Leeks, Leks, and the First of April

If you arrived here because of a letter sent on, or about, the first of April, you should not feel foolish because:

• Ball Year is a real thing and I want your ideas for the timing of the dancing ball (it doesn't work unless friends are involved) and what else I should do during ball year (see many of the posts below).
• My school's women's basketball team did play for the NCAA Div. II National Championship Friday night, forcing the game to a second over-time and eventually losing.
• Marmot's Paradise exists with marmots from all over the world and we are going 
• There is great documentary footage of prairie chickens lekking (filmed near where my in-laws live for Discovery Channel's North America)
• The BBC did produce a great segment on flying penguins.
• I still find leeks in the toilet funny, 24 years (24 years? impossible!) after a friend and I first put one there.
• June 31 less than 90 days away!

If you didn't get a letter this year, and want to be on the distribution list, send me your e-mail and I will make it happen.

Happy April!

Big Balls in the Sky

Moonrise yesterday was stunning.  Just after sunset, in the purple glowing twilight, a giant ball appeared caught in my neighbor's tree.  The Mister, not normally as excited by the moon as I am, returned from choir practice to tell me to go outside and look at it.

It felt distinctly springy standing there watching the colors of the sky change.  Our yard is riddled with croci and little iris reticulata, the daffodils on the north and east sides are blooming (those against the south wall bloomed and faded long ago), the buds on the peach and lilacs are swelling, and the air smelled faintly sweet as the golden currant started to open.  Another neighbor's Bradford pear is mostly open and an apricot and a cherry (I think) a block away are blooming in a backyard.

Watching the moon, which felt obviously full, rise, I wondered how it could actually be waning.  For I knew that yesterday was the spring equinox (at 4:58 p.m. local time) and I knew that Easter comes the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox (a piece of information I have always enjoyed because it combines solar time [the equinox], lunar time [a full moon], and human calendars [day of the week] in what I now recognize as a pleasant combination of my scientific, pagan, and Christian sensibilities).  So if yesterday was the equinox and Easter is not for another full month, then the moon must have been past full (otherwise Easter would be this Sunday).

This morning I looked this up to confirm, and the full moon was at 8:42 p.m. local time just after I was admiring it, almost four hours after the astronomical equinox. I wondered if the disparity was something to do with the full moon being visible in Jerusalem or Rome or somewhere, or the day of the equinox rather than the moment of it.  It turns out that by the Georgian calendar, Easter is set as the first Sunday after the full moon after March 21 (representing the equinox) rather than the actual equinox.  Fascinating. (To me, anyway, literally).

Big balls in the sky keep surprising me.

Seasonal Madness

As we were driving north to Kansas yesterday, only an hour or two after we completely changed our weekend plans and decided to drive north, the Mister and I were a bit giddy.  It felt like spring break! march madness! youthful frivolity! having a ball in ball year! to be driving almost 300 miles each way for a basketball game.
In truth, we had practical reasons to drive to central Kansas, and wonderful parents/in-laws happy to put us up for the night, but it was still quite a lark to watch the second round of the NCAA Division 2 tournament.  The games was a nail biter, with the students from my institution down most of the game, and was tied with 14.9 seconds left.  A last second 3 pointer put my students ahead and they move on to the regional finals tomorrow night.

I rather hate tournaments because they make it such that almost all players end their season (and their sporting careers) with a loss, but they are also very exciting.

The Mister and I had actually already seen the regionals (first three rounds) of NCAA Division 2 Basketball (when our West Virginia institution hosted in 2007) but driving to another state with the kids to watch a college basketball game was a new ball year experience.

Take your boys to women's balls

College Basketball: Ball Year Ball Game 1

One of the first events of ball year was taking the family to watch a college basketball game last week.  Amidst all of the costumes and pageantry--many types of "balls" have that in common-- we saw students from the college at which I teach play a great game of basketball and end their undefeated conference season with a 101 point home win. 

