Well, here it is at last, the final day of March, 2019 has arrived. The first thing I saw when I looked out the window early this morning, was snow. Not a lot of snow, but enough to cover every surface with a blanket of white. Later in the morning, it was snowing again, but by this time the early covering had already melted in the rain. It has been above freezing since yesterday, all night long, and into today. March is leaving, and reminding me that it has winter-like potency right to the very end.
March was certainly windy. The roar of moving air seemed almost constant through March, and I commented to Attila, on several occasions, that some sort of wind mill would do well here in the month of March.
In primary school the we learned this rhyme, accompanied by pictures of gusty winds blowing children’s clothing about in March, and children with umbrellas in April:
MARCH winds and April showers
Bring forth May flowers.
In 1610 this concept was recorded as:
“Sweet April showers/Do spring May flowers”
Source: Northall, G. F. English Folk-Rhymes: A collection of traditional verses relating to places and persons, customs, superstitions, etc. 1892. p. 430
But the weather in England is so very different than the weather here in Ontario, Canada. While we are watching the snow melt, daffodils and crocuses are blooming in Merry Old England. So how does this rhyme make sense here, I wondered.
Well, it seems that in the late 1600s the weather patterns took a decided turn for the better, which by inference would mean that it was decidedly not so favourable in the early 1600s. Which would indicate a slightly later arrival of the signs of spring, and explain why the rhyme seems appropriate now in Ontario, Canada, as it was in England in the early 1600.
Since the weather was going to be so miserable on this last weekend of March, it was decided that a turkey dinner would be in order. Yesterday Attila prepared a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, which will provide meals from leftovers until Wednesday, further meals from the diced turkey meat that will be frozen in meal size packages, and further meals still with a batch of turkey soup from with the bones.
Worldly
Weather
1°C
Date: 3:26 PM EDT Sunday 31 March 2019
Condition: Light Snow
Pressure: 101.1 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 1.3°C
Dew point: 1.1°C
Humidity: 98%
Wind: WSW 16 km/h
Visibility: 5 km
Quote
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
Oscar Wilde
1854 – 1900
It is difficult for me to reconcile the above quote with the man who said the following, unless Mr. Wilde is confessing to profound selfishness:
Oscar Wilde to Frank Harris, in “Oscar Wilde” page 69.
“The poor are poor creatures… and must always be hewers of wood and drawers of water. They are merely the virgin soil out of which men of genius and artists grow like flowers. Their function is to give birth to genius and nourish it. They have no other raison d’être… Don’t talk to me, Frank, about the hardships of the poor. The hardships of the poor are necessities, but talk to me of the hardships of men of genius, and I could weep tears of blood…”
The turkey dinner with trimmings sounds so good, a meal I would never have thought of for the end of March. Actually, I don’t really like turkey any more for some reason. I always buy a large chicken if we plan to have a turkey dinner. I like the taste of chicken better than turkey. My taste buds have altered greatly in my dotage.
I bet the turkey was tasty. We never use the oven, hence I only eat turkey when eating out. We eat a lot of chicken, though, because we can cook it in the pan on the stove top. I agree, a great disparity between those two Wilde quotes. Keep warm! ….Joan
Thanks Bex, we enjoyed the meal and will enjoy many more as a result of the weekend cooking session. I like chicken better than turkey too, but I like turkey a lot, and I particularly like it diced in some of the crockpot concoctions I create. It is so versatile, I experiment with and usually have good results. It is probably our last turkey dinner until the autumn months begin to chill. I wanted diced turkey in the freezer for quick Instant pot meals, but I’ll have to find other ingredients during the summer months. I guess our taste buds can alter as we travel along life’s highway, but I still crave the same old empty calories I always did, Chelsea Buns are on my mind these days, will have to make them before the summer heat arrives!
The turkey dinner was wonderful Joan! I would not use the oven when it is hot out, and from what you describe, it can get very hot where you live! I am hoping to do a lot of my summer cooking in the Instant Pot on the back porch, which should work out a lot better this summer, because Attila finished wiring the garage and no longer needs my outdoor plug for his power tools. Keep cool! … Maggie
I wrote a comment the other day and it didn’t post. Ah well.
We got 6 inches of snow on Saturday night! It was quite a surprise. Fortunately, the roads and sidewalks were warm enough that they were mostly clear by Sunday afternoon. We still have about 2 inches of snow on the grass but I think that’ll disappear today.
DH and I enjoy turkey once in a while but the gravy tends to give us heartburn, for some reason. We do eat quite a bit of chicken, because it’s so versatile.
Teri, hmmm, I wonder what happened there! I checked the logs, and there are no comments pending, sometimes things get tied up in there for some reason, so the software didn’t record a pending comment. I’ll keep an eye on this, I value your comments, and everyone elses too, don’t want to miss them.
Wow, 6 inches! We didn’t get that much. Funny you should mention heartburn, I had heartburn last night after dinner, I wonder if it was the gravy. I won’t give it up though, but I might freeze more diced turkey and eat fewer leftover turkey dinners with all the trimmings. Chicken i versatile, at the end of the day I think we eat more chicken than turkey.