Quite simply, the best musicians of the past several centuries. It is odd, as time pasts, I go back and examine their body of work, and find it many light years ahead of the rest. Let's face it, no one is in their league.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Red Wasps
Life in Oxford, Mississippi and the battles that rage in my garden.
the wee beast himself
Above you see the Red Wasp, particularly numerous around the McCain Compound. His Latin name Polistes carolina. He has a wonderful skill which I have observed many times this summer. He will kill and eat a tomato worm.
the crimminal, infamous, Tomato worm
It is like this you see, anyone or thing that will kill and eat a Tomato Worm is OK in my book. Several tomato worms can ruin a garden in a matter of days, almost as bad a deer.
Tomato worms are huge evil beast and how the red wasp can consume one and then fly off is one of God's great mysteries, yet they do it as I've seen the lads at work.
I'd just like to say well done to them all.
the wee beast himself
Above you see the Red Wasp, particularly numerous around the McCain Compound. His Latin name Polistes carolina. He has a wonderful skill which I have observed many times this summer. He will kill and eat a tomato worm.
the crimminal, infamous, Tomato worm
It is like this you see, anyone or thing that will kill and eat a Tomato Worm is OK in my book. Several tomato worms can ruin a garden in a matter of days, almost as bad a deer.
Tomato worms are huge evil beast and how the red wasp can consume one and then fly off is one of God's great mysteries, yet they do it as I've seen the lads at work.
I'd just like to say well done to them all.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Murrough O'Kane
Here something for you lads and lassies. The young man on the flute is Murrough O'Kane, one of the better trad musicians in the world, also a great fellow. His dad is the very famous Seamus O'Kane, bodhrán maker and player of legend status. Murrough played a venue with my son Donovan and myself, when we did a music tour of Ireland in the autumn of 2004. He sat in with us when we played Sandino's in Derry city and we all had a great time. This is the real stuff, enjoy...
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Peregrine Falcon
Every day I see at least two Peregrine falcons circling my house. They are works of art, one of the Creators finer pieces. Lethal mind you; they are machines of death. You should see the squirrels and song birds make themselves scarce when the Peregrines patrol. This morning on my way into Oxford town for supplies I saw one dead in the road. That's bad. As well as being beautiful, they are also very useful to Man. (I still think that sort of relationship good). They kill a lot of the things that plague farm and yard alike.
There seems to be a good supply of Peregrines around Oxford, still I hope the one I saw in the road was not one of two I often see over my house. It was only about a mile from my house where I saw the unfortunate bird.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Indigo Buntings
Well, today, as I was sitting in my backyard, I saw a Indigo Bunting. A lovely, beautiful little bird, that we are graced with every summer. It is electric blue, much more blue than a 'blue bird'. The humming birds are doing their annual wars. Anyone that feeds them knows of what I speak. The amazing aerial combat they launch into at this stage in summer. I've had them pass not more than inches from my head going a ba-zillion miles per hour.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Manx Cats
This is Piscín, one of my two Manx cats. He found me. He was a runaway from a house were His Highness was not appreciated. To add insult, the previous owner had named him, a Manx, Pancho. Now I tell you, that is not a proper name for a Manx. Ideally the name should be in Gaelic of course. The breed comes from the Isle of Man, a island between Ireland and northern England, and one of the three Gaelic homelands. I've been there, lovely place. They rule themselves, are part of the Crown, but not part of the UK, so an odd status, like the Channel Island. It is a magical place, full of beautiful glens, moors, mountains, and lovely people, and Manx Cats.
Manx cats are odd fellows, their behaviour almost dog like. The better ones will fetch things for you, will carry things around in their mouth, etc., they love to go on walks with their owners, especially in the woods. The are keen vermin catches, un-matched. Mine take a steady toll on the vole and mouse population around my house. The other day Piscín killed a bona fide rat. Not a cotton rat, but a full blown nasty bugger of a rat. He killed it with one vicious bite to the back of its neck... clean, neat, professional.
Piscín is also adept at killing snakes. This is a vendetta, when he was younger he was bitten by a cotton mouth moccasin. His wee paw blew up to the size of a good summer sausage, he came close to death, but survived. Since that experience he presents me with four or five very dead poisonous snakes each year. What a cat.
Manx cats are odd fellows, their behaviour almost dog like. The better ones will fetch things for you, will carry things around in their mouth, etc., they love to go on walks with their owners, especially in the woods. The are keen vermin catches, un-matched. Mine take a steady toll on the vole and mouse population around my house. The other day Piscín killed a bona fide rat. Not a cotton rat, but a full blown nasty bugger of a rat. He killed it with one vicious bite to the back of its neck... clean, neat, professional.
Piscín is also adept at killing snakes. This is a vendetta, when he was younger he was bitten by a cotton mouth moccasin. His wee paw blew up to the size of a good summer sausage, he came close to death, but survived. Since that experience he presents me with four or five very dead poisonous snakes each year. What a cat.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Wine With Grits
Last night I had grits with my supper. Now, we are grits eaters in this house, my two sons, wife, myself, all enjoy the bejeepers out of them. You can tell you are a very bona fide Southern family when you discuss which wine to have with grits. BTW... we chose a young, Spanish, red to go with the meal. They whole supper was comprised of grits, Southern style link sausage, tomatoes, and onions. The tomatoes homegrown, organic even; you slice them and serve with sliced raw sweet onions, absolutely lovely.
We often eat very traditional meals and enjoy grits in a variety of ways. The boys like them with a nice load of extra sharp, white Cheddar cheese in them. This done in addition to the butter already in them. I've had people over at my house to eat that tell me that I served them their first ever grits. I find that shocking myself, one wonders about the deplorable state of culture in this post modern consumer age, when you can find people born in the South that have never eaten grits.
