Tracking Santa

Did you follow Santa on his journey around the world? NORAD tracks Santa on Christmas Eve. Tracking began by accident in 1955.   Before NORAD was formed, when it was still the Continental Air Defence Command (Conad), a newspaper misprinted a Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement containing the phone number for children to call in to talk to Santa. Instead of reaching Santa, children reached Conad operations in Colorado.  "A colonel by the name of Harry Shoup picked up the phone and assured children who called in that Santa was safe and CONAD, at the time, would be tracking Santa on his progress through North America," she said. The tradition continues and NORAD trackers are finished for this year - he was spotted over the great wall of China, over Christmas Island, Vietnam, India, Afghanistan, Moscow, London, South America, and then Canada and finished in the U.S. There are many articles identifying Santa's workload, speed, and route.  The Atlantic narrows it to "Christian kids" - 526,000,000 of them under the age of 14 in the world.  So he delivers presents to 22 million an hour. That's about 365,000 kids a minute, about 6,100 a second. The dailymail.co.uk also has an article on the science of Santa -  Mr. Claus will eat 150 billion calories in milk and mince pies.  He will need to walk 1.3 billion miles, which is 54,000 times around the circumference of the earth, to work off the extra weight.  More at dailymail.co.uk Enjoy Christmas Day!

Christmas Weaths

The wreath has been a sign of honour or victory from Greek times.  Bay Laurel Leaves date from Greek mythology.  Other leaves that made wreaths included oak leaves - symbolizing wisdom, and were associated with Zeus.  We also think of wreaths as arrangements for funerals.   The Etruscan's made wreaths - they were stamped in thin metal and attached to an ornamental band.  They included ivy, oak, olive, myrtle, laurel, wheat and vines. In Christianity, the Christmas wreath was used to symbolize Christ. The circular shape, with no beginning or end, represents eternity or life never ending. The evergreen, most frequently used in making Christmas wreaths, symbolizes growth and everlasting life.  The wreaths were typically decorated with four candles, three on the exterior and one in the middle. The middle candle was lit on Christmas Eve to symbolize the arrival of the Light of the World - Jesus Christ. A tradition began in the early 19th century to lay evergreens shaped into wreaths or crosses on graves to honour the dead. Family members would bring them home to use as part of their Christmas decorations during the holiday season. So there is our wreath tradition.  Our first snow fall was yesterday, and I took pictures of the orchards across from the United Mennonite Home and on John Street.   This summer the Cherry Lane orchards got signs with their orchard names. I've included a picture from the spring - what a contrast with those soft colours in the last image.

A Foggy Brain

The Google search image today links to an announcement that NASA has discovered 7 Earth-like planets orbiting a star just 40 light-years away.  There's an article on it here.  They are being called the seven sisters of planet Earth. We had a day of fog yesterday.  These is an expression known as Brain Fog.  "It's a vague sense of what you're trying to retrieve, but you can't focus in on it and the effort to harness the thought can be as draining as physical activity." I won't give you the link as the web page  is full of junk and keeps shifting.  Wikipedia's entry for it is "clouding of consciousness." Our fog yesterday was perfect for orchard images.  I found the infra-red filter in Topaz Black and White Effects, and that's the result in the two bottom pictures.  They have an eerie snow-quality to them.  And how different the light was during the time I was out.  The first picture is taken towards the west with a blue fog, and the second picture is taken towards the east with the grey fog.  You can see the orchards are being worked on.  There are piles of branches on the ground. The third picture shows a row or corkscrew willow graft trees.  This looks like a corkscrew willow and pussy willow crop.  They may even be harvesting the pussy willows now as I could see the pussy willows on the stems..