Februalia Closes and the Cows Come Home

Lupercalia, the February 15th purification ritual of ancient Rome has come and gone. The thought.com website says that today we celebrate it with the hearth goddess, Vesta. The month was originally known as Februalia,  It is still a celebration for modern Pagans today, and is considered part of their spiritual journey. As children we were taught that pagan beliefs were non-religious beliefs.  Modern Paganism today is a collective term for new religious movements influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe, North Africa and the Near East.   Does February have any other distinctions? February frequently occurs in lists of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language.  The Americans have trouble with the word February too – last year, a press release from the White House consistently spelt it as Feburary.  Much Ado About Nothing is the only Shakespeare play that mentions February.  February is the only month that can pass with no full moon. This occurred in 2018.  As February closes and Martch starts, we move into the ancient Romans' New Year. March is packed with familiar holidays and events:  daylight saving time, celebrations of Pi Day on 3/14, St. Patrick's Day, the Vernal Equinox and the start of Spring occur, and this year, we celebrate Easter. The budget news that made me smile is the reopening of the Kingston prison farms, closed by the Harper government as a cost-saving measure. There have been protests outside the prison every week for the past 8 years.  They vowed to remain there until "the cows come home."  There is a long article HERE.  The snow drops, snow crocuses, winter aconites, witch hazel and pussy willows are blooming.  These miniature daffodils were in the conservatory at RBG.

That Medal Question

Yesterday I was a volunteer at the Coldest Night fundraiser walk in Grimsby.  My welcome station in the high school hallway was at the athletics bulletin board, and I got to read the schedule of activities for next week, read the chart of careers in kinesiology, athletics, and medicine, and check out the charts on self-assessment skill levels.  Sports are mature disciplines now.  Not the jumping jacks of my high school physical activity.  It was a fitting context for this Olympic question that keeps coming up for me - do you ask it too?  "Why did the U.S. performed so poorly at the Olympics?" They previously had the record for medals - 36 at Vancouver in 2010.  The Ringer.com rails about this HERE but doesn't give any reasons.  These are Slate's reasons: The United States’ marquee names have faltered. The U.S. has gotten very bad at speed skating. Team USA features athletes who are either very young or very old. The U.S. has not typically excelled at the events that have been held thus far. I check in with Time and their article quotes the USOC's chief of sport with a response that makes the question even more compelling: “OK, medals are one story, but if you look at the depth of everything that’s going on, and the number of people who are fourth and fifth place, and the commitment level and intensity of the athletes, you can’t ask for more than that.”  The top medal winner of all times is now Norway.  Norway is a nation of 5 million people, and they sent 109 athletes to the games compared to the U.S.'s 242.  Ovrebo, the director of Norway's elite sport for the Olympics, says that Norway is blessed with many advantages for Winter Olympics dominance, like snow, a history of excellence in sports like biathlon and cross-country skiing, and free health care. However, he says the key to success is this:  In Norway, organized youth sports teams cannot keep score until they are 13. “We want to leave the kids alone,” says Ovrebo. “We want them to play. We want them to develop, and be focused on social skills. They learn a lot from sports. They learn a lot from playing. They learn a lot from not being anxious. They learn a lot from not being counted. They learn a lot from not being judged. And they feel better. And they tend to stay on for longer.” Norway values the psychology of sports. “Your mind is where you experience your life, isn’t it?” Ovrebo says.  They understand some of the issues that occur when one country dominates a sport.  Other countries lose interest.  They are addressing this. "Instead of holding back its athletes, Norway is trying to lift others everywhere else. It has conceived the Alpine athletics version of the Marshall Plan. For seven years, it has invited competitors from all over the world to visit for a weeklong training camp. A separate camp is offered to World Cup coaches. Attendees pay to get there, and Norway covers all other expenses". There's more on the Norwegian sports psyche HERE in a NY Times article.  This is likely a question that will come up a lot, and linger for quite some time, so on to our pictures of the day.  We seem to be heading from winter's snow sports into spring's rain landscape.

