The Tornado Tavern Gallery is freezing; things will warm up soon - DON’T LISTEN to that silly groundhog!

OK, WOW isn’t this weather something? The Tornado Tavern Gallery sits on the Niagara Escarpment, so we almost always have a good wind. In the summer it’s a little cooler and in the winter it blows a lot of the snow into the farmer’s field. We usually end up with a couple of drifts and not so much snow.

We had a good time “down south” in Green Bay (WI) last weekend. We took our “nearby grand kids” down to the Neville Public Museum to see the Permian Monsters; Life Before Dinosaurs exhibit. We liked the exhibit and the kids really liked the life size motorized models. They were close enough to touch them. Then we took in a little festival nearby with ice sculpting and horse drawn wagon rides. The kids had to have some hot chocolate and some “s’mores” too. The kids stayed the night and we put them to sleep with the latest Transformer movie. All in all it was a good weekend and the parents were very grateful for the break.

We have our first show of the season coming up this coming weekend and I’ll be packing the van tomorrow. The show is sponsored by the Wolf River Art League and they call it The Mid-Winter Art Show. This year they moved the show to the Crystal Falls Banquet Facility on the North side of New London. This is a new site for them and they are very excited about the move. We will be demonstrating as well as vending. Mary will be spinning with a number of her friends and I'll be knapping a few points. Mary will be bringing her socks, shawls and her dyed scarves; I’ll bring my wrapped glass, figurines mounted on various stone and probably a small selection of polished stone. The show is a good time and I understand that the art show has over 150 good art entries.

I found some interesting holidays and historical events for the historical part of the blog so check it out and consider why I chose them.

