Ground hog ,found fog. New snow and blue toes. Find and dandy for Valentine candy. Snow Spittin’, if you’re mitten-smitten, you’ll be frost bitten! By jing-y feels spring-y!
I would certainly like to take credit for the above quote but I can’t. It is extracted from the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
About the weather. It finally happened. Hell froze over. The city of Hell, Michigan froze over a couple of days ago. Temperatures as low as -45 degrees has turned the midwest into gigantic cold storage facility of businesses, homes, cars, and city streets and highways. And please no remarks about global warming. In a few months these same cities will be sweltering under an unsympathetic sun roasting its citizens under temperatures that just keep on climbing,
I was thinking about that old question we all ask ourselves at one time or another and realized there really was no way of getting an answer. I decided to do something about it. I threw caution to the wind got on line to the Amazon order desk and did it. I ordered a chicken and an egg…….
A belated 71st birthday to my dear friend Rick who I have known now for 69 3/4 years. I look at his thinning gray hair, leathery lined face, perhaps a small stoop in his walk and wonder what happened to the tall,lanky, blond haired boy that was my best friend back in third grade. I then looked in the mirror and saw the ravages of age upon my own gnarled old body and realized what 70 years of living does to you. But you know, it sure beats the alternative.
Just this past Sunday we celebrated three of our grandchildren’s birthdays while celebrating quietly oldest daughters birthday and Sheila’s birthday at the same time. If you have your abacus handy that is a total of five birthdays from December 17- to January 30. I personally favor the cult that says birthdays should be from May to September to avoid the Christmas rush. To go a step further I joined the flat earth society’s pet program advocating more Leap Year birthdays.
Megan Lynch Chowning: I am not one to heap praise on one of my own but I will let our own Brenda Hough, “Brenda and the Reviews” (This month’s Bluegrass Breakdown) do it for a very close relative of mine, niece Megan.
Brenda reviews Megan’s newest CD ,“ Gathers No Moss” in this months Breakdown and here is just a taste of what Brenda wrote…
“California native Megan Lynch has won National Fiddle Championships, performed with bluegrass and country western stars, recorded many albums, and has now started a Nashville Acoustic Camp at her Nashville home to teach and coach budding musicians from around the world. As her album title suggests, she’s not gathering moss in her life’s journey of accomplishments, but this album of fiddle favorites and requests gives pause to focus on her incredible solo fiddle playing.”
“Bluegrass fiddle players are often part of instrumental ensembles so it’s not often that an artist will step out and just play songs. The solo spotlight can be harsh, but Megan’s skill and tone give wondrous depth to the songs. Her detailed commentary gives a history of each song, and for fiddlers looking for contest songs, there are several possibilities.”
“Megan promises more volumes of fiddle tune requests, so stay tuned!”
Thank you Brenda for an excellent review.
Megan’s mother, Maria, will be making her third straight trip to Pico in the Azores this summer. She will be accompanied by my cousin ‘s two young adult daughters to that wonderful island. Pico certainly isn’t Manhattan or Crete but Barry Hatton in The Portuguese” a Modern History describes a bit of what Pico and the other islands are like…”The islands are exposed. scarily so, to the elements, but bear bucolic peacefulness. The lush expansive pastures marked off with ancient dry -stone walls of black lava flecked with whitewashed houses and dairy cows, are a dazzling green reminiscent of Ireland. Volcanic craters are padded with bright flowers and ferns and conceal blue lagoons. Banks of hydrangeas line narrow lanes, and vehicles are scarce. There is a sense of the primitive, of otherness, in the islands that American writer John Updike picked up on in his 1964 poem, “AZORES:” “Great green ships/themselves, they rise/at anchor forever:/beneath the tide/huge roots of lave/hold them fast/in mid-Atlantic/to the past.”.
Until March 1…… Read a book, hug a child, pet a dog, stroke a cat, eat a bar of chocolate, and IKIRU..