Yabbut I didn't announce to the world what I had done. You did that first, fern hill. You dared the gods.
So it's still your fault.
PS: I don't know whether you can edit your posts, fern hill, but I can. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
I could make you say some funny stuff. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Of course, audra would fire me if I did that, but I could.
quote:
Originally posted by Timebandit:
[b]
The back yard is a total mudhole, and Ms B is going around looking like she's rolled in a puddle. I swear, if there's dirt anywhere in her vicinity, the kid sits in it![/b]
Mr. Z fell in a mud puddle twice over the weekend. Somehow, the mud kind of pales in comparison to the crying...
Today though, everything is white again ( [img]mad.gif" border="0[/img] to skdadl and fern hill.) [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
I caught two juncos with my bare hands this morning in the shed - I think they were on a dare. Beautiful lil' things - especially when they fly away as I throw them into the air.
quote:
Originally posted by brebis noire:
[b]
I caught two juncos with my bare hands this morning in the shed - I think they were on a dare. Beautiful lil' things - especially when they fly away as I throw them into the air.[/b]
On a dare? Or maybe it's the start of something really big in your life. You might enjoy renting Hitchcock's "The Birds" at the video store for a relaxing evening of anticipation . . .
Somehow, juncos just don't inspire that kind of fear. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
brebis, you sent me to the dictionary. I'd never heard of a junco. (Great Scrabble word.) What do they look like?
And sorry for the snow. I still maintain that it's skdadl's fault . . .mostly.
If I had the technical ability or the time to figure it out, I'd post a photo.
[url=http://www.treknature.com/gallery/North_America/United_States/photo46990..., here's a linky-link.[/url]
They're cute little birds and I only see them in the spring and fall - apparently they like the extremes of north and south, so they're only tourists.
ETA: Heph, you beat me to it, but yours doesn't look like the one I held this morning - maybe it's a western variety?
[ 05 April 2006: Message edited by: brebis noire ]
brebis and Heph, thanks. (I love babble.)
Speaking of extreme ranges, the snow bunting is in its southern range just south of Montreal during the winter.
[ 07 April 2006: Message edited by: goyanamasu ]
juncos are one of my favorite little birds. we used to call them "executioner birds" on account of their dark hoods and chubby stature. this was inspired more in the monty python vein rather than hitchcock, since they are pretty cute little buggers.
alas, i have not seen one in toronto yet, despite living just a few blocks north of the leslie spit, a huge bird sanctuary. i am anticipating orioles soon in all thier orange glory!
My image won't load, sorry. Brebis, you caught two with white bellies, right?
Speaking of extreme ranges, the snow bunting is in its southern range just south of Montreal during the winter.
The classic Chaucer...if you read this out loud and you aren't sounding like the Swedish Chef, you're doing it wrong. [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]
quote:
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
Not actually Chaucer, but a nifty parody:
quote:
Aprille is of al the months moste dyr,
For she engendereth anewe desyr
For fickel foweles not worth the winnynge
And eek the pregnant shayme of former sinnynge.
Aprille too sends shoures pissynge doune
On them that gethere lilacks all too soune;
And sokes from hed to foote the clevere Dicke
That doth too soune assaie to pick-a-nick
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Och, aye, Doug, there are folk here longen to goon on pilgrimages. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
The best reader of Chaucer I ever heard was a Cape Bretoner, who didn't have to stretch too far. I suspect Newfoundlanders would do even better.
quote:
Originally posted by skdadl:
[b]The best reader of Chaucer I ever heard was a Cape Bretoner, who didn't have to stretch too far. I suspect Newfoundlanders would do even better.[/b]
My Olde Englishe TA was from Alabama, and gosh, he could stretch out those Chauserian prases some pretty! Y'alle!
Makwa, y'evah huhhd Matthew Ahh-nold in No'th Ca'olingian?
It has the advantage of removing all the melodrama.
Rйmy BELLEAU (1528-1577)
(Recueil : La Bergerie)
(Il йtait d'un climat plus clйment que le nфtre...) [img]frown.gif" border="0[/img]
Avril
Avril, l'honneur et des bois
Et des mois,
Avril, la douce esperance
Des fruits qui soubs le coton
Du bouton
Nourrissent leur jeune enfance ;
Avril, l'honneur des prez verds,
Jaune, pers,
Qui d'une humeur bigarrйe
Emaillent de mille fleurs
De couleurs
Leur parure diaprйe ;
Avril, l'honneur des souspirs
Des zephyrs,
Qui, soubs le vent de leur aelle,
Dressent encore es forests
Des doux rets
Pour ravir Flore la belle ;
Avril, c'est ta douce main
Qui du sein
De la nature desserre
Une moisson de senteurs
Et de fleurs,
Embasmant l'aer et la terre.
