The Day Before the Day Before

I noticed this year that there are names for the days leading up to Christmas and to New Years.  I don't remember hearing this expression so often before - 'the eve of Christmas Eve'. We're approaching 'the eve of New Year's Eve'. There are a few celebrations to mark this day and make for more fun in the lead up to the New Year.  'Eve of the Eve 2016' is a Chicago fundraiser. Nokomis East in Minneapolis has a 'Night before New Year's Eve' party for the family.  Vancouver has an Annual Fake New Years Eve the night before "Nye". Here's someone who has thought of these sorts of things.  William Powers writes: "...get through one more day 'n that'll lead to tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow like today's the day before yesterday's tomorrow's tomorrow and that was the day before the day the day before's tomorrow." I usually wait till winter to process the wisteria pictures.  Then the the screen is an explosion of floral exuberance in contrast to the minimalist snowscape outside.  I got to a few this week, so can celebrate the Wisteria Collection as part of the year in review.

Lilycrest Lilies in Review 2016

Christmas isn't finished till its over for the Orthodox Christians.  How do they live the rest of the year if they use the Julian calendar and not the Gregorian calendar?  There are 13 days difference. Many Soviet Union and Middle Eastern churches tend towards the "Old Calendar" while most of those in the United States have made the switch.  It appears more of a country-wide choice rather than a church choice as the public holiday falls on the chosen date for Christmas. It seems interesting that Easter isn't impacted but celebrated on the same day by everyone. This is the week that we look back at the closing year and decide on the top news, events, photos, etc. What area do you look for highlights?  I went to the Oxford Dictionary for the Word of the Year.   "After much discussion, debate, and research, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth – an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’." Wikipedia has the words of the year from 1990 - 2015 listed.  The source is the American Dialect Society.  They are so slow in deciding for 2016 that they are still in the process of accepting nominations.  Their meeting is January 5 - 8 2017 if they announce it then, it would be in time for Orthodox Christians to celebrate the birth of Christ and the birth of a new word. Our 2016 review starts with Lilycrest Gardens.

Get into the Christmas Spirit

There is an enduring sense of appreciating Christmas, even with the many debates on Christmas as a religious holiday that has gone 'secular.' In spite of this, there still is the sense that Christmas comes but 'once a year'.  What are the emotions that are associated with this sense of Christmas Spirit?    There is an easy answer.  It is about sharing, caring and love - the great fellowship of humanity. So it seems to make sense to  get into the Christmas spirit.  WikiHow comes to the rescue with advice that appeals to the secularists.  As we are at the Christmas moment, check out the list and catch up on a few easy items: 1. Watch some great classic Christmas movies that play during Christmas time 2. Get in touch with your family and friends 3. Read Christmas themed books like "The Night Before Christmas", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", "The Polar Express" and Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" 4. Decorate as much as you can 5. Make a to do list of things to accomplish before December 25 6. Send out Christmas cards 7.  Make a Christmas list 8.  Make sure everything is clean and uncluttered 9. Make a countdown to Christmas that everyone can see 10. Get an advent calendar And More... I add this experience to the list - Visit a Conservatory. The Allan Garden Christmas is remarkable this year - there's the Christmas train, the Christmas jazz trio with a spanish moss piano, and the Christmas lady and swan - made of traditional boughs, Magnolia leaves, and moss.

Magical

The Magical World of Harry Potter is the most popular children's series of all time and this tree appealed to everyone.  It won the Popular Vote award in the Grimsby Fantasy of Trees.  The story is told in decorations and ornaments created and made by Jill Linkert and Judy Meldrum, pictured here.  Under the tree were all the Harry Potter books, and beside the tree was a scroll of clues to the decorations on the tree. We may wonder about this magic and  ask where does magic come from. The World of Harry Potter answers: "In humans, magic or the lack thereof is an inborn attribute.  It is inherited, carried on "dominant resilient genes". Magic is the norm in the children of magical couples and less common in those of muggles. Exceptions exist: those unable to do magic who are born to magical parents are known as squibs, whereas a witch or wizard born to muggle parents is known as a muggle-born, or by the pejorative "mudblood". While muggle-borns are quite common, squibs are extremely rare." The project of creating tree ornaments occurred throughout 2016.  The tree came alive on Decorators' Day when all was complete.  I could see Jill and Judy's satisfaction of a great creation, and a little sadness that this tree would be leaving them.   The Fantasy of Trees is a yearly fund-raiser for Grimsby Rotary.  The trees, wreaths, urns, and other prizes are in a raffle.  So the 40 trees went to homes. Grimsby Rotary raised $12,000 in the Raffle and $3,000 in the Silent Auction, with proceeds going to local charities, scholarships and for the work of Rotary in communities at home and around the world.

