- It’s officially allergy season here in Indiucky. By that, I mean that every darned tree and bush Irish Woman has planted in our yard is trying to kill me with its reproductive cycle.
- On a side note, you know you waited too late to take a Benadryl before bedtime when you wake up the next morning and have trouble working the coffee maker and toothbrush.
- Boo has begun doing extra chores to make money. So far, he has learned how to do a load of laundry with supervision, clear the table, bring empty trash bins back from the curb, and pick up branches and sticks that have fallen out of our maple.
- He is working to save enough money to buy one of those horridly expensive Lego sets.
- I have suppressed my urge to make up a tax statement and keep a portion of his wages to support the pets.
- I think I’ll leave that until he’s 12 or so.
- Irish Woman is aghast over the fact that our 9 year old is almost as tall as she is, wears the same shoe size as she does, and is giving all of the early signs of a growth spurt.
- I, on the other hand, am just looking at this as par for the course. I shot up four to six inches between 2nd and 3rd grades.
- Girlie Bear was issued a kevlar helmet in ROTC this week. Apparently they didn’t have any that are big enough for her. She thanked me for giving her a bucket head. I called her a long-haired hippie and told her to get a hair cut and make room in the helmet.
- That’s me, just a great big cuddly bear of a parent.
- I’m taking a week off to spend spring break with Boo. We have the usual fun father and son things planned:
- Fishing
- Archery
- Shooting the BB gun
- Walks
- Yard work
- Cleaning out the basement
- Preparing garden beds
- Washing the dogs
- Laundry
- Boo has begun learning how to safely use a pocketknife at Scouts. He asked for a knife for his birthday.
- Part of me wants to get him a really nice Case knife or something in that vein so that he will always have something useful to remember his dear old dad.
- The rest of me is a realist that knows that a young boy is likely to trade, lose, or destroy anything I get him, so he’s probably going to get a chunk of scrap iron that I’ve sharpened against a rock until he grows a bit more responsibility.
- I have been officially banned from giving him one of my more…. sizable knives. Something about blade length and not scaring the other children.
- Last weekend we re-did three of Irish Woman’s strawberry beds. This entailed removing the weeds and crabgrass, saving the strawberry plants, and adding rocks and soil to replace that which has eroded away in the rains.
- My main activities added up to purchasing, transporting, and depositing about 800 pounds of topsoil, about 100 pounds of peat moss, and about 500 pounds of large rocks to better shore up the bottom of the beds.
- Oh, my aching back and pocketbook.
- I am advised that these will be the best strawberries I’ve ever had, which is good, because at this point it would have been cheaper and easier to fly Irish Woman to Watsonville so that she could pick as many strawberries as she wants.
Musings
Posted by daddybear71 on April 1, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/01/musings-232/
A Year of Poetry – Day 343
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,—only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Song of a Second April
Posted by daddybear71 on April 1, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/01/a-year-of-poetry-day-343/
Today’s Earworm
This one goes out to the trucker who is alleged to have driven from Seattle to Massachusetts with the aid of a rather exotic cocktail to keep himself awake.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 31, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/31/todays-earworm-719/
A Year of Poetry – Day 342
The vintage, friends, is over,
And here sweet wine makes, once again,
Sad eyes and hearts recover,
Puts fire in every vein,
Drowns dull care
Everywhere
And summons hope out of despair.
To whom with acclamation
And song shall we our first toast give?
God save our land and nation
And all Slovenes where’er they live,
Who own the same
Blood and name,
And who one glorious Mother claim.
Let thunder out of heaven
Strike down and smite our wanton foe!
Now, as it once had thriven,
May our dear realm in freedom grow.
Let fall the last
Chains of the past
Which bind us still and hold us fast!
Let peace, glad conciliation,
Come back to us throughout the land!
Towards their destination
Let Slavs henceforth go hand-in-hand!
Thus again
Will honour reign
To justice pledged in our domain.
To you, our pride past measure,
Our girls! Your beauty, charm and grace!
here surely is no treasure
To equal maidens of such race.
Sons you’ll bear,
Who will dare
Defy our foe no matter where.
Our hope now, our to-morrow –
Our youth – we toast and toast with joy.
No poisonous blight or sorrow
Your love of homeland shall destroy.
With us indeed
You’re called to heed
Its summons in this hour of need.
God’s blessing on all nations,
Who long and work for that bright day,
When o’er earth’s habitations
No war, no strife shall hold its sway;
Who long to see
That all men free
No more shall foes, but neighbours be.
At last to our reunion –
To us the toast! Let it resound,
Since in this gay communion
By thoughts of brotherhood we’re bound.
May joyful cheer
Ne’er disappear
From all good hearts now gathered here.
–France Preseren, A Toast
Posted by daddybear71 on March 31, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/31/a-year-of-poetry-day-342/
A Year of Poetry – Day 341
Good and great God, can I not think of thee
But it must straight my melancholy be?
Is it interpreted in me disease
That, laden with my sins, I seek for ease?
