Greytown county almanac

The children, his grand-children, were playing in the paddock at the back of the house where their ponies were kept. They were picking dandelion seed heads and blowing the beautifully formed parachuted seeds away.  James smiled and drew heavily on his cigar. Sol had undoubtedly taught them, or taught his daughters who had passed it on. It was a game he and Sol had played as children, blowing the seeds all away, each puff counting an hour. A silly inconsequential game, but just the sort of idiosyncratic thing his old friend Sol loved. James was sitting on the back porch smoking his weekly cigar, waiting for the weekend guests to arrive. Sol was also coming for the weekend, Jane had told him just this morning.  So what, he wondered, had enticed him this time? He was a regular dinner party guest at their New York apartment overlooking the Park, where Jane had developed an enviable reputation as a New York hostess,  but he almost never came t...