Greetings in Steam

Puslinch is located south of Guelph, only an hour's drive away from Grimsby or Toronto.  It is rolling rural farm land, typical of Ontario. But it has an exceptional collection of steam traction equipment known as the Ontario Steam Heritage Museum.  We were lucky to visit yesterday for the Volunteer Open House - with live steam traction engines in the yard and a fiddle orchestra in the shop.  This felt like the farm version of the Santa Train ride. These huge steam tractors were pulling wagons full of riders along the wooded trails.  And there were quite a few tractors out and operating, so the air was full of steam. This is a privately-owned museum and restoration workshop.  It is on the property of owners Wayne and Judi Fischer.  You can read a little about it at ontariosteamheritagemuseum.ca  And there's a Wellington Advertiser article. There are so many forms of steam here - traditional tractors which we see in pictures of the yard.  There are shingle machines, wood-working machines,ship's engines, even a collection sewing machines was on display, That is what is interesting in the shop - how many tools, parts and supplies are present.   But back outside to the steam in the yard and the whistle blowing.

Guelph Arboretum

Yesterday's snowstorm over the lake didn't land in Grimsby.  It did land in Guelph.  I was there yesterday for Baxter's dental experience - he broke the canine tooth that had been repaired in 2014 at the same clinic.  This time it had to be removed. Guelph is a centre of veterinary specialists associated with the University veterinary programs. My interest was the Arboretum and the range of yesterday's landscapes was remarkable in the snow.  New-fallen snow outlined the trees and defined the curves of the landscape.  There was perfect light - the sun was shining through a misty haze in the sky - just the faintest of shadows.  Guelph is home to the University of Guelph.  It has an exceptional program in veterinary medicine which is ranked fourth in the world. I drove through that section of the campus - with barns, horse crossings, and horses outside in the paddock. I stopped at the beat-up recycle bins for some abstracts.  One bin was for manure.   Guelph has large agricultural, horticultural and environmental programs. The pretty Victorian conservatory is the icon that testifies to the beginnings of the programs in the late 1800's. The Arboretum, started in 1971,  is surprisingly large.  With the amount of snow -  two feet - it kept filling my boots when I walked through it.  So I toured it mostly in the car.  You can tour it on youtube here and see how remarkable it is.

Bill Mason Famous Canoe

I have been in the process of getting a dental implant.  The dentist is Peter Fritz in Foothill.  His office is impressive with a Northern Ontario theme of canoes.  I was there yesterday for one of the final stages in the process.  I was reading his newsletters in the waiting room.  Most of them had pictures of a very big canoe - showcasing it in the newsletters.  I asked about it. Peter told me that this canoe was owned by Bill Mason, famous canoeist and filmmaker.  Bill Mason is known as the patron saint of canoeing. In one of the newsletters was a picture of Pierre Elliot Trudeau and son Justin canoeing in the famous canoe.  I've found it so you can enjoy this great picture.  It is a seventeen-foot aluminum canoe used in 'Song of the Paddle'. It is named the Queen Mary. Peter now owns this canoe and it is coming to Peter's practice in Foothill to be displayed somewhere in the  offices.   There's one in the waiting room at the ceiling - the second picture shows this one. The third picture is of Peter canoeing.  I found this picture at the Canadian Museum site.  It is red like Bill Mason's favourite canoe - a red "Fort" chestnut Prospector, a 16-foot canvas covered wood canoe.  The actual favourite canoe is in the Museum. I included the bottom picture of Bill Mason canoeing in a Fort chestnut canoe as it is such a beautiful image.  And what's next for canoeing?  In 2017, Gerry will be working on the new Canadian Canoe Museum.  This museum has the largest canoe and kayak collection in the world.  It is an exciting project for Peterborough:  It will be 'an elegant, serpentine glass pavilion graced by a two-acre rooftop garden'.