Avril, l'honneur verdissant,
Florissant
Sur les tresses blondelettes
De ma dame, et de son sein
Tousjours plein
De mille et mille fleurettes ;
Avril, la grace et le ris
De Cypris,
Le flair et la douce haleine ;
Avril, le parfum des dieux
Qui des cieux
Sentent l'odeur de la plaine.
C'est toy courtois et gentil
Qui d'exil
Retire ces passageres,
Ces arondelles qui vont
Et qui sont
Du printemps les messageres.
L'aubespine et l'aiglantin,
Et le thin,
L'oeillet, le lis et les roses,
En ceste belle saison,
A foison,
Monstrent leurs robes йcloses.
Le gentil rossignolet,
Doucelet,
Decoupe dessoubs l'ombrage
Mille fredons babillars,
Fretillars
Au doux chant de son ramage.
C'est а ton heureux retour
Que l'amour
Souffle а doucettes haleines
Un feu croupi et couvert
Que l'hyver
Receloit dedans nos veines.
Tu vois en ce temps nouveau
L'essaim beau
De ces pillardes avettes
Volleter de fleur en fleur
Pour l'odeur
Qu'ils mussent en leurs cuissettes.
May vantera ses fraischeurs,
Ses fruicts meurs
Et sa feconde rosйe,
La manne et le sucre doux,
Le miel roux,
Dont sa grace est arrosйe.
Mais moy je donne ma voix
A ce mois,
Qui prend le surnom de celle
Qui de l'escumeuse mer
Veit germer
Sa naissance maternelle.
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[ 06 April 2006: Message edited by: goyanamasu ]
[url=http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/nsbirds/bns0382.htm] Here's [/url] the Dark-eyed Junco that's been at our feeder for the last couple of weeks. (Well, maybe not this exact one -- and there have been several!)
"Soubs" is simply "sous" (defined and translated in a dictionary of the day):[url=http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/search/876r.html]Soubs[/url]
And yes, the poetry of the era could be VERY explicit.
[ 05 April 2006: Message edited by: lagatta ]
deleted
[ 06 April 2006: Message edited by: goyanamasu ]
Now that it's May, in this best-ever-year for tulips, we magically have several clumps of the most beautiful tulips in our garden, that we didn't have the previous six springs. We bought this house six and a half years ago, from the estate of a woman who spent 76 years working on the garden, and it wasn't us who planted these beauties, it was Emma O'Neil. Thanks again, Emma.
Yes, I said 76 years. Frederick Robert O'Neill, and his wife Emma Lucile O'Neill, then aged 23, bought this house in 1923. They owned it until Fred died in 1969. Emma then owned it until she died in 1999, 76 years after she and Fred bought the house. (Even for Port Hope, that's a record.)
The most wonderful thing about this house, though, isn't the garden. It's the quiet. Built in 1895 (unlike the house we had for the previous 27 years, which was built in 1854), it had unsurpassed soundproofing. Banging dishes in the kitchen doesn't disturb the sleepers upstairs. The phone ringing in the front office is inaudible in the living room. We've never been in a quieter house.
Emma wasn't the first remarkable woman in this house. It was built by a woman, which was dammed unusual in 1895.
On April 5 1875, at Port Hope were married Richard Boundy, a 26-year-old railroad employee born June 15 1848, a widower with an 8-year-old daughter, and 19-year-old Elizabeth Welch born June 15 1855, with a daughter born in 1873. He was a Methodist born in England. She was born in Ontario to parents of Irish ancestry, Bible Christians. In 1889 Richard and Elizabeth had a son of their own.
In 1893 Elizabeth Boundy, wife of Richard Boundy, Railway Conductor, bought this lot. She built our house in 1895, with no building mortgage. By 1901 they had moved to Toronto, and in 1902 she sold it.
[ 14 May 2006: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]
It's going to snow for the rest of the week. Phew! I was worried for a moment.
