Teaser

A couple of days in the 40s and then more snow and cold wind. Then a sunny day. Then more snow. Ugh.
My choir has been working on Palm Sunday and Easter music. For Easter we are singing Cohen's Hallelujah with Easter appropriate lyrics. Catchy tune. Look it up on You Tube. Easter is 3 weeks later this year. That was called to my attention by a news report that said the first quarter business income was down because they had no Easter income. Most people spend money on food for Easter. I remember when my mother took the four boys down to Carpenters Men's Store in Framingham and outfitted them 'from the skin out'. Me too, later.
I would get a dress, socks, a Spring coat, a hat with ribbons or a flower on it and matching gloves. I don't think anyone does that now. We used to sing 'Put on your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, you'll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.(Irving Berlin) Funny...written by a Jewish guy. Just thinking.
I read Philbrick's Mayflower, then Bunker Hill, about the beginning of the American Revolution. So much more in- depth and fascinating that what we read in school.
Where I live now, was called Quaboag Plantation and was divided up into the Brookfields-West, East and Brookfield. They were decimated by King Philip and his hoard(1675) and it took a long time to get repopulated (up to fifteen families) because of little skirmishes and other irritations to the daily life. I imagine one would be on guard all the time for rustlings in the bushes, the fear of being shot or scalped, of having your new house burned to the ground,
your wife and children kidnapped and taken as far as Canada for ransom or slaves.
Presently we are aware of being under attack by Radical Islamists but that's not the same as the pervasiveness and proximity of the frontier threat. I am referring to the French/Indian War, 1688-1697. The Canadian authorities used the Indians to terrorize the English colonists. It was actually a religious war between James II and protestant William of Orange. Both wanted to be King of England. France joined in James' Catholic side and the war was brought over here. We did not see it as a religious war but as a war for France to take the colonies from Britain. And I think the Indians thought they could get their land back. Imagine the steadfast courage to clear land for farming, build a house, feed the family with an hoe in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other. The settlers built a safe house called Fort Gilbert with a stockade fence, not far from where I live. But most of the settlers lived more than 3 miles from the center of town, too far to make use of it.
Now we have safe houses in colleges to protect the snowflakes from the slings and arrows of politically incorrect speech. Wonder how they would survive on the frontier. No I don't wonder. They wouldn't. Whose fault is that? If you are a parent, have you given your children the tools to attempt to survive. Read the Foxfire books, read The Axe. Read a cookbook.
This is probably my last painted purse. They don't sell well so I am doing something wrong.

Dragonfly on silver leather

I have been working on my new digs. Collecting furniture. I am waiting now for the yard sales to begin.

This is mine. Oil on canvas. ignore uncropped sides

My art group at Hitchcock Academy in Brimfield decided to copy a painting by a nice but little known artist of a covered bridge. We showed them all together and it was interesting to see how the painting was portrayed in different media, watercolor and oil.