Happy New Year!

In China, they celebrate the New Year, in 2015, from February 18th to February 24th.

Kick up your heels, celebrate, be positive, be hopeful, smile, laugh, share, hug ...

Clean your house thoroughly for this celebration.  Have the kitchen well stocked.

Remember all the valuable contributions and good deeds of your family and your Ancestors.  

Avoid conversations about the saddening and negative aspects of life during this time. 

This year, the honored animal is the sheep or goat.

Happy New Year Greeting in Mandarin Chinese:  xin nian kuai le! (sing nee-ann koo-why ler) 

 

Both Easter and the Chinese New Year, set according to lunar and solar calendar calculations, arrive as the Spring season is beginning.  Where I live in Northern California, Spring sights and sounds are arriving a bit early this year because it has been a warm dry winter season. Many trees near our home are in full bloom: almonds, apricots, and plums. 

Bejing, China, is located about the same latitude (40N) as where I live in Red Bluff, California. 

The plum tree originated in China.  Many cultivars and varieties of plums have been developed over many centuries.  What a wonderful gift to the world of agriculture!

 

In my back yard, in full bloom right now, is a Santa Rosa Plum tree.  It has white blossoms.  In 1906, Luther Burbank developed this plum tree variety.  

March: Poems, Quotes, Sayings, Lore.  Compiled by Mike Garofalo.