Tag Archives: spring

Animal Issues

Spring/Easter thoughts …

flier MPS(1)
photos submitted by Mauro DePasquale

By Mauro DePasquale

The sun shining through the clouds on this cool but warming April morning. It wakes up something deep inside us. Savoring that sweet scent for spring air, it takes me back to spring vacations at my grandparents’ house on Bell Hill, joyfully playing and running through their yard while my grandfather, singing happily, began clearing the garden of fallen dead winter debris. I loved it. That scent brought hope, dreams of summer, and all the happiness that would be ahead. Spring air is such a wonderful gift to be thankful for.

That sweet scent has a grit to it: mud, tree mold, dried, dead leaves, old annuals rotting out of a thaw, and yet it is a scent springing hope eternal.

It’s something we all awaken to during this time of year. No matter what our faith, our heritage, we all feel it and know it at once.

For this Catholic, it’s a gift, a sign of Easter’s promise. The scent of spring, somehow as a resonant hint of an ancient sacred covenant, an elusive reveal of the Mystery made tangible. The promise of life everlasting.

It’s more than the scent of a dead world resurrecting, it’s a spiritual resurrection. Resurrecting from the grit of our ties to this world, the mud of our faults, the mold of our participation in injustice, the rot of our sins. It is also an awakening to the mystery of life eternal exemplified in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christ is the sun shining the light of Truth. Warming and gracing the morning of our lives, each and every day. This beautiful warm light that shines on each and every one of us for no reason, and yet, through that mysterious and Holy Spirit, we welcome it as unconditional love and mercy.

For us this seems to happen in the season after winter, however whereas time does not exist except in the profane, the Resurrection of Christ is continual, in Holy time, and every breath we take is the gift of an opportunity to share in that eternal spring. Forever in His Light, forever singing happily, forever joyful, in a life forever in love.

At the end of this day, here in this plane, we can be thankful. There is nothing to worry about. Spring is always around the corner. Although the culture of death may surround us here, we look for hope not in what is dead, rotting and bound in sin, but what is living in the promise of the eternal. Hope comes from that spirit living within us. Just remember “He is Risen” and we will also with Him rise from death. Why? Because God loves you as sure as that gift of spring air.

CROSS at MT CARMEL(2)

Mauro DePasquale is Executive Director of WCCA TV “The People’s Channel” and President of the Mount Carmel Preservation Society.

Animal Issues

Bunny update from our gal pal, Franny!!!💐🌷🐰🌸

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Franny and her hubby and four kids share their home with their three much loved (and litter-box trained!) rabbits! Here is Linus and Gretta, best bunny buddies! pics: Franny McKeever

By Franny McKeever

Easter is approaching and, as a rabbit lover and rabbit rescue volunteer, I am writing to request you do not buy a rabbit for Easter!

If you are interested in having a rabbit, it should be for all the right reasons and not because of a holiday – and certainly not as a gift. Bunnies fill our animal shelters in the months following Easter. The unlucky ones get dumped outdoors to fend for themselves after families realize what is involved. They do not survive.

Rabbits are every bit as nice a pet as a family cat or dog and will live with you as a companion for eight to 10 years, if cared for properly. However, they are not low-maintenance starter pets, as some people assume. They have traditionally been kept in outdoor hutches or cages, and so it is no surprise that they are neglected without much thought. Rabbits are actually wonderful, sociable, skittish, demanding pets. They need a person to understand them and take them seriously!

First, rabbits need to live indoors. They will need a bunny-proofed area in your home to be free and exercise for at least four hours a day. Ideally, they will have a large exercise pen, bunny condo or bunny-proofed room in your home to call their own. They will have a litter box that is changed every couple of days and stocked with hay twice daily.

They will also receive a large leafy green salad of bunny-safe vegetables and fresh water. They need bunny toys to play with and chew on and lots of attention on their terms. They will need their nails clipped every few weeks and they will need to be brushed. They will also need an exotic pet vet, and you will want to have a separate fund or pet insurance, as exotic vets can be very expensive.

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Franny’s “Stella”!

Bunnies are very fragile prey animals that should never be picked up by a child. They don’t generally want to be picked up at all. If they do not get enough attention, they often do better with a bunny friend that they must gradually learn to trust in a process called “bunny-bonding.” This will not work with every pair of bunnies, since they are very particular about which bunny they can work things out with!🐰This can only happen after they are spayed or neutered – which is a necessary procedure to keep bunnies healthy and well behaved pets.

All bunnies should be spayed or neutered, and one way to avoid the $200 to $500 cost is to adopt a bunny!

