Performing at the 2011 Catskills Irish Arts Week

2011 was a big year for the my Irish band, the Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra. The release of our first CD in March 2011 (see the sidebar on the right) brought us lots of performance opportunities. In this video you will see highlights of our performance at Catskills Irish Arts Week last summer. We were thrilled to perform at this prestigious US Irish music festival which has "the largest faculty (65 instructors) teaching the largest number of classes (120) of any summer school devoted to Irish traditional music and dance in the U.S." (Earle Hitchner, The Green Hills of the Catskills, The Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2011)




This 5-minute video contains snippets of three songs from our CD. You'll see me on your left up there...  Close-ups (at 2.53 and 4:11) reveal I'm having lots of fun!

Many thanks to Albany photographer Timothy Raab for tirelessly documenting the music at Catskills Irish Arts Week year after year. Tim's entire collection of 2011 CIAW videos can be viewed HERE.



© 2012, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

More Adventures with Migration Assistant

Since my 2009 experience with Apple's Migration Assistant utility, I have had two more occasions to use this seductive tool. It promises so much, but I've come to believe that using Migration Assistant is rarely as easy as Apple makes you think it will be.  Here's a brief recap of my last two adventures with Migration Assistant, along with some advice and lessons learned.

Mourning Doves at Menno House

Last summer mourning doves nested on a windowsill of Menno House.  Manager Rachel Smith recorded the development of the squabs (that's what you call mourning dove chicks) from hatchlings to fledglings. 

Video by Rachel Smith

Did you know . . .

• Mourning doves mate for life
• Mourning doves often reuse their own nests or the nests of other birds, even squirrels
• Both parents feed their young with "crop milk" produced by glands in their crops
• The young squabs fledge (fly from the nest) after only 14 days, but parents continue to care them for another 2 weeks
• Mourning doves can fly at speeds of 55 mph

If you'd like to entice mourning doves to nest on your property, this site offers an inexpensive and nice looking nest box.   I bought one for Menno House and am hoping the doves will use it this year.

In case you're wondering how I came to know about the Menno House doves, well, I'm on the Board of Directors of Menno House which is owned and operated by Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship. 


Additional reading:
Mourning Doves and Their Young
The Mourning Doves Coo Begins Season Of Nesting and Feeding
Mourning Dove (Wikipedia, with great pictures and links) 



© 2012, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

A Bald Pigeon With My Name

My second pigeon rescue two weeks ago made me remember that the account of my first pigeon rescue somehow never got published.  Time to rectify that oversight!!

Sunday, May 15, 2011
It started out like any other laundry day.  I loaded my dirty clothes into the grocery cart we New Yorkers use to transport anything too heavy to carry and pushed the cart across the street to the laundromat.  As I entered, I noticed a young pigeon huddled at the side of the step. After loading my clothes into the washers, I went back to the doorway to see if the pigeon was still there.  Indeed it was, and the little thing just didn't look right.  It had some scabby-looking patches on top if its head and, although nervous, it seemed unwilling or unable to fly to a safer location.  The laundry attendant claimed it couldn't fly because an elderly woman had run over it accidentally with her cart.

I hate it when I happen upon situations like this, because I know that no one else is going to do anything.

The Loop

It's no wonder British author Nicholas Evans writes interesting books.  He leads an interesting life.  He studied law at Oxford University, worked as a journalist, produced documentary films, and has traveled extensively.  He is best known for his debut novel, The Horse Whisperer.  If you didn't read the book, maybe you saw the movie directed by and starring Robert Redford.

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is...

 

\This is Not the Story You Think It Is...  A Season of Unlikely Happiness is often misunderstood or misrepresented.  Many online reviews say it's about how one woman saved her marriage.  Those reviews prove only that the reviewer really didn't "get it."  No, this book by Laura Munson is really about how a woman married 20 years saved herself.

Family Ties

I read Family Ties because I found myself in an airport without a book to take onto the plane.  Having never read anything by Danielle Steel, I hoped this book would be an absorbing page-turner that would make the flight pass quickly.  WRONG!  Family Ties was predictable and repetitive and contained no pithy truths about family relationships. 

A Case of Need

A Case of Need is a novel based on the facts and politics of abortion before Roe vs. Wade.  The book was published in 1968 under the pseudonym of Jeffery Hudson and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1969.  In 1993 A Case of Need was re-released under the author's real name, Michael Crichton.