A sunburn kind of day if you thought sitting in the sun for hours reading and whittling was a good idea.
I got a sunburn on my face and on my neck.
I whittled a spoon out of Linden wood (also known as Bass wood or if you are residing in Britain - lime wood).
This easy-carving wood was a pleasure to carve - I'll put up photos later.
Mostly I just wanted to show a beagle in resplendent repose upon the grass beneath the warm sun, and Monty with his Tigger toy.
Now the Dog Days of Summer traditionally start in July, but hey - we've had such a cold, snowy winter, it certainly seemed like a Dog Day of Summer yesterday - April 18, 2008.
From Wikipedia:
The term "Dog Days" was coined by the ancient Romans, who called these days caniculares dies (days of the dogs) after Sirius (the "Dog Star"), the brightest star in the heavens besides the Sun.
Popularly believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" - Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813.
The Dog Days originally were the days when Sirius, the Dog Star, rose just before or at the same time as sunrise (heliacal rising), which is no longer true owing to precession of the equinoxes. The ancients sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that that star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.
Well. There you go. Enjoy your weekend!
Cheers,
Mungo
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