Monday, January 24, 2011
Oh wow .. this day is starting out to be like yesterday .. a lazy day! Wonder if it is due to the rain pounding down outside? Whatever .. I struggle to be motivated .. go for a little run or a long walk in the rain.
First I spend precious time looking for a novel that I’d nearly finished reading yesterday .. .it’s a bit like the Family Circle cartoon again .. going round in circles till I finally find the book, beneath another one .. hiding from me.
Hmmmm… looking out the window at the pouring rain, I ponder going out for a long walk … then decide to just relax and finish the book. And so I did. It was another Sharyn McCrumb novel and very well written indeed, with a number of stories all happening at once.
I look outside and see that the rain has temporarily stopped and the sky in the distance is now just painted with a faint shade of grey, the dark clouds have temporarily dispersed.
Turning my attention to the outside I see that a flock of starlings has taken up temporary residence on some of the trees so I quickly go outside and clap and they all fly away.
Leaving a few sparrows and robins to just relax and maintain their vigil of the skies. A few days ago, I was looking at some variegated thrushes and some big fat robins perched throughout one of the trees. They were quite content to be perched on their separate branches, wiping their beaks against the bark. Tiny feathers uplifted by little air currents that swirled by. There was something very comforting about viewing their calm restful presence.
Earlier on, I decided to go outside, check on the birdseed supply & also take out the vegetable cuttings for the compost fin. Rain pelting down … ground fairly muddy, in sections where the grass doesn’t grow. Glad that I distributed the paving stones in those areas.
So very nice to be outside. A bit too chilly for me though .. so I quickly make my rounds, ensuring there is a good enough supply of seeds in the feeder and that the h/bird feeder is still full.
Yesterday I happened to see a little Anna hovering around the h/bird feeder – for 4 tastings! The mixture is still 3:1 for the winter and thus is nice and sweet.
So now I have decisions to make .. and decide to return to my garden room for a while ….
I am starting to feel restless which interprets to me being energized .. enough of this laziness .. time to get back to organizing my paperwork. Become active … although, being lazy for a very few days does feel quite luxurious, I know that I couldn’t live that way. That makes this feel even more decadent! hee hee hee
🙂
I remember turning on the tv, many years ago .. and happened to see Yo Yo Mah discussing coincidences .. can’t remember who he was talking with. But I do remember him saying that when we notice coincidences .. to pay attention to them. Something about how it means that you are on the right track or something. Well, I’ve noticed many coincidences but haven’t really kept track of them!
Anyway, early afternoon, I was finishing reading Sharryn McCrumb’s novel “The Songcatcher” and found interesting bits about someone riding a mule drawn cart up a long rough road. And then read the Afterword, where she described researching her family history and then wrote this novel, which fictionalized the actual people. The dialogue of a fair number of the people who lived in the Appalachian Mountains used a lot of “a’s” in front of the words, like ‘a-hunting’. The story emphasizes songs taught from one generation to another, so they won’t be forgotten. I love they way she instructs someone to pronounce “Appalachian” correctly (say .. apple… ach ..an .. with the emphasis on the “ach” as a short a) Yes, just like the Clogger from the Appalachian area who taught a clogging workshop a few years ago, that’s the way! She also references New Brunswick in the storyline.
Then I finally went down to my garden room, connected my cd/tape player, added the speakers, loaded up on some of my recently acquired cds and pressed “play” for the first cd.
In a few minutes, my feet were tapping, I felt energized to get going to the lively music that was playing. And so I opened up the cd cover and started reading the background of the musicians. Owen “Snake” Chapman’s “Up in Chapman’s Hollow” His words rise up from the printed copy . .about his growing up in Chapman’s Hollow .. the large families with so many children who worked hard …. grew up and travelled away. Too many to keep in contact with. About medicinal herbs, his father was well-trained, but Owen wouldn’t be told, so that treasure trove of valued information was lost. His story mirrored the novel in a large part, so that was interesting. He even spoke of plowing the fields with the mules.
He spoke of fiddlers with ‘long bows’ and how the music was different from the ‘short bows’ . He was quite a popular fiddler and made more money from that than ($6 for an evening) working the fields. (10 cents an hour). And many more interesting items.
Including his love for animals … they had a lot of dogs and cats around the house. He decided that the little animals must have souls just like people do, ao anytime he found a little “critter” lost along the roadside, he’d bring it home. He notes that “I know there are a lot of other animal lovers in the world, so I hope that there might be some way for them to know that, on this album, another real animal lover is playing the fiddle.”
Well … what beautiful words from an amazing man …
Now I love that music more than ever!
OH, and at the end of the song listings, there is a little inset photo of a sign bearing the words “Canada” .. so it might be an older border sign. Couldn’t see any reference to this in the booklet though ..
🙂
Well, tonight was our monthly Coronation Street Group dining out night! 10 of us met at the Princess Mary restaurant, in Esquimalt. We had the usual talkative dinner, catching up on news, and reminscing. It was good to see everyone and as PM reminded us, it was about 20 years since our first meeting….. my, how time does fly! And of course, we all look the same or better since then!
This was so much fun! And as usual .. there were many conversations going on.
Back at home, I was reminiscing about old times and then got to thinking about clogging, about how the music gets my blood to boiling and my feet to moving and of course, I had to check out Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zohPkOF0OiY&feature=autoplay&list=PL16E713215F1ABF77&index=7&playnext=5
and I found this one!
Makes me want to start clogging again! And my fiddle!
sigh .. such fun! 🙂