Snow that weighs too much

On the second day of winter snow, the phrase is 'snow that weighs too much.' Wikipedia has the many varieties from a to z - artificial snow through to zastrugi (snow surface features sculpted by wind into ridges and grooves).  There is even watermelon snow - a reddish/pink coloured snow that smells like watermelons, and is caused by a red-coloured green algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis.  These types of snow are mostly related to skiing. For urban snow, the Boston Globe has defined the types of snow removal personalities.  This seems to make sense with types like the mediocre shoveler, the incrementalist, the libertarian, angry snow plower, perfectionist, child labourer, anti-shoveler,  procrastinator, the t-taking pedestrian (t being an abbreviation for transportation), the snow angel, and more. Yesterday's snow quickly became slush.  How much does regular vs wet snow weigh?  For wet snow Monroe calculates: "Let's say wet snow would be equivalent to 1" of rain or 5" of snow, you would get a resulting 12.5 pounds per cubic foot, compared to light, fluffy snow at 5.2 pounds and a cubic foot of water at 62.4 pounds.  So I guess we would avoid a comparison with a cubic foot of Magnolia blossoms - our picture of the day.

Bubbling Up

A search with Guinness Records in the terms will retrieve all sorts of things.  weareteachers.com has 11 Creative Ways to Use Guinness World Records' titles to teach math.  A search on creative teaching ideas for math includes many interesting approaches - like making a recipe for slime, using matchbox cars, using cheerios to practice multiplication, playing math bingo.  Guinness is appealing to the sense of wonder that children have.   Whatever search terms I've been using lately has been retrieving bubble records. I took a look at this topic. I found a site dedicated to word bubble records - most people in a bubble, largest free-floating soap bubble, people simultaneously blowing bubbles, largest bubble wall, biggest bubble, and so on. The master of bubbles is Fan Yang - Canadian bubble artist. He holds 16 world records in the field of bubbles.  He has done television and corporate performances all over the world, and produces a show, the Gazillion Bubble Showin New York City.   If you google 'fan yang bubble pictures' you will be astonished with what's been created.  There's a good article on him by the huffington post. I don't have any bubble pictures yet - today's picture shows the wisteria blooming at the Pierce Dupont house in Longwood Gardens.

Christmas is its own Season

What makes Christmas its own season?  We are well into the Christmas season, with lots of shopping, decorations,  and lights. The weather seasons are what first come to mind. There are four seasons defined as divisions of the year marked by changes in weather, ecology and hours of daylight in our Northern Hemisphere.  In tropical climates there are two or three - rainy and dry are the common ones.   Some calendars in south Asia have a six-season method where there are from one to three seasons between summer and winter.  The two polar regions have two seasons - all sun and no sun. Wikipedia helps us understand  our current experience of the "Christmas season".  Also known as the festive season,the holiday season (mainly in the U.S. and Canada), or simply the holidays - an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and Western-influenced countries that is generally considered to run from late November to early January, defined as incorporating at least Christmas, and usually New Year, and sometimes various other holidays and festivals. Christmastide started as a season of the liturgical year in Christian religions. As you would intuitively know, it changed in the twentieth century with the rise of retail shopping.  The transition to the term 'holiday season' is a North American expression that has come about with increasing secularization.   We're looking at abstracts of birch bark today.  This one is at the Vineland Research Station where there is a little arboretum. We think of the birch as a smooth bark, like the first photo, but a close-up look reveals many different landscapes.

There's Only One Santa Suit

esterday I met an acquaintance who told me that Dutch Santa was at the Dutch Shop to greet the kids.  I took Dezi the dog to The Dog Spot to see the Dog Santa (I got my free bag of dog food, she got scared). At the Fantasy of Trees there was another Santa for children to visit with.  They are all the white-haired, portly, red-suited Santas, with a generous smile and hearty laugh.  Santa is so beloved.  How did we get such a wonderful icon? Santa started out as a legendary figure of Western culture. The tradition started with the historical Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek bishop.   The first moment of our notion of Santa really came in 1823 with a poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" - now titled  "The Night Before Christmas". And the 'Santa' creation happened with Thomas Nast, caricaturist and political cartoonist.  He  created the famous image of Santa as the portly, white-haired, jolly man in 1881 and associated it with the poem.  This image has been maintained and reinforced ever since.  So take a look at  "pictures of Santa Claus" that come up from a google search.  You will be presented with an unending sea of red suits and white beards all smiling, waving, gift-giving. They are happy and generous. It is one of the few searches where the results are on track for the search terms - to me it is a testament to how much the Santa icon is respected. Take a look at 'biker santa claus' or 'tropical santa claus' or 'australian santa claus' or 'garden santa claus' or 'train santa claus'.  It is hilarious.