April Showers Bring May Flowers

It's been a cool and rainy day. It's spring after all and the weather is very changeable. The old joke about weather in the Maritimes is that if you don't like it, wait five minutes. I don't mind rainy days at all. I've always liked rain and like walking in it if it's not cold. I must say though that nothing depresses me more than extended periods of rainy weather. My brother lives on the west coast (or wet coast as they say) and he gets a tremendous amount of rain. That's not for me.

Saturdays have turned out to be telephone days for me. My mom's cousin calls me from Florida every Saturday as her husband has free long distance to Canada on weekends. I usually talk to my son and grandchildren on Saturday and I have a friend who always calls on Saturday as she has only two days off and spends Sunday with her Mom. I was expecting a friend to call from Ontario but she will probably call tomorrow. That's good because my ear is a bit sore.

It's not sore from music though. If I'm in front of the computer I have music on and never, never tire of it. There is a never-ending supply and that's a bit of a problem. I will never be able to listen to all of it no matter how hard I try; the same with books, I will never read them all. At the moment I'm listening to Lila Downs and of course I plan to share. Most I had uploaded of her has disappeared but there's still the best ever version of Besame Mucho, Cancion Mixteca, Una Sangra, Mi Corazon Me Requerda and La Iguana. The best version of Quizas, Quizas Quizas is still here too but I hadn't linked it properly. It is now. I'm not blue today but the songs I'll add of Lilas have blue in the title. Arenita Azul is a favorite of mine that has disappeared and I did not have Alcoba Azul on the music pages till now. Enjoy Lila Downs! I've linked her new website.

Electrical Woes

As I said yesterday, eastern PEI did not get the freezing rain as extremely as the western areas did. Imagine our surprise when the power went off at noon for no apparent reason. The main system has been bypassed and we have the emergency backup system in place. This is possible as our infrastructure is not th cause. They do not know why the system failed but it was not downed power lines like in the west. The folks in the west are not expected to have electricity for many days yet and many are in emergency shelters.

My sister in law arranged eye appointments at the same time so that she could provide the transportation. Of course this afternoon was the time. I arranged a ride to her workplace halfway across the island (where the photo is from) and we were waylaid by the electricity situation. I'll work on a new date tomorrow.

Lila Downs hasn't made an appearance on the blog for a while, November 20th to be exact, when attempting to restore the essentials. Mi Corazon Me Requerda and La Iguana, with it's great background chorus, should take care of that. I still play her most days and am sure I'll never tire of her. I even watch UTube clips of her performances on Frida even though I own the movie. Already up and quite popular is her Cancion Mixteca.

Bird and Song

The most amazing thing just happened. I was watching Oprah and I heard a bird hit my kitchen window. I finished watching the segment, went out to the kitchen and saw this little nuthatch sitting on the rail with it's beak open and it's head at an odd angle. It's not the first time this has happened. I knew to just leave it be and hope that a hawk was not nearby. Sure enough, it flew off in about five minutes. A headache is probably in this birds future today.

Today's walk was interesting. The snow that fell was quite heavy so when the plows went by, the heavy snow they threw knocked down road signs. There were some beautiful drifts and it was a landscape not seen all winter. Certainly it was our biggest storm of the year.

The spring birds have arrived back from their southern vacation. Robins and starlings are devouring the apples in my back yard where there is no snow. With all the wind I have a lot of bare areas as well as, at the most, three foot drifts. Below is a photo though it's not that good. There are lots of these areas and I have maybe seventy or eighty birds at a time. I have a female red-wing blackbird as well though the males usually come back first.


I have two versions of a song to compare for your musical pleasure today. I've had this Lila Downs version of Cancion Mixteca for years and love it. I play it a lot! I recently came across this version by Ry Cooder. It is very different than Lila's and I really like it too. It is more of a lullaby and Lila's is about as far away from a lullaby as you can get. Just noticed the songs on Page Two have reached fifty. Long ways to go for five hundred.