Adoption is the very best way to bring a spayed or neutered rabbit into your home! You will be giving a bunny a home and at the same time perhaps become one less person perpetuating the bunny breeding business that causes the overpopulation of bunnies in the first place.

So if you are truly interested in having a bunny for the eight to 10 years they will live with you, absolutely do your homework first!!

Learn all you can about the care involved. Decide first if you have the time to dedicate to these wonderful, funny and spirited animals that need the same love and room to run around as any larger animal does.

Please understand that a bunny is not a novelty pet to be purchased as a seasonal holiday gift but rather a long-term commitment to be loved and cared for every day of their lives!

Animal Issues

Easter … another perspective

Parlee for Rosalie
Parlee Jones💗💗💗💗

By Parlee Jones

Peace, Worcester People!! I hope this issue of InCity Times finds you in the best of health – mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

When I was a child my mom made sure that my two sisters and I were greeted with gifts for every holiday!! Christmas presents! Easter baskets! Thanksgiving feasts! Fourth of July cookouts at the ocean! She did her best to make sure that we wanted for nothing. She also did this for our children, her grandchildren, until she passed away September 13, 2013.

Once my sisters and I grew up and started doing our own research, we took different paths ~ a Rasta, a Muslim and a 5%er – all ways of life that give an alternative view to the Anglo-Christian norms that are accepted in the United States and, basically, worldwide. Learning truth or where these “holy-days”/“holidays” originated is usually a part of gaining knowledge.

Countless Christians celebrate Easter Sunday as the day that Jesus Christ rose from the “dead,” which is written in the New Testament of the Bible. According to the Gospel of John in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb where Jesus was buried and found it empty. An angel told her that Jesus had risen.

Easter is Christianity’s most important holiday. It has been called a moveable feast because it doesn’t fall on a set date every year, as most holidays do.

As with many holidays, the new Christian religion had to include aspects of what is considered “pagan” holidays to make it easier to convert more people to Christianity. Christianity adopted the pagan Spring festival. … All things fun about Easter are pagan!

What do bunnies and eggs have to do with Easter? The egg is an ancient symbol of new life and has been associated with pagan festivals the world over celebrating spring since the beginning of time.

“In the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, with further symbolism being found in the hard shell of the egg symbolizing the sealed Tomb of Christ — the cracking of which symbolized his resurrection from the dead.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg.

Colored eggs, I’m quite sure, developed with amazing marketing for the masses. Bottom line, we know it’s about the dollar bills!

Well, what about the Easter Bunny?

Since ancient of days, bunnies have been associated with spring and rebirth. It is thought that the Goddess of Spring, Eostre, had a hare as her companion. The hare represents fertility and revival. Later Christians changed the symbol of the hare to the Easter Bunny.

According to some sources, the Easter Bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and transported their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws.” Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs.
-www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/easter-bunny-debunked-how_n_852187.html

Goddesses who celebrate Spring and Rebirth:

The goddess Ishtar is the East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and is the cognate for the Northwest Semitic Aramean goddess Astarte.

Ostara is a fertility goddess. Her annual arrival in spring is heralded by the flowering of trees and plants and the arrival of babies, both animal and human. She is also known as Eostre, the Germanic Goddess of Spring. Eggs and rabbits are sacred to her, as is the full moon, since the ancients saw in its markings the image of a rabbit or hare. She is also a dawn goddess and may be related to the Greek Goddess of the dawn, Eos.

Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the world and were celebrated in the spring time:

🌸Aphrodite from ancient Greece;

🌷Ashtoreth from ancient Israel;

🌺Asarte from ancient Greece;

🌹Demeter from Mycenae;

🌻Hathor from ancient Egypt;

🌼Ishtar from Assyria;

💐Kali from India;

🌷Ostara from Germanic culture.

Just a few interesting facts that make you go … hmmmm!

Thanks for listening with an open mind and heart! Peace and Blessings! And enjoy your holy-day!!!

Parlee and Athena 2
Parlee, at an Abby’s House event

InCity Voices

Stop and smell the posies!

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Violet everywhere!

By Edith Morgan

Easier said than done: just relax!
Why are we so harried, flurried? Why are so many of us unable to handle stress, day-to-day challenges and sometimes just plain changes?

Since we all face different challenges, there is no one answer. But at least we can get ourselves into the right frame of mind to begin tackling our problems:

First, let’s go outside on a starry night and contemplate the heavens. I think I remember hearing that when FDR felt overwhelmed with the problems of running this country he went out and looked at the great firmament with its infinite number of stars stretching farther and farther into space, and he realized how small and insignificant were his problems. So it is always a good thing to get things back into proper proportion: we are NOT the center of the universe and should have realized that at about age three, when everyone in our world no longer comes running when we set up a howl.

