Photo Finalist March 2016

There are bees boxes in every orchard that I looked at yesterday and I spent quite a bit of time looking at orchards.  I have something in common with bees -  I can imagine the experience a bee has with the thousands and millions of blossoms.  It is a good thing bees love to be busy.  Today's image is a Finalist in this month's Betterphoto (BP) contest.  The contest has 6400 entries each month with just under 600 finalist photos.  There are some remarkable winning images - here's the link to the contest results.  There's an 'all time' contest underway there, and I've been getting notifications of pictures placing in the Staff Favourites, etc. So something to look forward to there.  Participants on Betterphoto are primarily U.S.-based. So there are mostly images from the  United States - each day the scenes vary across the country, giving one the experience of a living travelogue.   Redbubble, another photography site, originated in Australia, so there are many Australian members and we get to see their distinctive landscape.  Right now we we move through Spring and they move through Autumn, so there's a contrasting experience in the seasons and landscape. I think of Marshall McLuhan'a expression 'The Global Village' and realize this is it.

Who Could Love a Pig Lily?

Wake Up on the Bright Side How does a plant get its common name?  Calla Lily has a few common names.  They include Pig Lily, White Arum, Trumpet Lily, Florist's Calla, Garden Calla and Arum Lily.  One site tells me that the word Calla comes from the Greek term for beautiful.  The Merriam Webster dictionary site says that the origin of Calla Lily is new latin, genus name, modification of Greek kallaia rooster's wattles.  Two well-known artists made Calla Lilies a frequent subject of their work:  Georgia O'Keeffe painted Calla Lilies many times with swirling, flowing lines.  Robert Maplethorpe photographed them in black and white with light shining through the flowers.

Fun in 2016

Have there always been this many lists?  Since the internet we can find out so many things with a search, organized nicely into the top 5 and top 10. 5 things to look out for from the Weather Network 1. The South Will Be Cooler Than Average, The North Warmer 2. The South Will Be Wetter Than Average 3. El Nino Isn't the Only Player 4. California Could See Some Minor Drought Relief 5. We Don't Know When or Where It Could Get Ugly What kinds of Fun can we expect in 2016? We can expect the Mazda CX-3 to be stylish, efficient and fun, or the 2016 Mazda MX-5 to be plain, simple fun.  The most striking thing is that cars dominant the "fun" results. If you are looking for FUN:  Did you know that the acronym FUN stands for Florida United Numismatists?  We can go to the FUN show the first week of January. Here are two images for 2015 as it passes and 2016 as it arrives - A Time for Peace and Bird of Hope.