Canada's Prettiest Town...

Niagara Falls is a tourist destination, so Family weekend is busy. The Butterfly Conservatory started its day with mostly young families out to see the butterflies.  It is a beautiful tropical garden setting, and like a trip to the Caribbean for a few hours. Huge blue morphos flutter past your head in pairs and swirl away.  Often a butterfly will land on the ground.  Oh no! Don't walk there!.  Someone always reaches out with a finger for them to perch on so they can get back up to a plant.  It is a universal gesture of kindness. There are those who turn out to be afraid of insects - whether they are bearing beautiful wings or not.  From adults to small children, there are a few cringing or crying visitors amongst the laughing and smiling groups.  It is funny to see parents with fearful children - mostly they look puzzled and confused.  They seem to wonder how this is happening to them.  I imagine their thoughts:  "Is this the child I brought with me, or did someone switch it on me?" We took a quick look at the Prairie Meadow garden in the winter - it is beautiful with tall grasses, asters, and ironweed stalks. Then down the River Road to to Niagara-on-the-Lake.  There were boats on the River, and it looked like people fishing.  There are interesting fish species in the Niagara River, including sturgeon. Niagara-on-the-Lake was busy - there's never a down time anymore.  Now there are  all sorts of high-end wineries to visit, and the Oscar Peterson Jazz Festival got its inaugural start this past weekend.  Even in the middle of winter, Niagara-on-the-Lake is the prettiest town in Canada.

Family Day Butterfly Fly By

"Oreo the skunk and Rucker the North American barn owl are among a menagerie of animals who will celebrate Family Day weekend at the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory".   The Butterfly Conservatory reopened this weekend after being closed for several weeks for pruning, rearranging and restoring the tropical environment.   The Conservatory is home to more than 40 species and 2,000 butterflies. In preparation for our visit, I have sought out a few butterfly jokes. What do you get when you eat Caterpillars? Butterflies in your stomach Why was the butterfly not invited to the dance? Because it was a moth ball Who said I'd win that giant butterfly contest? Me and my big moth How do you make a butterfly? Flick it out of the butter dish with a knife Why did the boy throw the butter out the window? Wanted to see the butter fly Which insect is the ruler of the insect world? The monarch

Baker's Dozen Day

Isn't 'baker's dozen' an interesting expression.  Dozen may be one of the earliest primitive groupings.  It is also known as a devil's dozen or long dozen.   The expression came about with baked goods, as a way for bakers to avoid being blamed for shorting their customers.  Bakers had to sell goods by the dozen at a specific weight.  The expression evolved over the centuries to further variations around this intent. While most things aren't sold by the dozen anymore, we still an buy a dozen eggs.  This is common everywhere. They started out being sold by the dozen to match up with the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of measurement.  One egg could be sold for a penny or 12 for a shilling.  This persisted in the American colonies, after the revolution.  And it just stayed after that. What else is in the dozen group? 12 hours on a clock face 12 months in a year 12 signs of the zodiac 12 grades under college level  12 Tribes of Israel 12 Apostles of Jesus Sold by the dozen: roses, donuts, batteries 12 Days of Christmas  12 Olympians 12 Jurors on a jury Our Valentine's pictures today started at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota.

First Place - Nouns or Verbs?