It was, of course, many years before we had a mature brain and could realize where our place is in the universe. Some people never do and spend their lives trying to demand the recognition they crave.

But for those of us who DO have a proper sense of proportion, a periodic re-appreciation of the power and beauty of this little planet helps us to relax and enjoy.

We in New England are blessed: four dramatically different seasons, with great variations within each. Have you ever noticed that a great silence falls over the outdoors when it snows? I’m sure there is a scientific explanation for the quietness that descends on all – and the sudden cleanliness and purity of our often trashed and dirty streets and yards. But it is nature’s way of signaling a rest; animals go into their burrows or nests, some hibernate, others migrate. Human “snowbirds” head for Florida – and the rest of us shovel, bundle up, etc. Time and again, Mother Nature has showed us who is boss, and if we are wise, we go along.

Too many in our culture think it is their duty to “master Nature,” and they are reminded every so often who is boss: an occasional blizzard, hurricane, tornado or earthquake is usually enough to inculcate respect in most of us.

Maybe we should heed the message and relax, reflect, reinvigorate this spring … . All those seed pods that dropped at random from ripened trees and shrubs are open and wind, squirrels, birds and bugs have taken them to places I had not planned – so there will be surprises for me …

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So, ease up, spring has arrived!

Animal Issues

See wildlife! Bike Worcester! And Worcester County!

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My little coy-dog! Love this pic! – R.T.

SEVEN HILLS WHEELMEN
APRIL 2016 CALENDAR
www.sevenhillswheelmen.org

Seven Hills Wheelmen
SATURDAYS, April 2, 16, 23
BICYCLE RIDE
Meet at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 2, April 16, April 23, at Long Pond boat
ramp, Route 122 and 122A, Rutland, Mass., for a 40-mile bicycle ride
with the Seven Hills Wheelmen. Helmets are required. For more
information, call (508) 831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
SUNDAY, April 3
BICYCLE RIDE
Meet at 10 a.m. Sunday, April 3, at Long Pond boat ramp, Route 122 and
122A, Rutland, Mass., for a 25-mile bicycle ride with the Seven Hills
Wheelmen. Helmets are required. For more information, call (508)
831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
SUNDAYS, April 10, 17, 24
BICYCLE RIDE
Meet at 10 a.m. Sunday, April 10, April 17, April 24, at Dudley District
Court, Route 197 and Lyons Road, Dudley, Mass., for a 24-mile bicycle
ride with the Seven Hills Wheelmen. Helmets are required. For more
information, call (508) 831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
SUNDAYS, April 10, 17, 24
BICYCLE RIDE
Meet Sunday, April 10, April 17, April 24, at Cake Shop Cafe, 22A West
St., Millbury, Mass., for bicycle rides with the Seven Hills Wheelmen
and Worcester County Women’s Cycling. Earlybird rides of 25-30 miles at
a moderate pace depart at 7:00 a.m. sharp and return by 9:00. Two other
ride options start at 9:00 a.m.: a casual ride of 12-15 miles, and a
longer ride, about 40 miles, at a faster pace. Helmets are required. For
more information, call (508) 831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
SATURDAY, April 16
BICYCLE RIDE
Meet at 1:00 p.m. at River’s Edge Park, Davison Avenue, Woonsocket,
R.I., for a 22-mile bicycle ride on the Blackstone River Bikeway, to
Cumberland and back, with the Seven Hills Wheelmen. The bikeway is flat,
paved, and separate from automobile roads. Helmets are required. For
more information, call (508) 831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
MONDAY NIGHT BICYCLE RIDES (WORCESTER)
Meet at 6:00 p.m. Mondays at Barney’s Bicycle, 582 Park Ave., Worcester,
Mass., starting March 14, for a 15-mile bicycle ride around Holden
Reservoir with the Seven Hills Wheelmen. Helmets are required. For more
information, call (508) 831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2016
BICYCLE RIDE
Meet at 1:00 p.m. Saturday, April 16, at River’s Edge Park, Davison
Avenue, Woonsocket, R.I., for a 22-mile bicycle ride with the Seven
Hills Wheelmen on the Blackstone River Bikeway, to Cumberland, R.I., and
back. Helmets are required. RSVP to jadehill3@verizon.net. For more
information, call (508) 831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
Selected Saturdays or Sundays
EASY C RIDER: EASY-PACED BICYCLE RIDES
Seven Hills Wheelmen has moderately paced bicycle rides, typically 15 to
35 miles, on relatively gentle terrain, on selected Saturdays and
Sundays in the Worcester area. We don’t go looking for hills! Helmets
are required. Starting times and locations are posted each week at
www.easycrider.com. RSVP to Dick Goodman at leader@easycrider.com.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
WEDNESDAY MORNING BICYCLE RIDES (BARRE) — starting April 27, 2016
Meet at 10:00 a.m. Wednesdays, starting April 27, at Listening Wellness
Center, 35 South St., Barre, for a 15- to 30-mile bicycle ride with the
Seven Hills Wheelmen. Helmets are required. For more information, call
(508) 831-0301 or visit www.sevenhillswheelmen.org
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Seven Hills Wheelmen
WEDNESDAY NIGHT BICYCLE RIDES (WEST BOYLSTON)
Meet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays, starting March 16, at the Old Stone
Church, Route 12 and Beaman Street, West Boylston, for a “Show ‘n’ Go”
bicycle ride (no leader) with the Seven Hills Wheelmen. Faster riders
will start at 5:30, and a second group at 6:00. Helmets are required.
For more information, call (508) 831-0301 or visit
www.sevenhillswheelmen.org
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
SEVEN HILLS WHEELMEN
KING’S TOUR OF THE QUABBIN
June 12, 2016
Rutland, Mass.

