This is Blue Monday

Today is known as  Blue Monday - the most depressing day of the year.  "It is calculated using a series of factors in a (not particularly scientific) mathematical formula. The factors are: the weather, debt level (specifically, the difference between debt and our ability to pay), the amount of time since Christmas, time since failing our new year's resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take charge of the situation".  This was started as a public relations invention in 2005, and January 24th was the first Blue Monday.  It generally falls on the third Monday in January.  I noticed it this year as there are Blue Monday sales being advertised.  The equation has been called farcical and nonsensical, but it seems to live on as an observed day. I took a look at what the Snopes rating is for Blue Monday - true or false - the most depressing day of the year. Of course, they rated it false.   What is Blue Monday competing with for national observances?  This is Martin Luther King Day, Civil Rights Day, Hat Day, National Crowd Feed Day, Strawberry Ice Cream Day.  If we were to skip to tomorrow, Tuesday January 16th is Nothing Day.  Is that 0 day, null day, nought day?  It was started by newspaper columnist Harld Pullman Coffin in 1973. The unofficial holiday aims to provide people "with a day where they can just sit without celebrating, observing or honouring anything."  It is considered an "un-event."   Isn't this picture amazing for its vivid green?  This was taken in July 2017 on a rainy day in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  What I notice about the composition that makes me laugh is the contrast between the pattern of graceful arching maple trees and the vertical tree slicing up the image.  Oh well...

A City in a Park

This is the Evergreen Brickworks.  There is just so much to show you.  Today's headline 'the city in a park' is what you see on every park sign in Toronto.  Toronto considers itself a city of parks. How does this relate to the rusted wall with plants and water flowing down it?  This is the largest map of Toronto.  And it is a living wall.  It shows the major roads and major rivers/creeks in Toronto, and designed to connect us to our watersheds. It is titled Watershed Consciousness by the artist Ferruccio Sardella. Here is the link to the information by the artist on the work: https://ferrucciosardella.wordpress.com/watershed-consciousness/

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Trillium Virus

My earliest Trilliums are blooming in the garden - the white and dark red ones.  When I visited Marion Jarvie's garden last week, she said she has a success of Trilliums blooming between the end of April and the middle of June.  The last to bloom are the Luteums - spotted leaves and upright yellow flowers. These Trilliums are very pretty, but the stripes of green mean that they are virused.  If these plants aren't removed, the entire forest of Trilliums will eventually die of the virus.  So make sure you don't buy one of these thinking that it is an interesting variety.  It will kill the other trilliums in your garden.