Happy Leap Day! But why?

 Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except for February alone:
It has twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

The first part of this poem is one that I recite every time I need to remember how many days are in a regular month; thirty or thirty-one. It's easy to remember February, even without the poem (which is good cause I actually needed to combine a couple traditional versions to make this one rhyme), because it's so unique.

Except it does prompt the question, "Why does February have fewer days than the rest? And why does it get an extra day every four years?"  For that, we need to look at the rest of the calendar, and a little bit of its history.

Portland Peppers - Perfect Pick!

Indoor planting season is upon us! Shannon, our sultana of the seed library, was kind enough to inform me that it's the perfect time of year to start a popular produce pick - peppers!

Even the seed packets look tasty!

Starting seeds indoors is easy! Or at least, so I'm told. I did not inherit my mother's green thumb, so I look to the experts, instead. But here's what they have to say!

1. Give yourself time.  Check your local weather service, gardening co-op, etc. to find out the last expected frost date for your area. Count backwards from there to find out the best time to start your seeds: it can take between 3 to 15 weeks for your seedlings to grow big and robust enough to replant outside.

2. Prepare your containers. Seeds can be planted in any shallow container that's about 2½ to 3 inches deep, with drainage holes (we don't wanna drown the poor darlings). They make special containers you can get in the gardening section, but you can make your own if you get creative.

3. Provide nutritious soil and sunlight. There are soil mixes you can buy that have extra nutrients added for starting seeds. As for sunlight, you want to set them in a location that stays between 65 to 75 degrees, with between 12-14 hours of light a day. If they don't get enough light, they could become "leggy" (tall and spindly without many leaves).

4. Ready your plants to go outside. Move them into a shady spot outside for a few days, then move them into a sunny spot a few hours each day. If the risk of frost has past, you can plant them outside after one or two weeks. (Don't rush!)

If you're interested in giving your seeds a head start, take a look at these articles for more information:

• https://www.countryliving.com/gardening/garden-ideas/a30753842/how-to-start-seeds/ (Similar info to what I put above, but with more detailed info);
• https://www.almanac.com/content/starting-seeds-indoors (Less detailed instructions, but with a great list of seeds that can/should be started inside).

As for seeds, well, come on in and check out our seed library to get things started!

What are you looking forward to planting this spring?  Do you have a green thumb, or do you leave the gardening to others?

Let me know in the comments!

Be Mine... or Actually, Don't

Valentine's Day is the season of love, they say. I'm sure everyone's seen the Valentine's Day hearts, chocolates, cards, etc. on display at our local stores for the past couple of months. I thought Christmas creep (you know, Christmas sales that start in September?) was bad enough, but I saw the Valentine's Day themed snack cakes go up for sale on December 18th...

So maybe, just maybe, these prolonged holiday sales seasons are diminishing a bit from the sentimental value of the holiday. And if you're not big on sentimentality or commercialism, then the holiday as a whole probably starts to stick in your craw a bit.

Enter the uniquely and quintessentially Victorian-era phenomenon: the vinegar Valentine.

This Valentine, for example, describing the recipient's smile as ridiculous in the eyes of the sender.
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)

According to Annebella Pollen in her paper, ‘”The Valentine has fallen upon evil days”: Mocking Victorian valentines and the ambivalent laughter of the carnivalesque’:

Mocking valentines covered a vast range of ‘types’ and could be sent to neighbours, colleagues and members of the local community as well as to wanting and unwanted partners. Each was designed to highlight a particular social ill, from poor manners and hygiene to pretentiousness and alcoholism, sometimes with astonishing cruelty.
(from Abstract)

Pollen goes on to explain the ways that these cards, in the context of the socially permissive atmosphere around Valentine's Day, often used very pointed humor as a means of social control.

Imagine how mad you must be at someone to go to the effort of buying a card specifically to shame or insult them! It's no wonder that not many of these have survived to be seen today - if I received such a card, I certainly don't think I'd be saving it to remember later.

I'm not sure that "he likes me" is the typical takeaway from these sorts of Valentines...
(Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson )

Of course, to those who have no love for Valentine's Day, or at least no one special to share love with, such cards might be a novel and amusing concept. And who knows? Maybe not everyone looked at them as pointed insults, but rather playful jabs to be shared between family and loved ones. Think less of bullying and more of playful banter.

In any case, it's equal parts funny and reassuring to see that, even in the days before Facebook, YouTube, and other online forums, people have always left mean, anonymous comments, and somehow we've all managed to keep moving forward.

What do you think? Are vinegar Valentine's a fun way to poke fun at your friends, or just plain mean? Should Hallmark come out with a "vinegar" line of greeting cards? What other unconventional things do you think we should do on Valentine's Day?

Let me know in the comments!

(If you would like to know more, here is the bibliography for the research paper I referenced earlier:

Annebella Pollen (2014) ‘The Valentine has fallen upon evil days’: Mocking Victorian valentines and the ambivalent laughter of the carnivalesque, Early Popular Visual Culture, 12:2, 127-173, DOI: 10.1080/17460654.2014.924212
Citation copied from publisher.
Regrettably, PDL is not currently able to make the full text of this article available to patrons.

However, you can also find additional information on Wikipedia, which also cites the same article, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_valentines )

Library Updates for 2024

 Hello again to our beloved patrons, and if I haven't seen you yet, happy new year!

We're most of the way through January already.  2023 already feels like a long time ago, doesn't it?  And yet I swear it was just 2010...

At any rate, while things have been quiet on this blog, they have been quite busy behind the scenes here at PDL!  Patrons and staff have both been enjoying the Winter Reading Program - we've given out plenty of warm beanie-style hats (with our iconic PDL logo!) to adults who have finished their reading, and the Youth Department has been having fun with their weekly prize drawings.  There's still one left, being drawn on January 29th, so you still have time to get the kids' tickets in!

Of course, as will all good things, the program must come to an end.  We will no longer accept tracking tickets after 2:00 pm on Saturday, February 3rd.  We still have a bit over a week until then, so get reading if you want your chance to win a grand prize drawing!

We've also been hard at work deciding and designing programs for our upcoming Spring calendar, which will be made available on March 1st.  (That's a day later than usual because of Leap Year - I hope we can all wait that long!)  I, for one, am very excited to see what our creative staff has come up with for our patrons to enjoy.  Maybe I'll even try and sneak a peak at the schedule and share what I find out...

And as always, our book collection has been receiving some much needed attention.  I'm sure many patrons have noticed our shelves in the adult fiction collection - some of them stuffed full to bursting, while others have been emptied considerably.  What's that all about?

Well, our intrepid director Cory has been hard at work weeding our collection to make sure there is ample room for everyone to find exactly what they need.  It's a bit of a tough process, but a necessary one - as I learn more, I plan to take all our readers on a tour of this aspect of caring for our collection!

Of course, we might end up removing some favorites from the shelves, but never fear - those that are still in good shape will make their way into our used book room, which our resident Bookworm has been toiling to make better than ever.  If you haven't been down there recently, I encourage you to check it out.  There are plenty of old favorites and hidden gems down there that would love a spot in your own home library!

I think that's all I have time to report on at the moment.  I'll keep an ear to the ground and my eyes between the stacks to bring you even more behind-the-scenes glimpses into our library and the services we offer!

What would you like to know more about our library?  Is there anything coming up or that we've done in the past that you'd like to share?

Leave a message in the comments!  We'd love to hear from you!