King’s Tour of the Quabbin: Bicycle 62, 100 or 125 hilly miles on paved
roads around the Quabbin Reservoir on Sunday, June 12, 2016, with the
Seven Hills Wheelmen. The start/finish is at Naquag Elementary School,
285 Main St. (Route 122A), Rutland, Mass. Entry fees are $15-$30. This
is not a race. Helmets are required. For details and registration, go to
www.sevenhillswheelmen.org/centuries.htm

Animal Issues

Edith is parked in A.I! … Spring approaches …

By Edith Morgan

Didn’t last week invigorate us all? The wild gyrations of the temperature kept us all on our toes, and we had a great topic for small talk, as speculation as to what weather we might have next fills in the blank spaces in conversation.

But there is plenty else to discuss: Worcester is in for some more great changes, in addition to all the new buildings, streets, trails, park improvements, plantings and other projects taking place in all parts of our city.

Two great decisions face us: the selection of a new superintendent of our schools and replacing Steve O’Neill, former head of the WRTA. Even if we do not have children in school and do not  use public transportation, the domains of these two critical institutions in our city touch us all, even if indirectly.

And of course there is the primary election on March 1 – and preparing for “the BIG ONE” – the presidential election in November.  All these decisions are “heavy duty” stuff – requiring deep thought and research, and we will need some relief from these heavy duties.

So, let’s think SPRING!
 
I know: spring is really three months or more away, but so much of the pleasure of enjoying it lies in anticipation! Looking forward to that first crocus pushing up through the ground and going out at the first sign of warmth to see if anything else has survived the winter.

During the cold months, I have been in the habit of pushing seeds and bulbs into the ground around my houseplants, quickly forgetting what I buried where.  So, about this time of year, shoots are raising their heads, in unexpected places, enjoying the warmth and increasing amount of sunshine indoors as the days grow slowly longer. And every time we eat an avocado, I save the great oblong pit and in a fit of eternal optimism save it and try to get it to propagate. Avocado pits are very deceptive: They will remain dormant for months and then suddenly develop a root first, split and send out a straight shoot into the air, very quickly. And turning into an impressive sapling in what seems like no time at all.

This is also the time when all the catalogs arrive, and even though I am on a 70 X 70 foot lot, mostly occupied by my house, I still start out with high hopes every spring and try to whittle away at the grass more and more each year to make room for gardening. 

The catalogs are crammed full of eye-dazzling photos and mouth-watering pictures and ideas for growing things in so many ways, there is scarcely any home that cannot accommodate SOME kind of growing thing.
 
Remember the “Victory Gardens” of World War II? It was patriotic to grow things in every nook and cranny and almost every American tried some kind of gardening. Would this not be a great time to bring back that idea?  The Regional Environmental Council (REC) does such a great job of helping Worcester neighborhoods. REC staff and volunteers teach young people to grow, plant and produce their own food. We should all help and follow their example.

InCity Voices

Here come the catalogs I love! Cheers to the still green peas!

By Edith Morgan

For the first time this winter, we have a bit of snow on the ground, with some ice beneath. Luckily, the schools are still out until after the New Year, and so the slippery sleet on the roads and sidewalks is not a danger to buses and cars  – at least not for the school children, and also not for college students, who are on their winter break, too.