2/5/1631	Roger Williams arrives in America	Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island and an important American religious leader, arrives in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England. Williams, a Puritan, worked as a teacher before serving briefly as a colorful pastor at Plymouth and then at Salem. Within a few years of his arrival, he alarmed the Puritan oligarchy of Massachusetts by speaking out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Indian land. In October 1635, he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court.
2/7/1964	The Beatles arrive on American shores	Shortly after the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" the Beatles arrived to a reception of about four thousand fans. Their arrival started the British invasion.
2/8/1846	The Boy Scouts of America is founded	3 years earlier, British General Robert Baden-Powell had founded the Scout movement in England.
2/9/1846	Mormons begin exodus to Utah	Their leader, Brigham Young, assassinated and their homes under attack, the Mormons of Nauvoo, Illinois, begin a long westward migration that eventually brings them to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
2/9/1950	McCarthy accuses State Department of communist infiltration	Joseph Raymond McCarthy, a relatively obscure Republican senator from Wisconsin, announces during a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that he has in his hand a list of 205 communists who have infiltrated the U.S. State Department. The unsubstantiated declaration, which was little more than a publicity stunt, suddenly thrust Senator McCarthy into the national spotlight.
2/10/1763	The Treaty of Paris is signed	The Treaty of Paris ends the French & Indian War or the Seven Years War in North America. The Seven Years War is seen as the first worlds’ war by many and was also called the War of Conquest (La Guerre de la Conquete).
2/11/1809	Robert Fulton patents the steamboat	Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was an Americanengineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing a commercially successful steamboat called The North River Steamboat of Clermonts. That steamboat went with passengers from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of 300 miles, in 62 hours in 1807.
2/11/1916	Birth control pioneer arrested	Emma Goldman, a crusader for women’s rights and social justice, is arrested in New York City for lecturing and distributing materials about birth control. She was accused of violating the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it a federal offense to disseminate contraceptive devices and information through the mail or across state lines.
2/13/1692	Massacre of Glencoe	In the Glen Coe highlands of Scotland, thirty-eight members of the MacDonald clan are murdered by soldiers of the neighboring Campbell clan for not pledging allegiance to William of Orange. Ironically the pledge had been made but not communicated to the clans. The event is remembered as the Massacre of Glencoe.
2/18/1688	Quakers adopt antislavery resolution	Quakers in Germantown, PA adopt the first formal antislavery resolution in America. This resolution did not extend to all Quakers. Some Quakers in North America and Great Britain became well known for their involvement in the abolition of slavery. However, prior to the American Revolution, it was fairly common for Friends in British America to own slaves. During the early to mid-1700s a disquiet about this practice arose among Friends, best exemplified by the testimonies of Anthony Benezet and John Woolman, and this resulted in an abolition movement among Friends. By the time of the American Revolution few Friends owned slaves. At the end of the war in 1783, Yarnall family members along with fellow Meeting House Friends petitioned the Continental Congress to abolish slavery. This petition preceded the 13th Amendment in 1865 by nearly eighty years. In 1790, the Society of Friends petitioned the United States Congress as the first organization to take a collective stand against slavery and the slave trade.
2/18/1930	Pluto, the ninth planet in our solar system, is discovered,	Pluto, the ninth planet in the solar system, was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. Pluto, in astronomy, a dwarf planet and the first Kuiper belt, or transneptunian, object (see comet ) to be discovered (1930) by astronomers. Pluto has an elliptical orbit usually lying beyond that of Neptune. Although Pluto was long regarded as a planet, following the discovery (beginning in 1992) of other Kuiper belt objects, including one with a diameter larger than that of Pluto, astronomers considered reclassifying Pluto, and in 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) ended official recognition of Pluto as a planet.
2/4/1945	Bob Marley is born	Jamaican/American singer-songwriter, guitarist - Bob Marley was born 6 February 1945 on the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, to Norval Sinclair Marley (1885–1955) and Cedella Booker (1926–2008).Norval Marley was a white Jamaican originally from Sussex, England, whose family claimed Syrian Jewishorigins.Marley blended mostly reggae, ska and rocksteady in his compositions. Starting out in 1963 with the group the Wailers, he forged a distinctive songwriting and vocal style that would later resonate with audiences worldwide. The Wailers would go on to release some of the earliest reggae records with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry.
2/7/1477	Sir Thomas More is born	English statesman, social philosopher and writer; famous for Utopia. A noted Renaissance humanist, councillor to Henry VIII. Lord High Chancellor of England. Later executed for refusing to accept Henry VIII as the head of the church.
2/7/1812	Charles Dickens is born	Prolific English novelist; his stories reflected life in Victorian England. Some of his more famous works include Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities.
2/9/1942	Carole King is born	Carole King (born Carol Joan Klein, February 9, 1942) is an American composer and singer-songwriter. She is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the USA, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1955 and 1999. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1952 and 2005
2/12/1809	Abraham Lincoln is born	Abraham Lincoln was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the western frontier in Kentucky and Indiana. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he served for eight years. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy and opposed the Mexican–American War. After a single term, he returned to Illinois and resumed his successful law practice. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, which had a statewide majority in Illinois. As part of the 1858 campaign for US Senator from Illinois, Lincoln took part in a series of highly publicized debates with his opponent and rival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas; Lincoln spoke out against the expansion of slavery, but lost the race to Douglas. In 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state, though most delegates originally favored other candidates. Though he gained very little support in the slaveholding states of the South, he swept the North and was elected president in 1860.
2/14/1564	Galileo Galilei is born	Galileo Galilei (Italian: [ɡaliˈlɛːoɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italianpolymath. Galileo is a central figure in the transition from natural philosophy to modern science and in the transformation of the scientific Renaissance into a scientific revolution. Galileo's championing of heliocentrism and Copernicanism was controversial during his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism because of the absence of an observed stellar parallax. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture."