Are there bizarre facts about the Olympics?  Yes there are.  Here are some things I found out: In the 2004 Athens Olympics a new medal was distributed to winners at the Athens Games.  It replaced the long-standing design by Italian sculptor Giuseppe Cassioli that incorrectly depicted the Roman Colosseum rather than a Greek venue. Olympic medals now feature the Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, one of the world's oldest stadiums and the site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. This is a Reader's Digest article on surprising facts about Olympic medals.  Here are two more from the article: After Australia removed their one-cent and two-cent coins from circulation in 1992, thousands were melted to make bronze medals for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. These are brilliant uses for your spare U.S. pennies. Five art categories—painting, literature, music, sculpture, and architecture—were introduced in the 1912 Olympics as the “Pentathlon of the Muses,” and remained official events until 1948. Other artsy pursuits that could once earn you an Olympic medal: town planning, epic poetry, statues, watercolors, chamber music, and plaques. I scratched my head on this one - given how far the Olympics has travelled in the direction of sports, sports and sports. Back to the arts, the Word Lady is an expert on language and dictionaries who lives in Toronto.  She says there's a test of nouns vs verbs - which came first. You can do the test HERE.  It is fun. She says: "Oh, and by the way, if you're tempted to quote Calvin and Hobbes "Verbing weirds language" as someone always does when this topic comes up, please don't. Verbing enriches the language, and it's perfectly normal. Not weird at all".  The Orchid Show is on at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington this weekend.  Perhaps some of these will be on display - their common name is Pansy Orchid.

Low Hanging Fruit

I am up early enough to watch the Opening Ceremony - pre-show begins at 5:30am with the Ceremony beginning at 6 a.m. ET.  There will be an encore broadcast on CBC at 9 p.m. This is complicated, isn't it?  Time Zone differences for events such as this are challenging.  CBC has the schedule at: https://olympics.cbc.ca/schedule/   There is a 14 hour difference between Eastern Time and Pyeongchang - Korean Standard Time.  We can go to the current local time HERE.  And we see it ticking away - at 5:30 a.m. ET, it is 7:30 p.m. KST  What did CBS sports have to say about this? "Get ready to stay up late, East Coasters!" What is the exciting Olympic news? The first headline is from the CBC:  'Pyeongchang' has become  hashtag for Olympic apathy.  It says what's missing is enthusiasm in South Korea.  The Atlantic likely has its finger on the pulse: "For viewers at home, though, the Olympics can be something much simpler: a perfectly pleasing television event to liven up the middle of winter. The Games have every ingredient of a two-week miniseries, promising triumph and failure, raw emotion and sideshow laughs, pure spectacle, and constantly rising stakes. Most importantly, they come fully stocked with characters. But while no Olympian is undeserving of an audience, even the most committed viewer has to prioritize". It goes on to prioritize the most compelling athletes - e.g. Lindsey Vonn, Mikaela Shiffrin, and so on.  See more HERE.  Today's image gives visual meaning to the expression  "Low Hanging Fruit"

Tsunami Warning

There was a false tsunami warning on the US East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean yesterday.  The causes of tsunamis can vary.  One of of the causes can be underwater avalanches and volcanoes. In 1929, an earthquake off Canada’s east coast triggered an underwater landslide that shifted nearly 50 cubic miles (200 cubic kilometers) of rocks and sediment. That avalanche, in turn, generated powerful waves reaching 10 to 26 feet (3 to 8 meters) high that struck the coast of Newfoundland — killing 28 people There have been more than 15 landslides surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. They are among the largest known on Earth.  Mind your the most recent is thought to have occurred 100,000 years ago.  There is evidence today that large blocks of land on the island of Hawaii are beginning to slide.  This generates large earthquakes in the process. Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the location of the largest undersea landslide - 32 cubic kilometres' in volume.  This was more than 300,000 years ago. They found this while using 3E multi beam mapping of the deep Great Barrier Reef seafloor.  Instead of being relatively flat, there were eight knolls, some over 100 metres high and 3 km long. Our picture today shows the Niagara Blossom Trail Series.  We can look forward to this experience in May.

