April 4 2024 - Salmons Flip to Safety

 

Today's Globe and Mail has the headline of a truck overturn accident last week.  It dumped over 100,000 live salmon onto the ground.  Just over 3/4 of them flipped their way into a nearby stream to survive and escape.  This was at Lookingglass Creek, in Oregon. They were King Salmon raised in a hatchery that were being transported in Oregon to restock rivers  Given Salmon return to their creeks to spawn, there will be additional adults returning there in the future.  Will this really feel like home for them?   Remember the 5 million bees that fell off a truck near Toronto.  That was last year.  The truck was using an open trailer to transport the crates and they slid onto the highway at Guelph Line and Dundas Street.  A few crates were left behind for the bees they were unable to catch.  The hope was they would "naturally" return and could be collected later.   The advice to motorists:  don't roll your windows down.  Most animal stories involve attacks and often human deaths.  That's because they are relatively rare, so  get reported. But they are creepy to me.  We'll stick with the fish and bees today.   Sakura blossom season is at its height in Japan.  Today's picture is Montmorency cherries in Niagara orchards in the summer.

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July 20 2022 - Peaches

 

What is the most popular fruit?  Is it bananas?  Actually it is tomatoes - but we don't treat them as fruit.  For what we consider fruit, it is in fact bananas.  But would we guess watermelon in the number 3 spot and apples number 4 after that?  Then we have oranges, grapes, mango and guava, pineapple, peaches, pears, pumpkin, papaya, plums, dates and in 15th spot strawberries.   The consumption of bananas is 116,780, 000 tons vs strawberries at only 8,885 tons.  Bananas are such a countable thing - over 100 billion bananas are consumed a year - that's 75% of the annual tropical fruit trade.  Our current fruit is peaches - they are ripe in Niagara.  The earliest ones are not freestone.  I wonder what variety I bought yesterday - the popular ones are listed as fantasia, harblaze, garnet beauty, harrow diamond, and red haven.  There are fifteen different varieties grown in Niagara.   But you don't find orchards with the names of varieties at the rows - not like grapes where the variety is nicely displayed. With all these varieties of peaches we don't seem to purchase by  cultivar - not like apples.  The pint, quart and 4-quart baskets all say "peaches."  Maybe there isn't a lot of taste difference between the varieties.  You can compare the peach picking spots in Niagara.  and some of them list their varieties.  To pick your own peaches today comes with an entrance fee of $4 per person - I guess that's the "selfie-fee".  I go to the fruit stands in my area - they are all listed in this article on Niagara's fruit stands HERE.  It is nice to see them showcased and appreciated. Today's floral abstract is a Gerbera.

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All Carved Up

Wake Up on the Bright Side    What If  our food was art - and then we ate it?  Would you eat something that looked like this? It doesn't look likely that it can be preserved, but who would break apart the globe for a watermelon snack? These would be examples of the kinds of entries in the IKA Culinary Olympics.  There are more HERE in the enroute magazine article.   This is a popular Asian tradition.  There are many fruits that can be used in this process; the most popular that artists use are watermelons, apples, strawberries, pineapples, and cantaloupes. In the vegetable realm, there are carrots, zucchini, and cucumbers.  You can find a zucchini cactus rose, a carrot candle, a banana daschund, blueberry penguins, and so on.         So a scenario came to me - carving onions.  Wouldn't this be for the sturdiest and fastest of carvers.  The tears would get in the way of the result. Look at the results - red onions are carved to look like lotus flowers.      These onions start to take on a life of their own - so here's their joke of the day: One day two onions, who were best friends, were walking together down the street. They stepped off the curb and a speeding car came around the corner and ran one of them over. The uninjured onion called 911 and helped his injured friend as best he was able. The injured onion was taken to emergency at the hospital and rushed into surgery. After a long and agonizing wait, the doctor finally appeared. He told the uninjured onion, "I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is that your friend is going to pull through. The bad news is that he's going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life". Here's an ornamental allium/onion for today's image.

I've been THINKING OUT LOUD!

What does it mean to 'think out loud' - we all seem to do it. This definition comes from wiki.c2.com under the heading ThinkingOutLoud.    Thinking out loud is the act of expressing in recoverable and external form new thoughts which you encourage your mind into exploring. Often these lead to new avenues of thought. When you think out loud you detect and explore ideas and concepts which are either unknown, or as yet unexplored. This exercise can be the first step in moving from a mental doldrums into new paths of exploration. MacMillan's definition is simpler: to say something as soon as it comes to your mind, without writing to consider if it is sensible or useful, as in 'Take no notice, I'm just thinking out loud'.   The melmagazine.com headline promises an in-depth humorous look at the topic:   The Science of Thinking Out Loud  Is verbalizing your problems a signpost for insanity, or a legit way to figure things out?  Here's my favourite excerpt: Statt alludes to an exercise computer programmers regularly employ known as “rubber duck debugging.” “When trying to work through a difficult code,” she says, “they’ll vocally explain the problem they’re having to a rubber duck on their desk. By explaining the code in detail, the programmers often find a way to work through whatever issue they were struggling with in the first place, reiterating the belief that auditory expression is beneficial overall.” What about giving rubber ducks for Christmas wrapped in the article by Quinn Myers?

Summer Skies

Here we are with the grapevines ripening under sunny skies and the golden wheat in the fields that looks ready for harvesting.  Our tender fruit is abundant everywhere - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries.  Last week's market had the first tomatoes ready, too. One can stop along the country roads at fruit and vegetable stands and buy directly from the grower.

Ice in the Garden

I loved the crab apple tree next door - with the ice on the apples, they looked like candy apples ready to eat.  Here are a few of the images.

The Blossom Trail

Here are some of the flowering trees in the Niagara region this week!

Royal Botanical Garden Arboretum:

Lakeshore Road, Niagara-on-the-Lake:

 Royal Botanical Garden Arboretum: