Feeling all tore down today, no energy, generally lousy. I took the afternoon off work and slept, only waking up because the cats wanted to be fed and decided the thing to do was create total feline chaos until I got up to do it. Thinking about chicken soup.
Wanda Jackson knows all about feeling tore down. Here she is with a new tune – she has a new recording out next month, produced by Justin Townes Earle.
I just read that Sam Sniderman, well known to all Torontonians of my generation as Sam the Record Man, has died at 92. He was a household name in this city for many years. I bought many records at his store over the years. I used to love searching through his huge stock for hidden gems.
Some of the hostas in our garden are quite big so I thought it was time I divided some of them. Considering how easy it is to get several plants from one big one, it’s surprising how expensive they are at local nurseries.
The way I go about it is to dig out an entire clump, loosen the roots up by hosing them, and then make a few cuts with a sharp knife, separating each clump into smaller pieces. Then it’s just a matter of planting the pieces. When I do the transplant I use a little rooting fertilizer and I water them well.
The photo above shows the giant hosta replanted after being split.
I planted one of them in one of the back gardens.
And another one at the end of the woodland path… I planted a few of the smaller ones out back too, and also gave some away to the neighbours.
I also divided up some irises today while I was on a roll. It was a beautiful cool fall afternoon, perfect for garden work.
I’ve been teaching my button accordion student a little polka called the Bertha Polka and I wanted him to get a feel for some of the different approaches to attacking a polka, so we took a few minutes to surf around YouTube listening to some examples. We came across this delightful video that includes a brief interview with Walt Solek, known as the Clown Prince of Polka – and his big tune, Who Stole the Kishka. Kishka (there seem to be several spellings) refers to a kind of sausage and in fact the word is Slavic and means gut or intestine, and sausage is just a filling or stuffing in a casing made from intestine.
You can have my shinka
Take my sweet krusczyki
Take my plump pierogi
You can even have my chernika
Take my long kielbasa
But damn it all, bring back my keeshka.
Walt Solek was a popular performer and bandleader who mixed comedy and polka music. He died in 2005 at 94. His motto was “bringing people together through music.”
I think I’m going to go out and get some sausage.
I realize I haven’t posted nearly enough accordion music lately and some readers will be disappointed. I’ll try to make it up to you with a Saturday morning Daily Dose.
Here’s a fellow named Sean Folsom playing a 3-row chromatic button accordion from 1900.
Now let’s go to Quebec and hear Denis Pépin…The Contradiction Reel
And…Gaston Nolet
It wasn’t bad enough they tagged birdhouses and garbage bins in Sam Smith Park this summer. Now they’ve tagged the water treatment plant. It isn’t the handsomest building around, but now it has these ugly scars. Do we see this graffiti as shining examples of rugged individualism? Well, actually the tags look just like all the other tags, the very same ugly stylized lettering all these sad people have used for years and years. Are they making a statement? Water treatment plants don’t deserve to be clean? Does it make you feel tough? What exactly do you hate?
Mostly, it’s just rude and disrespectful. It’s not cool.
…with no NHL and the Leafs remain undefeated.
I arrived home from work today to find a package had arrived in today’s mail from Edmonton, a day early. You see I won a little raffle. I sponsored my friend Karen on the Run for the Cure, and she decided to hold a draw for her sponsors for a pair of fantastic home-made mittens – and I won!
It gets even better. The box contained other goodies as well…
I reached in and came up with a bag of cookies…..and then an M&Ms toy fan, with M&Ms inside….and that’s not all. I dug really deep and found a Bar of Lindt dark chocolate infused with red chili! Wow, what a treat! Thanks so much Karen.
Today, M kindly dropped off a bag containing a generous quantity of Chicken of the Woods. Wow, was that ever nice! She harvested a beautiful and huge chicken and I was thrilled to receive some pieces. Chicken of the Woods is a very tasty mushroom that grows on tree stumps. When you find one you are very fortunate indeed, because often they contain many shelves and you can harvest several pounds of mushroom from one stump. The younger they are the more tender they are. When you have one, the usual approach is to cut away any tough woody areas and just cook and eat the tender parts.
I made up a big bowl of pasta, featuring a sauce made with great quantities of “chicken” and some hot fennel sausage. It was really delicious, and even better, I have lots left for tomorrow!
We were just out with the dogs for our nightly walk. Around the corner and down the street on Lake Prominade, there were two ambulances parked. Someone coming from one of the properties on Lake Prom told us there was a sail boat that had run aground. There were a lot of sailboats out in the lake tonight. Wednesdays are apparently race evenings so quite a few boats were involved in racing. When we were out earlier with the dogs, around 7:00 PM we watched a sailboat come into the Yacht Club harbour in Sam Smith Park. It seemed to have a little trouble making the turn into the harbour and run the short stretch to shelter – but it did make it in OK.
The boat that ran aground must have lost control in the waves and high winds out there tonight. When we got to the park, we could see it stuck out there, not far from shore, listing dangerously. The person we talked to told us the crew is safe. She said paramedics went out into the lake in dry suits and rescued everyone on board. If that’s true, let’s applaud our paramedics for a fantastic job. From the park, we could see the boat clearly because another boat, perhaps a police boat, was shining a high powered light on on it. It looked like there was a line between the two crafts and we could see somebody aboard the sailboat. It appeared they were trying to free up the sailboat from the rocks. At the same time the rescue boat had to be really careful not to get too close and run aground itself.
From what we know, everyone is safe, and hopefully nobody gets hurt trying to save the boat.
27th Street 