Oh be thou witness, that the reins dost know
And hearts of all, if I be sad for show,
And judge me after; if I dare pretend
To ought but grace or aim at other end.
As thou art all, so be thou all to me,
First, midst, and last, converted one, and three;
My faith, my hope, my love; and in this state
My judge, my witness, and my advocate.
Where have I been this while exil’d from thee?
And whither rap’d, now thou but stoop’st to me?
Dwell, dwell here still. O, being everywhere,
How can I doubt to find thee ever here?
I know my state, both full of shame and scorn,
Conceiv’d in sin, and unto labour borne,
Standing with fear, and must with horror fall,
And destin’d unto judgment, after all.
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground
Upon my flesh t’ inflict another wound.
Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death
With holy Paul, lest it be thought the breath
Of discontent; or that these prayers be
For weariness of life, not love of thee.
— Ben Jonson, To Heaven
Posted by daddybear71 on March 30, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/30/a-year-of-poetry-day-341/
Today’s Earworm
For some reason, this was running through my head all last night. No idea why.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 29, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/29/todays-earworm-718/
A Year of Poetry – Day 340
Rain has fallen all the day.
O come among the laden trees:
The leaves lie thick upon the way
Of memories.
Staying a little by the way
Of memories shall we depart.
Come, my beloved, where I may
Speak to your heart.
— James Joyce, Rain Has Fallen All The Day
Posted by daddybear71 on March 29, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/29/a-year-of-poetry-day-340/
New Book From Peter Grant
Peter Grant, proprietor of the Bayou Renaissance Man blog, has brought out the second book in his Ames Archives western series, titled Rocky Mountain Retribution. The new book is the sequel to last year’s Brings the Lightning, and it is an excellent continuation of the story.
In the post-Civil War West, the railroads are expanding, the big money men are moving in, and the politicians they are buying make it difficult for a man to stand alone on his own. So, Walt Ames moves his wife, his home and his business from Denver to Pueblo. The railroads are bringing new opportunities to Colorado Territory, and he’s going to take full advantage of them.
Rocky Mountain Retribution is an excellent yarn that takes Walter Ames all over the American west, through all kinds of conditions, and follows his fight against a new enemy. It’s a page turner, so don’t be surprised if you don’t finish it in one sitting. If you haven’t read Brings the Lightning yet, it will definitely bring the second book into focus, but this one could also be enjoyable as a stand-alone novel.
If you like Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey, you’ll enjoy these. Grant is one of the best story tellers I know, and I’ve enjoyed his westerns more than anything else he’s written. I definitely recommend Rocky Mountain Retribution to anyone who enjoys adventure, honor, and grit.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 28, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/28/new-book-from-peter-grant/
A Year of Poetry – Day 339
Some days my thoughts are just cocoons- all cold, and dull and blind,
They hang from dripping branches in the grey woods of my mind;
And other days they drift and shine – such free and flying things!
I find the gold-dust in my hair, left by their brushing wings.
— Karle Baker Wilson, Days
Posted by daddybear71 on March 28, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/28/a-year-of-poetry-day-336/
100 Years On – Abdication
Russia began 1917 taking staggering steps toward oblivion. Millions of men had been taken out of her economy to fight against the Germans and Austrians. Russia’s military had traded hundreds of thousands of dead men for little gain. Her industrial complex, which had been barely out of its infancy when the war began, creaked along to provide the bare minimums to the military, and provided little to the Russian people.
Leadership in Saint Petersburg had spent the previous few years contributing to the misery of the people it was charged to lead and protect. The cost of food and other necessities of life quickly rose four-fold or more. Hunger, never a stranger in the life of the Russian peasant, became a common problem throughout the country.
The situation exploded with food riots in Saint Petersburg in February, 1917. Units which were sent in to quell the disturbances, , most of them almost bereft of experienced soldiers, tended to either overreact to the mobs and commit atrocities against them, or they joined in alongside the rioters. Against this backdrop, Tsar Nicholas tried to return to the capitol to provide leadership and try to head off anarchy.
He never made it. His train was stopped south of Saint Petersburg, and the demands of the new Provisional Government, including his abdication, were given to him. Seeing no alternative, the Tsar bowed to the inevitable.
On March 15, 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne his family had occupied for 300 years. He also abdicated for his son, the Tsarevich Alexei, due to the boy’s failing health. He named his brother, Michael, as the new leader of Russia, but Michael refused to take the throne unless his ascension was approved by the Russian people.
Nicholas Romanov and his family went into internal exile and were murdered by Communist forces during the ensuing Russian Civil War.
The Provisional Government was quickly recognized by most major nations, and began the work to form a truly representative government in a country that had no history of such things to support it. It continued to fight the war against Austria and Germany, leaving a lot of the problems that led to its formation in place. This created an opening for the Communists to stage their own revolution later that year.
Posted by daddybear71 on March 27, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/03/27/100-years-on-abdication/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 