More Goats

The last time I was down at the American River they had set up an impressive amount of temporary fencing around an impressive number of goats for a fire control project. I didn't take the time I should have to get a picture that conveyed the muchness of the goats.

But a little further into the park, there was a fine example of their effectivity. This view is looking over one side of the trail, left in its natural condition:

And this is the view in the opposite direction, where the goats had been pastured only a day or two before. And yes, the trees were bare of leaves as high up as a goat might reach. They're definitely good at what they do.

A Mighty Good Song

This is something I've been meaning to post for ages; the only reason I never did was I felt somehow obliged to say more about it. And this mostly because it features four musical factors I like very much. Iarla Ó Lionáird rather goes without saying, but we have here, too, a tune that can be played as an Irish-style polka, ditto a tune that has an obvious tie to an entirely different version of itself, and words that are so nonsensical that they toe the line of pure puirt a beal.

(As for the different version of this tune, I wouldn't put it past you to catch it after a line or two, but  it took Mr. Ó Lionáird actually slipping in a "Heilan' Laddie" to make me realize that part of the reason the tune sounded so. . .comfortable was I'd actually heard it many a time before.)

 

There's really no need for further commentary, other than if you Google "Tá Dhá Ghabhairín Bhuí Agam" you can find translations for some similar versions of these words. I doubt a word for word translation would make any better sense of it; I don't doubt that it's a kick and a half to listen to. And Steve Cooney is having too much fun wringing every last drop of music from that guitar.

California Poppies

A Small Matter

Minikin
A thin string of gut used for the treble string of a lute or viol.

The Oxford Universal Dictionary offers the surprise that the mini- half of the word has nothing to do with being small; it is, in fact, derived from the Middle Dutch minne, love. The -kin half is the diminutive (c.f. lambkin, and its ilk). The word was, in fact, originally a term of endearment for a girl.

I am rather curious to know whether it came into use to refer to a particular string merely because of its accidental resemblance to English terms for tiny, or whether there was, at first, some poetic or punning association that fit the original meaning and the musical context both. At any rate, it seems a reasonably useful word to revive, expanded to include a wide interpretation of gut-type strings and lute-type instruments.