But for those of us who are at home much of the day when the weather gets nasty, the ice and snow are a worry. So we stay in, and wait …

The mail arrives and brings its usual load of “begging” letters,  replete with address stickers, calendars, and all manner of appeals – all designed to pull money out of our pockets. I would have to spend a great deal of time checking out all these apparently worthy causes, with many having names so similar that it is easy to get fooled. So I have started to give directly and locally, to outfits I know, or to organizations that I know really well, and who have a track record of spending the funds I donate directly to their causes, without huge administrative costs and high-paid staffs. 

But intermingled now with all this mail that I usually toss out, the gardening catalogs have begun to arrive!

And with the early coming of night still, just days after the winter solstice, these seed and plant catalogs give me a boost and let me look forward to the coming of spring. (I am told that the very mild winter so far has caused some plants to become confused and to begin sprouting in the middle of winter.)

The seed catalogs are a joy to behold: so many mouth-watering vegetables in full color – pages of bright red and even yellow tomatoes, in all sizes and of varied pedigrees!! And I can get them in various stages of development, too! Further on, peppers too come in so many shapes, sizes and colors – not just the familiar green, but  yellow, orange, and all shades in between.

Not to be outdone, potatoes also take many shapes and colors now,  and last but not least, onions and their many relatives fill more pages with their infinite variety.

Beans too have branched out, into the yellows and purples, but the lowly pea has stayed true to its nature and remained bright green, though of various sizes. Lettuce still is dominated by greens, but sports an infinite variety of leaf shapes.

I have not even gotten to the cucumbers, squashes, carrots, beets and other  less frequently planted vegetables.

But just looking over this mouth-watering assortment is enough to take my mind off the weather outside and to realize that once again, the old saying that ”if winter comes, can spring be far behind?” is still true.

Maybe soon I can start to think about the flowers I want to raise in my back yard …

But for now, we can all watch the snow fall and dream of our gardens, as we would like them to be … soon.

InCity Voices

Springtime … new beginnings for Green Hill Park … and humankind?

By Edith Morgan

On March 20th, the calendar said that spring begins in these parts and, after a winter to remember, we watched as the mountains of snow slowly melted down;  again the roads were wide enough for two cars to pass, the pavement showed gray and black and passable, crews were out filling in the cracks and potholes left by the winter.

I live two houses down from Green Hill Park, and for over two weeks I heard the roar of heavy equipment: sawing and chipping and hauling away the wooded cover on the hill, leaving a few skinny trees, with daylight filtering through where before there was dense forest growth.

Muddy ruts and stumps mark the hillside, making the area look like a war zone.

But I have lived near the park long enough to know that Mother Nature is not so easily stopped.

While the habitat of this generation’s wildlife (the voles, skunks, squirrels, coyotes, wild turkeys – myriad other animals, small and large) have lost their homes and their cover, in two or three decades, the devastated hillsides will once again sport trees.

The old meadow on Denmark Street where we picked wild blueberries and strawberries so long ago, which was overrun by trees, is now once again nearly bare. But spring is here, and nature abhors a vacuum and will soon replant itself. Hopefully, the birds and wildlife will return, as they have so many time before, despite human depredations. And so, I am hopeful, and will go out and look for signs of life when the last snow is gone and the mud dries.

This is the season of spring holidays. We celebrate Passover and Easter at this time: both are festivals of new beginnings, celebrating the coming of the new and hopefully better beginnings for humans, at a time when nature is also coming back to life all around us.

Worcester does a big cleanup called Earth Day on Saturday, April 18!

Spring housecleaning is a yearly ritual. Jews clean for Passover, remove leavened foods, change to special dishes and, in a great many ways, remember and celebrate the exodus from slavery in Egypt three millennia ago by recalling the suffering of those days and celebrating the ultimate arrival in the promised land.

Christians celebrate the return of Jesus risen from the grave, and everywhere are seen the symbols of rebirth – the eggs, the flowers, chicks and bunnies for the children, and a spirit of renewal and hope pervades us all.

But as I look around our country, our world, I see too many people still mired in the winter of war, poverty, hatred and fear. Too many are still enslaved by their addictions, their hatreds and their irrationalities. How great it would be if this season of hope and appreciation for what we have could spread like a great contagion and envelop our world. Could the dove of peace have a chance to survive the constant assault of the hawks, eagles and vultures filling our skies?

I wish all our InCity Times readers joyous beginnings at this time! Happy Passover and Happy Easter to all!