Phenology Not Phrenology

I was at the Niagara Rhododendron Society Meeting and learned about phenology yesterday.  This is the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life.  How is climate changing and what is its impact on plants? (This is not the study of the human skull size - phrenology). Dr. Robbie Hart's interest is rhododendrons in the mountains of south China - Mt. Yulong.  He tracked the temperatures and the blooming times over two years. He told us that one of the studies that has been done in relation to climate change has used historical records of various kinds.  The Japanese have recorded Sakura blooming times over centuries - as part of novels, historical records, personal diaries, and more.  Robbie showed a chart of the increase in temperature from around 700 to present day. You can see the article and chart HERE. It was published in the International Journal of Climatology, in 2008. Japan is obsessed with cherry blossoms - and wonderfully so.  There are so many everywhere that  there is a cherry blossom forecast by region for 2018.  Blooming starts as early as March 21st in some areas.  A tour of the parks is shown in this article HERE  Our images today come from Hagley Museum - the Dupont's original powder works.  It is in Delaware close-by to Longwood Gardens.

Repeat Again

This is Groundhog Week!  The Groundhog Day movie is a movie on the theme of repetition.  What about unnecessary repetition?  Wouldn't that be what redundancy is?  Do you think Bill Murray's character felt the repetitions were redundant? Here are expressions that could be termed 'groundhog moments' in celebration of the movie.  Redundant is what they are: a moment in time – A moment is essentially a period of time. ATM machine – ATM already stands for “Automated Teller Machine” true fact – By definition, facts are true. join together – How else would something join? free gift – Because when’s the last time you had to pay for a gift? added bonus – The word bonus indicates something outside of what’s expected, so of course it’s added. end result – Results always come at the end. final outcome – Related to the above, an outcome signifies the end, or finality. plan ahead – Planning always refers to the future, or what’s ahead. repeat again – Ah, the irony here! close proximity – To be close to something is to be in proximity. past experience – Experience refers to what has happened in the past. most unique – Unique implies there’s nothing like it, so one cannot compare it to something else. rise up – When rising, there’s no other way to go but up. the reason why – A reason explains the why. new innovations – An innovation is something that did not exist before, i.e., it is new in and of itself. unexpected surprise – If you were expecting it, it wouldn’t be a surprise. advance notice – When giving someone notice, you’re always doing so in advance. What redundant phrase do you find yourself using most often? Are you having Groundhog moments? This wonderful list is courtesy of proofreadnow.com  The orchid arch at Longwood is twelve feet high and contains more than 600 orchids. The reconstruction of the Longwood Main Found Garden is shown in this youtube video time-lapse :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjuioDG74Jk

Betterphoto Contest Winner

Lily Lantern is a second place winner in the flower category of Betterphoto's December contest.  The following three pictures are finalists.  You can see all the winners HERE.  Here's my question for today. If you listen to JazzFM you know these lyrics: "I hear babies crying, I watch them grow They'll learn much more than I'll never know And I think to myself what a wonderful world Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world" The voice you would likely associate with this is Louis Armstrong.  He's singing "What A Wonderful World" as though he's still with us. The songwriters are George Douglas / George David Weiss / Bob Thiele.   The song was initially offered to Tony Bennett, who turned it down.Then it was offered to Louis Armstrong. George Weiss recounts in the book Off the Record: Songwriters on Songwriting by Graham Nash that he wrote the song specifically for Louis Armstrong. Weiss was inspired by Armstrong's ability to bring people of different races together. The song was not initially a hit in the United States, where it sold fewer than 1,000 copies because ABC Records head Larry Newton did not like the song and therefore did not promote it. It reached number 1 and was the biggest selling album in the U.K. It gradually became a standard all over the world and is much used in movies and television. What I wondered about was how much "babies will learn that we'll never know".  In the song it is a sentiment, but now it is a fact.  In terms of fact Buckminster Fuller created the Knowledge Doubling Curve.  He noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century.  By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years.  On average human knowledge is now doubling every 13 months, and IBM predicts that it will double every 12 hours.  I wonder if this is quantity rather than quality.  Whichever way it lands, it is true that there is information and knowledge today that wasn't in existence 50 years ago.  To get an idea, I checked out Good Housekeeping's list of 40 things we didn't have 40 years ago - it's HERE.