Cold-Hearted Cicada

The feelings of a cold-hearted lover
are like a cicada:
it cries constantly
but never shows its face
Miwa no Sugikado

Found on BibliOdyssey along with a couple of woodcuts by Utamaro. Although we heard them all through the dog days of August, I only once found one, a mature wing-ed one, dead, when I was about 10. I pinned it to an acoustic ceiling tile and it was my bug collection. I'm just back from a visit to Toronto where I unearthed this while planting potatoes in my mother's garden.


Unless someone tells me otherwise I'm calling it a cicada. It still seemed to be in a state of suspended animation but definitely still alive, so I buried it again. It's not due to see the light of day until May 18th by this calculation - E=(19.465-t)/0.5136 - where E is the emergence start date in May and t is the average April temperature.

B is for Birds

...and R and... TypeNesting

Shook Swarm 2

Today we shook the bees onto fresh frames and foundation, about two weeks later than last year, but then winter seemed to hang about longer this year. The colony looks to be a healthy size but I'll find out if we were successful in about 10 days when I remove the two frames of grubs that we left as bait comb.

Under Ground

All my potatoes are buried now. Phew. Fifty seed potatoes at the allotment and 40 grown from true seed in a patch of the back yard. The little plants from seed are pictured below - quite promising I think, and hopefully big enough to fend for themselves in the great outdoors.

Happy Easter!

A few more cards from my collection of Victorian & Edwardian Easter greetings. Click on image to enlarge.

A Fridayes Pye

[Without eyther Flesh or Fish]
Washe greene Beetes cleane, picke out the middle string, and chop them small with two or three well relisht ripe Apples. Season it with Pepper, Salt, and Ginger: then take a good handfull of Raizins of the sunne, and put all in a Coffin of fine paste, with a piece of sweet Butter, and so bake it: but before you serve it in, cut it up, and wring in the juyce of an Orenge, and Sugar.
John Murrell: A New Booke of Cookerie 1615

Three Eggs

"A baked egg is good eating, and easy of achievement. Break a new-laid egg on to a thickly-buttered plate, strew it with pepper, and salt, and cook slightly in a moderate oven. It must be eaten exceedingly hot from the same plate, which may be attractively surrounded by a narrow frill of crinkled tissue paper."
Meals Medicinal