The original form of the proverb many a mickle makes a muckle (chiefly Northern England, Scotland) was many a little (or pickle) makes a mickle, mickle meaning “a great amount”.  However, it became corrupted to many a mickle makes a muckle, leading to mickle being thought to mean “a small quantity” and muckle to mean “a large quantity”, even though muckle is a variant of mickle and both mean “a large quantity”.  A lot of small amounts, put together, become a large amount. [from 1793] quotations ▼  Synonyms:  every little helps, little and often fills the purse, many a little makes a mickle, many a pickle makes a mickle, take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/many_a_mickle_makes_a_muckle#English 

February 17, 2022  While traveling through parts of North Africa and the Middle East 20-plus years ago, I experienced a moment of dread well known to travelers through the ages:  Just a few weeks into the trip, which would last nearly seven months, I finished the two books I had brought with me.  At the time, I was taking Arabic classes and renting a room from a man in Giza, Egypt.  Perusing his sparsely stocked bookshelf, I noticed an old hard-bound edition of T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”  “Take it, take it,” he insisted.  A foreign friend had left it behind, he said, and it was of no use to him; although he spoke English fluently, he couldn’t read it at all.  Among the many things that struck me about this remarkable work were Lawrence’s descriptions of Wadi Rum, in Jordan.  He wrote of a wall of rock “sheering in like a thousand-foot wave towards the middle of the valley,” of sharp hills forming a “massive rampart of redness,” of sandstone domes and crags and “parallel parapets” that “ran forward in an avenue for miles.”  It was, he declared, an “irresistible place,” a “processional way greater than imagination . . .  Our little caravan grew self-conscious, and fell dead quiet, afraid and ashamed to flaunt its smallness in the presence of the stupendous hills.  Landscapes, in childhood’s dream, were so vast and silent.”  Though I had no plans to visit Jordan, mostly because I had very few plans at all, I knew I needed to see this place for myself.  After traveling through most of Egypt, I crossed the Sinai Peninsula by public minivan, then the Red Sea by ferry.  Once in Wadi Rum, a 4x4 driver dropped me in the middle of the desert that Lawrence had, if anything, undersold.  Armed with a map, some local advice and my background as a wilderness guide, I spent a week trekking alone over salmon-hued dunes and among monumental massifs, from one hidden watering hole to the next, until I made it back to the main village.  Immersing myself in this fantastical landscape and sharing tea and food with the Bedouin I met there were among the most meaningful and formative of my early traveling experiences, fueling a desire and laying the mental infrastructure for future expeditions on foot—and by camel—in remote places.  And I only found my way there because I had run out of reading material.  Michael Benanav  Read more and see many pictures at https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/02/17/physical-books-travel/ 

Nothing bonds friends more than partaking in a common dish.  *  . . . two intimate friends might suffer bouts of discord in counterbalance to the good cheer they normally enjoy.  *  The crowd was murmuring now, a few ayes and that’s sos, humming like stirred bees.  *  In League With Sherlock Holmes—Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon 

“Every hut in our beloved country is on the edge.” Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry by Boris Khersonsky

What can I say today for my native Ukraine?
What can I say today for myself?
Soul, you are like instant decaf,
that leaves no coffee grounds, dissolved in an abyss.
And the abyss says, I won’t forgive you
not for your jokes, your grief, your indignation.
Because I look at you, but I can’t see you,
and your life is like an electric current.  translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk  Literary Hub  March 11, 2022 

A St. Patrick's Day favorite, colcannon is an Irish potato recipe, a mixture of creamy mashed potatoes and usually kale or cabbage.  Not surprisingly the Irish have all sorts of ways of cooking potatoes, with festive names like champ, bruisy, pandy, and boxty.  For a variation, sub out half of the potatoes with parsnips.  You can add chives, leeks, or bacon too.  Elise Bauer  Find recipe plus link to other Irish recipes including Chocolate Guinness Brownies at https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/colcannon/ 

The Statue of Freedom  The crowning feature of the Dome of the U.S. Capitol stands 19 feet 6 inches tall and weighs approximately 15,000 pounds.  A monumental statue for the top of the national Capitol was part of Architect Thomas U. Walter's original design for a new cast-iron dome, which was authorized by Congress in 1855.  Crawford executed the full-size clay model in his studio in Rome.  It was then cast in plaster in five major sections.  He died suddenly in 1857 before the model left his studio, and his widow shipped the model, packed into six crates, in a small sailing vessel in the spring of 1858.  During the voyage the ship began to leak and stopped in Gibraltar for repairs.  After leaving Gibraltar, the ship began leaking again to the point that it could go no farther than Bermuda, where the crates were left in storage until other transportation could be arranged.  Half of the crates arrived in New York in December, but all sections were not in Washington until late March 1859.  Beginning in 1860, the statue was cast in five main sections by Clark Mills, whose bronze foundry was located on the outskirts of Washington.  Work was halted in 1861 because of the Civil War, but by the end of 1862, with the help of the slave Philip Reid, the statue was finished and temporarily displayed on the Capitol Grounds.  The cost of the statue, exclusive of installation, was $23,796.82.  Late in 1863, construction of the dome was sufficiently advanced for the installation of the statue, which was hoisted in sections and assembled atop the cast-iron pedestal.  The final section, the figure's head and shoulders, was raised on December 2, 1863, to a salute of 35 guns answered by the guns of the 12 forts around Washington.  See graphics at https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/statue-freedom 

The Senate passed a bill March 15, 2022 that would make daylight saving time permanent across the U.S. beginning in 2023.  The so-called Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 was approved by unanimous consent, but would still require House approval and President Biden's signature to become law.  Joe Hernandez  https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086773840/daylight-saving-time-permanent-senate 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2508  March 16, 2022