We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
It's Shad Season now in the Northeast. Just had my first shad roe dinner of the season with pals last night. They made it with a caper and mushroom sauce with chopped bacon on top, on a bed of spinach, with roasted potatoes. It should be fully pink in the middle but crusty on the outside.
Many of us in Yankeeland welcome this brief season - mainly April-May, when the Shad migrate from the ocean up the rivers to lay and fertilize the eggs, with the females filled with their delicious egg sacs we call Shad roe.
If you drive over the Hudson River, the Connecticut, or Housatonic bridges, you will see the shad fishermen's nets spread out right now.
The roe, cooked with bacon, is as good as food gets. Do not overcook it - it is Shad caviar. But the meat of the Atlantic Shad (a large type of herring, I believe) is underestimated. It requires an expert boner which makes it expensive, but it's as tasty a fish as exists. The Shad is full of crazy bones.
It's a brief season for Shad, and there are Shad Festivals all over the Northeast.
Photo above is Shad roe. My Mom loved it, and so do I.
Looking good is an Italian thing. It doesn't have much to do with food, but these guys visit Liguria looking for food. Yes, mashed potatoes in nothern Italy. Towards the end, how to make make and serve basil pesto.
5:9 If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.
5:10 Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son.
5:11 And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
5:12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Renovating the entire Maggie's HQ tech system. Takes time and money, but should be good. Thorough IT update. The expert is a wizard but even wizards have limits.
We should be back to speed tomorrow, God willing and with the tech god's expertise.
Photo via our internet friend Muffy. I sort-of wish I had a New England home like that, but I am a happy American nevertheless, with our lilacs in sweet bloom.
The bird he refers to is the Catbird. Yesterday morning before church I heard a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak calling, and looked around, Nope. It was a Catbird. Mimic thrush. Fooled me.
Said Joshua Slocum about the Spray. Spray was an abandoned and partly rotten Chesapeake oysterman, abandoned on the beach in Fairhaven, MA.
Apparently she was an unusually well-balanced boat. You could lash her tiller and she would stay on course all night. He rarely needed to man the helm, which made solo sailing possible. Autopilot.
It is theorized that she (and he) were sunk by a collision with a steamer.
15:9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.
15:10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
15:11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
15:13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
15:16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
15:17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
On our two trips to Sicily we saw very little pasta, except al vongole. Which was delicious, of course. We never hung around Palermo but only because of our scheduling. We missed the cathedral bcause it was closed to visitors on Sundays.
Are Sicilian women beautiful? Like the food, a mix of Arab, Spanish, French, and Greek. Some Italian too.
Brits love Sicily.
Last time, we landed in Palermo and drove around the entire coast, and up into the mountains too. Ended leaving from our lemon farm B&B to the airport in Catania at 3 AM, arrived with the sun rising over Etna. Just an amazing place.
Consider Bellevue, Washington, home to Cherry Crest Elementary School. The school website indicates that students “will have explicit conversations about race, equity, and access” and “will identify culture and begin to recognize and identify white culture through storytelling, sharing, and conversation.” The school promises to hold monthly assemblies that focus on culture, identity, and race, and has created a group called SOAR (Students Organized Against Racism) for fourth- and fifth-graders. These children, who range from ages nine to 11, are tasked with “implementing learning and stratimplementation of school-wide learning and strategies for being anti-racist.” Left unclear is whether these students have been made aware that modern antiracism requires discrimination on the basis of race.
Or take Lexington, Massachusetts, where, in October 2019, fourth-graders were taught to “articulate what gender identity is and why it’s important to use nonbinary language in describing people we don’t know yet.” According to photos shared on Twitter by the district’s Director of Equity and Student Supports, students learned about “gender identity,” “gender expression,” “sexual orientation,” and “sex assigned at birth” by examining sticky notes on a “Gender Snowperson” who was drawn in magic marker on a large sheet of paper. The students were also taught that their pronouns had been “assigned at birth.”
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Which Napoleon? 
It's Shad Season now in the Northeast. Just had my first shad roe dinner of the season with pals last night. They made it with a caper and mushroom sauce with chopped bacon on top, on a bed of spinach, with roasted potatoes. It should be fully pink in the middle but crusty on the outside.
Image stolen from Ace 
Said 
Reintroduction ("forced introduction"?)