2/15/1882	John Barrymore is born	John Sidney Blyth - American actor, "greatest living American tragedian". He was sibling to actors Lionel Barrymore & Ethel Barrymore, father of actors John Drew Barrymore & Diana Barrymore and grandfather of actor Drew Barrymore
2/8/1587	Mary Queen of Scots beheaded	Mary Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart), 1542–87, only child of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise . Through her grandmother Margaret Tudor , Mary had the strongest claim to the throne of England after the children of Henry VIII. This claim (and her Roman Catholicism) made Mary a threat to Elizabeth I of England, who finally had her executed. However, Mary's son, James VI of Scotland, succeeded Elizabeth to the English throne as James I . Mary's reported beauty and charm and her undoubted courage have made her a particularly romantic figure in history. She is the subject of Schiller's great drama Maria Stuart, of an opera by Donizetti, and of plays by Vittorio Alfieri, A. C. Swinburne, and Maxwell Anderson.
2/9/1981	Bill Haley died	William John Clifton Haley - Bill Haley and the Comets. An American singer-songwriter, musician credited by many with first popularizing rock and roll music in the early 1950's.
2/9/2018	Eyvind Kinnrif's Day	Eyvind Kinnrif`s Day, February 9, day of remembering the death of Eyvind Kinnrif. Kinnrif was known as a important sorcerer of his time. Kinnrif was tortured and killed by Olaf Tryggvason because he would not agree to be baptized a Christian. His death was around the year AD 997.
2/13/1662	Elizabeth Stuart died	Elizabeth Stuart (19 August 1596 – 13 February 1662) was Electress of the Palatinate and briefly Queen of Bohemia as the wife of Frederick V of the Palatinate. Due to her husband’s reign in Bohemia lasting for just one winter, Elizabeth is often referred to as The Winter Queen. Elizabeth was the second child and eldest daughter of James VI and I, King of Scotland, England, and Ireland, and his wife, Anne of Denmark. If the Gunpowder plot had succeeded then she would have been Queen in 1605. With the demise of the Stuart dynasty in 1714, Elizabeth's grandson succeeded to the British throne as George I of Great Britain, initiating the Hanover line of succession. The reigning British monarch, Elizabeth II, is Elizabeth Stuart's direct descendant of the 10th and 11th generation through different paths. In 1660, the Stuarts were restored to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland in the person of Elizabeth's nephew Charles II. Elizabeth, now determined to visit her native land, arrived in England on 26 May 1661. By July, she was no longer planning on returning to the Hague and made plans for the remainder of her furniture, clothing, and other property to be sent to her. She then proceeded to move to Drury House, where she established a small, but impressive and welcoming, household. On 29 January 1662 she made another move, to Leicester House, but by this time she was quite ill. Elizabeth was suffering from pneumonia, and on 10 February 1662 she hemorrhaged from the lungs and died soon after midnight on 13 February 1662.
2/13/1964	Gerald Brosseau Gardner died	Gerald Brosseau Gardner (Scire`) - (June 13, 1884 - February 13, 1964) Gardner was a British civil servant, amateur anthropologist, writer, and occultist who published some of the definitive texts for modern Wicca. Among his many accomplishments he founded the Gardnerian tradition of Wicca. Combining the New Forest coven’s rituals, Freemasonry’s ceremonial magic and the writings of Aleister Crowley.
2/14/278	St. Valentine beheaded	On February 14around the year 278A.D., Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed. Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families. To get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.
2/17/1909	Geronimo dies	Geronimo (Mescalero-Chiricahua: Goyaałé[kòjàːɬɛ́] "the one who yawns"; June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the ChiricahuaApache tribe. From 1850 to 1886 Geronimo joined with members of three other Chiricahua Apache bands—the Tchihende, the Tsokanende and the Nednhi—to carry out numerous raids as well as resistance to US and Mexican military campaigns in the northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and Sonora, and in the southwestern American territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Geronimo's raids and related combat actions were a part of the prolonged period of the Apache–United States conflict, which started with American settlement in Apache lands following the end of the war with Mexico in 1848. In February 1909, Geronimo was thrown from his horse while riding home, and had to lie in the cold all night before a friend found him extremely ill. He died of pneumonia on February 17, 1909, as a prisoner of the United States at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
2/18/1564	Michelangelo died	Michelangelo di LodovicoBuonarrotiSimoni or more commonly known by his first name Michelangelo (/ˌmaɪkəlˈændʒəloʊ/; Italian: [mikeˈlandʒelo di lodoˈviːko ˌbwɔnarˈrɔːtisiˈmoːni]; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance born in the Republic of Florence, who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since been described as one of the greatest artists of all time. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his artistic versatility was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow FlorentineMedici client, Leonardo da Vinci. Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564, at the age of 88 (three weeks before his 89th birthday). His body was taken from Rome for interment at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the maestro's last request to be buried in his beloved Florence.
2/13/1633	Galileo in Rome for Inquisition	On this day in 1633, Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei arrives in Rometo face charges of heresy for advocating Copernican theory, which holds that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Galileo officially faced the Roman Inquisition in April of that same year and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Put under house arrest indefinitely by Pope Urban VIII, Galileo spent the rest of his days at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, before dying on January 8, 1642
2/13/1689	William and Mary proclaimed joint sovereigns of Britain	Following Britain’s bloodless Glorious Revolution, Mary, the daughter of the deposed king, and William of Orange, her husband, are proclaimed joint sovereigns of Great Britain under Britain’s new Bill of Rights.
2/17/1906	The first "Trial of the Century"	Union leaders Bill Hayward, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone are taken into custody by Idaho authorities and the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They are put on a special train in Denver, Colorado, following a secret, direct route to Idaho because the officials had no legal right to arrest the three union executives in Colorado. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), of which Hayward was president, tried in vain to stop the unofficial arrests.
2/18/2018	ASH - Celtic Tree month begins	Third month of the Celtic Tree calendar, February 18th to March 17th The Ash was one of the sacred Druid three: ‘Oak, Ash & Thorn’. The Druids attributed special powers over water to the Ash tree. Fraxinus Americana The World Tree – Tree of Life (Yggdrasil), Cosmic Ash Third consonant of the Ogham alphabet; NION or NUIN (Nee-Arn) Planet: Sun and Neptune Element: Water and Fire Symbolism: Mastership and Power Stone: Turquoise, Lepidolite (Increase psychic awareness) Birds: Common Snipe Color: White, pale Blue Deity: Eostre, Frigg, Hel/Holle, Minerva, Nemesis, Odin, Poseidon, Neptune Folk Name: Hoop Ash, Nion (a rune name from the Irish Gaelic word Nionon meaning “heaven”.