Blue Sky
Yesterday I asked for blue sky, today we got some. It wasn’t a clear blue sky but there was enough to make a pair of kitten britches, as we used to say. Odd saying, that. I wonder what the world of Google might have to tell us. Hmm. Here’s what I found in The Sailor’s Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, Including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, But Useful to Seamen; As Well As Archaisms of Early Voyagers, Etc. by the late Admiral William Henry Smyth, K.S.F., D.C.L., &c., published in 1867.
DUTCHMAN’S BREECHES. The patch of blue sky often seen when a gale is breaking, is said to be, however small, “enough to make a pair of breeches for a Dutchman.” Others assign the habiliment to a Welshman, but give no authority for the assumption.