Rock Salt and Nails was written by U. Utah Phillips, the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest.
Here are The Local Honeys
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This is our life
This week we have 2 guests joining us. First we talk with Professor Carey Millsap-Spears about The Female Gothic, Tarot and the Penny Dreadful television series.
Our second guest is singer, songwriter, guitarist and clawhammer banjo player Joe Newberry, speaking with us from Raleigh North Carolina. Joe also provided the music for this episode, including:
My Dear Childhood Days (with April Verch)
Missouri Borderlands
Roustabout
Listen right here or find The Agency at all the good podcast depots.
We would like to thank our fabulous guests for joining us today and as well, we’d like to thank you, our listeners.
Here’s a video I came across on YouTube featuring our guest Joe Newberry with his frequent duo partner Mike Compton.
Boom Boom
I came across this video this afternoon featuring John Lee Hooker performing Boom Boom on acoustic guitar. This is from way back in 1964 – I was just 4 years old at the time. Look who is sitting right behind him – it’s Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee!
Not Dark Yet
Lucinda!
Family Mystery
There are secrets and mysteries in most families. This week’s obvious example are the Royals. We had hoped The Interview would have been on The Agency Podcast rather than CBS, but strangely enough, Oprah has a bit more clout than we do. This week we also have a feature interview with Jackson Rowe and Mike Milden about their excellent new documentary series “For Heaven’s Sake,” also about a family mystery.
You can listen to The Agency right here or find us in all the good podcast places. Please join us.
The Neighbourhood Bullies
One of the delights as winter wanes is the return of so many different birds. Several days ago the red-winged blackbird males arrived, and on their heels were the neighbourhood bullies, the grackles. They come to the feeders in groups and they monopolize them, not giving the house sparrows and others much opportunity to get their share of seeds.
On a dull day, they look like big all-black birds, but when the sun is out, their iridescent blue heads and bronze backs are gorgeous.
I took these shots by the feeders under the big old apple tree just behind our home.
Feels Like Spring
Everytime I walk down our stairs, I see this metal artwork by David Butler which hangs in our home, and it makes me think of days like today.
The sky is clear, the sun is bright and the temperature has continued to warm. Sure, it’s jacket weather, but I like that much more than parka weather. Out back the house sparrows are building nests in the various birdhouses. New birds are arriving every day. Red-winged blackbirds. Grackles. Yesterday, there were two noisy crows. Some nights we hear an eastern screech owl up in the spruces. I’ve gone out in the morning in the hopes of spotting it, but it’s easy for a big bird to hide in a huge spruce tree.
David Butler was an African American artist from Good Hope Louisiana. He lived from 1898 to 1997. Mr. Butler learned to make sculpture not from an art school, but from his father. In the early 60s, he sustained an injury at work in a box factory and retired. After that he began creating tin objects and I read the local kids called him The Tin Man. He festooned his bicycle with his work and so became kind of a mobile gallery in his community. I also read that his work was inspired by dreams, which he characterized as being from God.
What sort of creature is this we have hanging in our home? A green-tailed squirrel? Or is it a bird on a striped tree? I’ll leave that to you. It makes me smile and I hope it has the same effect on you.
King of the Road
Time for an old hobo song. Here’s Melisa Carper and Rebecca Patek – Buffalo Gals – reviving the Roger Miller tune King of the Road. This is from Rebecca Patek’s YouTube channel. If you like this music, I’m sure they would appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel, click like and all that jazz.
The Jerky Experiment part 2
Last week I made a batch of jerky, mostly to prove to myself I could do it. I’m planning to make some to take on a canoe trip in August with East Texas Red. After I had devoured the first batch, E.T. Red commented that it would be OK if I mailed him some for taste testing. I think I was finishing the last piece as I read his text.
And so… I made another batch to send to beautiful Perth Ontario. Batch 2 differs from batch 1 in 2 ways. First I sliced the beef and doused it in marinade before going to bed, so it marinated overnight. I’m going to say that having tried marinating for 2 hours and for overnight, it really doesn’t matter. Overnight is fine. Two hours is fine. I don’t know what the bare minimum time should be though. Also, I used different ingredients in my marinade this time. Instead of soy and worcestershire, I used Korean BBQ marinade. I forgot to add fish sauce this time, but I did add some 5-spice powder and I think this time I added more brown sugar to the marinade. For both batches I used smoked paprika. For the second batch I used less cayenne.
Both batches were tremendously yummy, just different. I packed up a good bag of jerky and sent it by Xpresspost to Perth before I sampled batch 2 until it was no more. Hopefully East Texas Red will enjoy it.
My brother the trout, Salvilinas Fontinalis, told me that the best jerky is made with elk. He could be right, but I’m fresh out of elk. If anybody has some elk they’d like to lay on me for test batch #3, you know where to drop it off.
A Sunny Sunday Afternoon at Cawthra Woods
The Cawthra Estates property sits nestled just below the QEW on the east side of Cawthra Road in Mississauga. It was a land grant to Joseph Cawthra in 1809. It was the home of a super-rich couple, Grace Cawthra and Harry Elliott, who went by Cawthra-Elliott. Their home is preserved on the site and there are walking trails through the adjoining woods. I met up with Ted in the parking lot for our weekly walk.
There is a loop trail, complete with occasional boardwalks around part of the property.
Unfortunately, significant parts of the trails are iced over, so most of our walk was through the woods, where we navigated amongst many downed trees.
We didn’t see a lot of bird life this afternoon – until we heard and then saw a pair of Northern flickers. They were on the move and I was unable to get a photo. Here are some shots I took in the woods.
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, sunny and not so cold we needed gloves on. It felt good to get out in the woods and enjoy the coming of spring, especially after such a strange year we’ve had.
27th Street 