Retrievers Celebrate 150 with Pawty Time

Wake Up on the Bright Side  Yes - It's Pawty Time! More than 300 golden retrievers met together on July 19th in Scotland to celebrate the 150th year of the breed.   This was the biggest mass gathering of retrievers - it is in the Guinness Book of Records with videos.  (There's also the largest dog photo shoot (108 dogs) and the largest gathering of people dressed as dogs (439) as records).   The original pups were born after estate landowner Dudley Majoribanks crossed a wavy-coated retriever called Nous with Belle, a tweed water spaniel.  Majoribanks, also known as Lord Tweedmouth, had wanted a dog that was capable of swimming significant distances to retrieve wildfowl that had been shot, BBC reported.  Of the originators of the Retrieer breed, the Tweed water spaniel has been extinct since the 19th century.  These were generally brown athletic dogs in a small area in Scotland. There are many extinct breeds.  They include names like:  St. John's water dog, Talbot hound, Paisley Terrier, Old English Bulldog, Cordoba Fighting Dog, Turnspit dog, Molossus, Hare Indian dog.  There's a list in Wikipedia HERE.   An article from Priceonomics:  Endangered Dog Breeds and the Market Forces Behind Them says the Skye terrier was one of the most common breeds and is now one of the rarest in the world.   We don't expect the Golden Retriever to go extinct.  It is one of the most popular breeds in the world.  There are three subtypes - British, American and Canadian.  Little did we realize this:  the Canadian type has a thinner and darker coat and stands taller than the other types. Did you know there are people who like to pretend they are dogs?  The article begins:  "Human pups, or people who enjoy acting like playful puppies, are rapidly growing in number and confidence, spreading from the underground world of gay leather bars and bondage into a new and more mainstream “pup community”.  Lots of leather seems to be involved in this one. This is our farmland rolling hills scenery on the way to Acton.

The Odds Are

There's a site called Randomize and you pick and flip a coin.  "You have a 50/50 chance of this coin landing on heads or tails.  This U.S. penny has been flipped 162405 times.  Why don't you give it another flip!"  You can pick from a number of coins. Or you can roll the dice, generate random integers, prime numbers, lottery numbers, and random cards.  The website specializes in randomizing different things.  It has a random quote. We think of these odds and probabilities: 50-50, 60-40 and 80-20.    How many people do you need to have a 50-50 chance of sharing a birthday? 23 people.  In a room of just 23 people there’s a 50-50 chance of two people having the same birthday. In a room of 75 there’s a 99.9% chance of two people matching. I find that I have forgotten that odds and probably are not the same:   "Odds compare one event to another event, whereas probability compares one event to both possible events. Thus, when the odds are 60 to 40, the fraction for the Odds is 60/40, but the fraction to calculate the probability is 60/100". I am really thinking about the weather - of course.  That's my focus for probability as we move into spring rain and leave winter snow behind.  We want to have 0 probability of snow wherever we go.  Not that 20% chance of snow at any given point on the map.  "So for every 10 kms you travel you will increase your odds of seeing snow by multiplying the chance of snow at each point".  So stay put and reap the 20%. Our pictures today are scenes from Pennsylvania in late January when we visited the Longwood Orchid Festival.

Back in Business

There weren't many birds flying in the last few weeks.  After the rain, yesterday, there were flocks flying about.  I found this out when I processed the bottom picture, and had to remove dozens of little black spots on the horizon.  They looked like dust not birds flying.  So in the matter of days, the wild field grasses and the domestic grass across the street are back to green.  I am hoping our environment is back in business. Our pictures today are looking west from the Martin Road greenhouses, near the Lake.  It looks like a pastoral scene that could be anywhere in Ontario.