When Dianthus called my parents to excitedly tell them about watching the game, he never mentioned that the students we were watching were female.  I don't think it occurred to him that that's an important detail.  And that makes me happy.

When the movie Hidden Figures about Katherine Johnson and the black female "calculators" at NASA came out two years ago, something about all of the "take your daughters to see Hidden Figures" publicity made me bristle.  While I am always for the making (and viewing of) good movies featuring mathematicians, intelligent women, and the space program, much less the combination of all three, it is not just young girls who need to be able to envision black women successfully navigating STEM careers. Many sons, including mine, need the message as well.

International Women's Soccer: Impetus for Ball Year 2019
(Here in Frisco, Texas in October)

"Ball Year" came about this year because we have tickets to see women from Korea, New Zealand, Nigeria, Brazil, and Jamaica play soccer against each other in France (and I want to throw another gala dance party).  In fewer than 100 days (the US Team started advertising mid-week) we'll be part of a foolish mania celebrating the athletic teamwork of women. Fanaticism over women playing sportsball is no less foolish than fanaticism over men playing sportsball, I grant you, but I'm pretty excited that my sons will get caught up in it, just like they get caught up in other foolish things (mens sportsball, computer games, re-tellings of Greek mythology, baking, what have you).

Mardi Gras- Prepared for Another Ball

In other ball news, thinking it was going to involve dancing, The Mister and I attended a Mardi Gras Party at the American Banjo Museum last night.  Hall of Famer Debbie Schreyer played a mean four-string with the Dixieland Pickup Band.  I like watching women lead and I like watching talent worth following getting followed.

Debbie Schreyer at the American Banjo Museum Krewe de Mardi Gras

Cranes?

A flock heading north flew over at 12:45 p.m. today (February 25).  They sounded like cranes; close and loud and yet nearly invisible in the bright midday sky.

Croci!

While we have had some crocus up for at least a week and a half, between 10:15 a.m. this morning (Sunday, February 24) and 4 p.m. this afternoon, dozens of yellow crocus, several clumps of white and several purple reticulated iris opened. 
We admired the several clumps of yellow crocus and single purple iris open at 10:15 so we know the dozens more were really new. 
Spring for a while! 

Burning off the winter

The Groundhog Party 2019: A Summoning of Spring, was a huge success.  We had a new winner of pin the shadow on the groundhog, the groundhog apple pie in cheddar crust was as delicious as ever* (and there was enough food that I we had leftovers for breakfast), clouds wafted from the punch, and we twirled fire.

For the 26th year of groundhog parties (the first was in Boulder in 1994), a dear friend drove down from Kansas, we baked gorgeous pies, and we added witchiness to the celebration.  At first the witchiness felt a bit forced-- what can we do to end witch year with a party?  And then I started reading about pagan sabbats and investigating Imbolc and suddenly it all made so much sense because the Groundhog Party has always been a pagan celebration of the coming of spring.  This year we added extra flowers, made the pies extra sunny (traditional Imbolc foods are wheat and round and golden), lit candles throughout the house, and burned away the greens of winter (in this case adding some kerosene to a giant sedge I had brought home from work).  

It was a great party.  I don't think anyone resented that I made them make name tags and did formal introductions because it led to guests meeting other guests and actually talking.  People asked for pie recipes.  We started making plans for practice sessions with the fire torches so that more people will want to pull them out next year.  At church this morning, three weeks after the party, a man went out of his way to thank me for inviting him. 

I'm writing this to remind you (and myself of the future) that people are longing to celebrate.  It doesn't take a witch to bring people together for frivolity and good food, but the synergy can make magic. 

JMM with Shaker Blood Orange Pie

Welcome of witches, hedgehogs, and seasonal
guessing game

Shaker Lemon: J.M. Moody Photo

Flowers!

 *The Sausage Apple Pie and the Shaker Lemon and Shaker Blood Orange are all from Kate McDermott's The Art of the Pie.