Taking Christmas to the Max

Yesterday we found out about the oldest Christmas trees.  The Guinness Book of Records bears witness to the striving nature of humanity on the delivery of results with creativity and inventiveness. Here are examples for the Christmas tree: The most expensive decorated Christmas tree remains a holiday tree from 2010 - decorated with $11,026,900 worth of jewellery - 181 items in all. The largest artificial Christmas tree was 180.4 feet tall and created in China in 2015.  It was covered in green synthetic foliage and decorated with ornaments and lamps. The largest human Christmas tree was done in Chengannur, India in December 2015.  There were 4,030 people involved in that tree.  This is a record that continues to grow. The largest display of illuminated Christmas Trees was accomplished by Hallmark, USA in Heralds Square, NY, NY where 449 trees were on parade. The most lights on an artificial Christmas tree is a regular record at Universal Studios in Japan in Osaka.  They do this every year, and have beaten their records over six times in the past.   I hadn't thought about other Christmas traditions.  The largest gingerbread house for charity has a new record.  While the size of the structure is the measure, but they also reported the calorie count at 35,823,400 calories. The array of Christmas records can be found here at the Guinness site. Our flower of the day is the Amaryllis - this name comes from the legend of a shy, timid nymph. Amaryllis fell deeply in love with Alteo, a shepherd with Hercules' strength and Apollo's beauty, but her affections were unrequited.

Who's Seen You!

On the Owl Tour we all wanted to see the owls - we saw some and didn't see every single one in their homes.  They all saw us, though.  Our guide told us that we've each been seen by hundreds of owls in the wild.   I got to wondering about cars.  Where are cars going?  We're told to follow Tesla, Google, Apple and Amazon rather than GM, Ford or Toyota on the future of cars. We know about driverless cars, as they are being tested now. So there won't likely be 'tests' for driving skill.  Could we have 3D printed cars? The prediction is that this is possible and in 20 years will be used at F1 races for replacement parts. A big question is fuel - the best possibility is the electric powered car. Car connectivity will happen with 'vehicle -to-vehicle' and vehicle-to-infrastructre' communication providing real-time vehicle data. Car ownership is expected to diminish and car access to become the normal approach. And there we have it.  All those driveways in front of residential homes will be rendered obsolete.  More room for gardens!

Easter Panies

The Easter Egg Roll at the White House took place.  Not being American I had no idea how complicated it is.  The news about it is that the Trump administration staff have no experience and are behind schedule.  About 35,000 people took part in the event during Barack Obama's time.  It has a tradition of being considered a big event.  Tickets are awarded to lottery winners in February so they can travel from out-of-town. However this year the lottery didn't happen till March, and people were notified at the end of March. All sorts of people get invitations that are behind schedule.  The company that manufactures the eggs had to remind the president to submit an order - on Twitter.  And then the organizer is supposed to be the First Lady, but Melania Trump lives in New York and hasn't appointed her full team yet. The only staffer with experience turns out to be Sean Spicer.  He portrayed the Easter Bunny in 2008. The story in the Guardian is full of puns - bedevilled, poached, fall foul, scrambling, poorly laid, being fried, crack under pressure. One has to be impressed with all the ways to cook eggs.  Today they are associated with breakfast.  The Lumberjack breakfast sounds like the most interesting of all the breakfast stories.   "While it has been a source of controversy where the lumberjack breakfast came from, the most cited source is that the lumberjack breakfast was first served in a Vancouver Hotel, in 1870. The breakfast consisted of eggs galore, assorted fried pork strips, slabs, slices, and flapjacks. It is said by Anita Stewart that the tradition of hearty cooking developed because of men needing the energy for manual labor." We look at abstracts of Pansy flowers, using extension tubes so one can get very close and follow the flow of the lines of these tiny petals.

Skywatcher's Month

October is a sky-watching month according to National Geographic with Zodiacal Lights from October 1-15 "Starting about an hour before sunrise on Saturday, October 1, and lasting the next two weeks, keen skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere can hunt down one of the most elusive astronomical phenomena visible in the sky: the zodiacal light.  This pyramid-shaped beam of light is easily mistaken for the lights of a far-off city just over the dark horizon in the countryside, and has also been called “false dawn.” But this light is more ethereal; it is caused by sunlight reflecting off cosmic dust between the planets. Amazing to think that today we’re peering at billions of dust-sized particles that were left behind after the planets formed about five billion years ago."

