pair of opera scenes with only two days to get from page to stage.
New Fangled Opera calls it Opera Presto – in musical terms, “Opera really, really, fast.”
Organization co-founder Chris Burton says two composers and two writers learned Thursday who was working with whom. They got the day to come up with a scene and songs to show it.
Seven singers and two directors got their scores by 9 a.m. Friday. They had rapid-fire rehearsals to learn the songs and devise the staging by performance time: 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the University of New Orleans.
Burton and his wife, Shelley Burton, created New Fangled Opera in 2012.
Police: Man sees robbery video of himself, turns himself in
TRENTON, N.J.
Police say a man shown in a surveillance video trying to rob a New Jersey business later watched the recording online and turned himself in.
Trenton police Lt. Stephen Varn tells NJ.com that Dwaine Whitaker appeared on surveillance video trying to hold up a business at gunpoint Tuesday. Whitaker turned himself in Friday. Authorities say a friend told Whitaker about the video, and he turned himself in after watching it.
Whitaker has been charged with armed robbery and weapons offenses.
Associated Press