Dad and I drove around to see the BFG (or really BFGG - Banks, Forest Grove & Gaston) barn squares (and then Dad did the Photoshop thing...) |
Of course, some barn squares are not as classy as others... |
And some of the barn squares are in "creepy" areas (or at least seemingly creepy after Dad works on the photo a bit...) |
This one is actually Moms... snapped with her iPhone in the Red Robin parking lot... |
Then we got our mid-March snow! As you can see, it didn't actually amount to anything... |
Though it was cold enough up the hillside to stick there... |
He probably won't have a lot of photos to document it since he's just basically staying at home, but here's a COVID-19 public service announcement photo for you! |
Is Buttercup a graceful dog or what? |
Dad rebuilt his old car! |
Of course, it is only 7 inches long, but it looks pretty good, doesn't it? (Right down to his old license plates...) |
I got new rats! |
Dad tried, but it was kind of dark and he didn't want to blind them with a flash... but with a lot of processing, here are Lyric (up front) and Eclipse (behind). |
How can this be the end of March? It seems like only two and a half endless weeks of staying home doing nothing since schools closed early and Intel decided that we should all work from home...
Sure I could keep griping about the self isolation for a few more paragraphs or I could draw up some parallel to World War II or drag in some data about the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, but I won't.
In March you could normally expect to get great deals on any remaining Valentine's Day candy (limited selection, but great prices!) or frozen food (it is frozen food month after all!) or snacks (March has both National Potato Chip Day and National Chip and Dip Day!) or winter sporting goods (now that you can't use them any more, buy them and put them away so you can forget about them by next winter!) or AC units and BBQ grills (you can get a great deal on last year's model as they make room for new ones that they'll charge a lot more for now that it is April and you missed your chance!) or luggage (OK - maybe you'll be getting a deal on luggage for awhile at this point...)
And now for a bit of English history... The Tichborne Dole is an ancient English tradition still very much alive today. It takes place in the village of Tichborne near Alresford in Hampshire every year on March 25th the Feast of the Annunciation (Lady's Day) and dates back to the 13th century.
Suffering from a wasting disease which had left her crippled, on her deathbed Lady Mabella Tichborne asked her miserly husband, Sir Roger, to donate food to the needy regularly every year. Her husband was reluctant but made a bizarre agreement as to how much he would give. Sir Roger agreed to give the corn from all the land which his dying wife could crawl around whilst holding a blazing torch in her hand, before the torch went out. Lady Mabella succeeded in crawling around a twenty-three acre field which is still called 'The Crawls' to this day and which is situated just north of Tichborne Park and beside the road to Alresford.
Lady Tichborne charged her husband and his heirs to give the produce value of that land to the poor in perpetuity. But aware of her husband's miserly character, Mabella added a curse - that should the dole ever be stopped then seven sons would be born to the house, followed immediately by a generation of seven daughters, after which the Tichborne name would die out and the ancient house fall into ruin.
The custom of giving the dole, in the form of bread, on 25th March, Lady Day continued for over 600 years, until 1796, when owing to abuse by vagabonds and vagrants, it was temporarily suspended by order of the Magistrates.
Local folk however, remembered the final part of the Tichborne legend and Lady Tachborne's curse. The penalty for not giving the dole would be a generation of seven daughters, the family name would die out and the ancient house fall down. In 1803 part of the house did indeed subside and the curse seemed to have been fulfilled when Sir Henry Tichborne who succeeded to the baronetcy in 1821(one of seven brothers), produced seven daughters.
The tradition was hastily re-established and has continued to this day. Roger, Henry's nephew, was born before the restoration of the Dole and his younger brother Alfred afterwards. Roger was lost at sea in 1845 and was impersonated two decades later by the unsuccessful Tichborne claimant, Arthur Orton. Alfred was the only one to survive Lady Tichborne's curse and thus the Tichborne name did not die out. The Dole is held every Lady Day, March 25th.