They are the perfect accompaniment for any meal, breakfast, dinner, or supper. Easy to prepare, just ignore the directions on the package, those are always wrong. Add more water than suggested and cook for at least 30 minutes and let them rest abit, and you will have them done correctly. Serve them with cheese, a littler cream cheese and sharp cheddar, which you put in after they cook, allow that to melt, then serve. Always put several dashes of Louisiana hot sauce in the grits. You will become a grits eater in no time.
We often eat very traditional meals and enjoy grits in a variety of ways. The boys like them with a nice load of extra sharp, white Cheddar cheese in them. This done in addition to the butter already in them. I've had people over at my house to eat that tell me that I served them their first ever grits. I find that shocking myself, one wonders about the deplorable state of culture in this post modern consumer age, when you can find people born in the South that have never eaten grits.
They are the perfect accompaniment for any meal, breakfast, dinner, or supper. Easy to prepare, just ignore the directions on the package, those are always wrong. Add more water than suggested and cook for at least 30 minutes and let them rest abit, and you will have them done correctly. Serve them with cheese, a littler cream cheese and sharp cheddar, which you put in after they cook, allow that to melt, then serve. Always put several dashes of Louisiana hot sauce in the grits. You will become a grits eater in no time.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Mississippians speaking Gaelic
Mississippians speaking Gaelic…
… when pigs fly, you say. You don’t normally associate Mississippi with the Irish speaking world. I mean the words Mississippi and Gaeilge do not often appear in the same sentence. But history is full of odd misconceptions, like horns and wings on Viking helmets (they had none). Early Mississippi was settled by an assortment of mixed Celts, Irish, Hebrideans, west Highlanders, Scots-Irish, etc., and Gaelic was a language heard often in Mississippi in antebellum days.
In the mid 1840s John Claiborne, a prominent Mississippi attorney and member of the US Congress, wrote in his journal, ‘there is yet living in Greene (County) some of the original immigrants who speak nothing but the Gallic.’ By this he meant the Gaelic language. There was even a need for Gaelic speaking post masters in Mississippi in those days. The Greene County comment was of great interest to me personally, as the first McCains to enter Mississippi were in this community described by John Claiborne.
It is interesting to see Gaelic in use in Mississippi into the 1840s and 1850s. My own grandfather, who was born in 1890, used certain Gaelic works in his speech: brogan (bróga) for shoe, or slew (slua) to mean a lot of something. I found a humorous comment about language made by an English Crown official that visited the Marsh Creek Settlement in the Pennsylvania Colony, where the McCains were living in the 1740s. The Crown official complained that these settlers spoke ‘bad English and bad Irish.’ That was my immigrant, Hugh McKean, he was speaking about and it was his son, Hance Hamilton McCain, who brought my
wing on the family into Mississippi.
Now you would think that by the 21st Century we Mississippi McCains would have lost our Gaelic, wouldn’t you? Not so. Last fall you would have heard a curious conversation in Oxford, Mississippi, from two men heading into the Ajax Pub. My cousin, Rankin Sherling, a native Greenwood, his mother a McCain, and I met at the Pub to have a visit. Rankin is working on his Phd in Irish history at Queens University, Ontario, Canada and was just back from Donegal, where he had been studying Ulster Irish. My Irish is fair to middlin’ these days, and despite my caigheán oifigiúil and his bona fide Ulster dialect, we managed to greet and speak in Irish to each other there in the middle of Oxford,Mississippi. So pigs do fly.
… when pigs fly, you say. You don’t normally associate Mississippi with the Irish speaking world. I mean the words Mississippi and Gaeilge do not often appear in the same sentence. But history is full of odd misconceptions, like horns and wings on Viking helmets (they had none). Early Mississippi was settled by an assortment of mixed Celts, Irish, Hebrideans, west Highlanders, Scots-Irish, etc., and Gaelic was a language heard often in Mississippi in antebellum days.
In the mid 1840s John Claiborne, a prominent Mississippi attorney and member of the US Congress, wrote in his journal, ‘there is yet living in Greene (County) some of the original immigrants who speak nothing but the Gallic.’ By this he meant the Gaelic language. There was even a need for Gaelic speaking post masters in Mississippi in those days. The Greene County comment was of great interest to me personally, as the first McCains to enter Mississippi were in this community described by John Claiborne.
It is interesting to see Gaelic in use in Mississippi into the 1840s and 1850s. My own grandfather, who was born in 1890, used certain Gaelic works in his speech: brogan (bróga) for shoe, or slew (slua) to mean a lot of something. I found a humorous comment about language made by an English Crown official that visited the Marsh Creek Settlement in the Pennsylvania Colony, where the McCains were living in the 1740s. The Crown official complained that these settlers spoke ‘bad English and bad Irish.’ That was my immigrant, Hugh McKean, he was speaking about and it was his son, Hance Hamilton McCain, who brought my
wing on the family into Mississippi.
Now you would think that by the 21st Century we Mississippi McCains would have lost our Gaelic, wouldn’t you? Not so. Last fall you would have heard a curious conversation in Oxford, Mississippi, from two men heading into the Ajax Pub. My cousin, Rankin Sherling, a native Greenwood, his mother a McCain, and I met at the Pub to have a visit. Rankin is working on his Phd in Irish history at Queens University, Ontario, Canada and was just back from Donegal, where he had been studying Ulster Irish. My Irish is fair to middlin’ these days, and despite my caigheán oifigiúil and his bona fide Ulster dialect, we managed to greet and speak in Irish to each other there in the middle of Oxford,Mississippi. So pigs do fly.
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