Blue skies, red shells fill downtown for first fest of season

Life was good for thousands of reasons Saturday afternoon as the crowds spilled into Syracuse’s Clinton Square. The sun was shining, and the temperature one the AXA/Equitable Tower peeking through the nearer buildings read an oh-so-pleasant 64º F. Crawfish Festival pulsed with people of all sizes and ages and colors, this first of a series…

Cherry tree picking

A cherry tree will be going into the backyard of the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. My dear wife Karen and I took the trip to Chuck Hafner’s Garden Center in North Syracuse this past weekend, walking the aisles under the sun out back and inside the greenhouses, too. We spied…

Striking skies over Syracuse

As Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and I worked our way back toward the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood this half-and-half spring Sunday afternoon, we couldn’t help but note the sky above. April prepares to give itself up to May, and the see and the saw of this dance was somewhere…

Talking about the New York State Blues Fest and its music

The 23rd edition of the New York State Blues Festival is two months-plus in the future, but time does fly. Besides, there’s new direction at the top of the event that will bring its 23rd edition to downtown Syracuse’s Clinton Square on July 10 and 11, so I invited first-year executive director Eric McElveen and…

And the Earth still does what she wants

And on the day after Earth Day, my dear wife Karen and I wake up in the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city Eastwood neighborhood to a reminder that spring can still be mean. The new flowers and greening lawn were hit with overnight snow. It stuck. The temperature now at 8:45 a.m. reads 37º…

Blooms and buds to celebrate Earth Day

It’s gray. It’s cool, standing at 47º F at 9 a.m. Still, Mother Nature stirs me. Happy 45th Earth Day, from the front yard of the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. Click on each photo for a description. Click on the right photo for an enlarged slide show. Is your yard…

Son of a gun, satisfaction is all relative with the Chiefs

As Saturday’s morning sun kissed us in the living room of our Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, dancing through the two big windows to warm our weekend spirits, I offered the suggestion. Our first Syracuse Chiefs baseball game of the 2015 season, perhaps, my dear wife Karen? Great mind, yes, she’d…

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire engines

My dear wife Karen looked out the living room window of the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood early this Sunday evening and spotted thick, black smoke billowing over the end of our block. I heard her uh-oh and looked out past the empty lot, past the neighbor’s house, and saw the…

Green backyard grass, except for that one patch

The mower will be out of the shed soon in the yard of my dear wife Karen and I’s Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. A good portion of our backyard is looking lush, considering it’s the year-round playground for Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. Playground-plus, actually, if you know what I’m…

D.C. in Photos: Travel (Metro and Airports)

As long as you put your smart phone on airplane mode, you can do pretty much as you please while on board these days. And that made my iPhone 6 handy indeed for the front and back end of the travel portion of D.C. in Photos. There were no delays at Hancock International as my…