Bugs and Insects

There don't seem to be many insects in my photos.  I find them a lot of work - they move so fast that it is hard to get a clear shot, and often the poses that are captured are not attractive.    People seem to love or hate insects.  I thought of the expression 'Don't bug me' and got to thinking about bugs.  It turns out that: "true bugs are within the order called Hemiptera.  Insects in this order are different from other insect orders such as Hymenoptera (ants and bees), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) or Diptera (flies and mosquitoes)." How bugs and insects got associated with bothering and annoying is likely obvious if one has a fly in the house.  It becomes a 'best friend' always there in the kitchen involved in your every activity. I scrolled through the definitions in Merriam-Webster's dictionary site and after the regular definition there are distinctions between medical, law, student, and geographical.  And it turns out that it isn't a popular word - Mirriam-Webster ranks in the bottom 50% of words. Here's May's Betterphoto contest finalist.

Winter Retreat to Lilycrest Gardens

Winter's cold winds are gusting across the Grimsby landscape so it is a good time to retreat to the landscape of summer's beautiful Lilies.  These are in Brian's Lilycrest Gardens hybridizing field, in St. Catharines on Fifth Street, close to the QEW.

Fun in 2016

Have there always been this many lists?  Since the internet we can find out so many things with a search, organized nicely into the top 5 and top 10. 5 things to look out for from the Weather Network 1. The South Will Be Cooler Than Average, The North Warmer 2. The South Will Be Wetter Than Average 3. El Nino Isn't the Only Player 4. California Could See Some Minor Drought Relief 5. We Don't Know When or Where It Could Get Ugly What kinds of Fun can we expect in 2016? We can expect the Mazda CX-3 to be stylish, efficient and fun, or the 2016 Mazda MX-5 to be plain, simple fun.  The most striking thing is that cars dominant the "fun" results. If you are looking for FUN:  Did you know that the acronym FUN stands for Florida United Numismatists?  We can go to the FUN show the first week of January. Here are two images for 2015 as it passes and 2016 as it arrives - A Time for Peace and Bird of Hope.

Canada's Star Aligns

CBC is having fun today reporting that Justin Trudeau has taken over the first spot as the sexiest politician in the world according to the UK Mirror newspaper.  It picked up these quotes from well-known national reporters in other countries: "In Canada Justin Trudeau's Liberals elected on a platform of sorry I lost my train of thought he's just so handsome." "For real though, congrats Canada on your hot grown-up-Howarts-student Prime Minister." In the Daily Mail article, they include a Youtube video of the 'time Justin Trudeau stripped for charity". And this quote from Richard Nixon in 1972: 'Tonight we'll dispense with the formalities. I'd like to toast the future prime minister of Canada: to Justin Pierre Trudeau,' said Nixon during a state dinner in Ottawa hosted by Pierre Trudeau. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3280490/Justin-Trudeau-named-Canada-s-new-prime-minister.html#ixzz3pCTMtgTq With the pictures in the article of him with his father in world-famous places with world-famous people, it is pretty impressive.  So I guess with star power like that, some starry flowers are matching pictures for the day.

Lilycrest Gardens

Just a few more lily images from Brian's Lilycrest Gardens hybridizing field.  The first one is a Marathon lily - one of the first to bloom in June.  It has small down-facing flowers, and is one of the delicate little lilies to bloom.  It is quite a contrast with the lilies that follow in the season.  In July, during the peak blooming there are beautiful bold colours, huge flowers and some of the plants reach up to five feet tall with 10 or more flowers on them.

Lotus - How Beautiful!

I find the Lotus flower to be amazing and magical.  Its centre is what makes it so wonderful - all the stamens around the dinner plate centre, and then petals in beautiful colours.

Here's an interpretation of the last image.

Painterly Effects in the Garden

I just got the Filter Forge software and have been trying it out.  It creates painterly effects, brush strokes and distortions so that the images have a sense of being digital art rather than photographs.

Delphinium Days in July

It is a beautiful month for flowers, and Delphiniums are one of the most spectacular for the clear blues in all tones imaginable.  These were at Plantworld, on Eglinton West at Royal York Road, in Toronto.  It is celebrating 125 years this year.

Trout Lily Spring

We are lucky in Niagara to have maple forests.  Where there are maple forests there are trilliums - sometimes they carpet a mature wood.  So many beautiful little ephemerals bloom in spring and then disappear until the next year.  

This is one of the early spring bloomers - Trout Lily.  It is Erythronium americanum.  It's also known as Dogtooth Violet and Yellow Adder's Tongue.  It is in the Liliaceae family.  I didn't realize that it is an edible plant.  At the same time, it seems to be an emetic (makes you throw up), so it is not recommended that one eat a lot of it.  I guess I wouldn't add this one to the menu with guests coming.