Apr 10 2021 - Japanese Flower Story

 

How does an entire country be so in love with cherry blossoms?  From the end of March to early May, one can travel Japan to see the cherry blossoms.  Even earlier, if one includes Okinawa - that supposedly is February.  It is called 'hanami' which means flower viewing.  The custom started in the 700s so it has a grand and long tradition.   In Sakurayama Park alone there are 10,000 trees.   And there are over 50 varieties in Ueno Park alone.  There are about 600 species in Japan.   "The nectar of cherry blossoms is deep at the base of the petals. Only birds with long thin beaks can reach the nectar. Therefore, you're likely to see the Japanese white-eye and brown-eared bulbul nestled among the cherry blossoms. Birds like the Japanese tit and Eurasian tree sparrow have short, stout beaks so they need to tear at the petals to reach the nectar. When you see petals on the ground, it's likely the work of those two." I've seen Baltimore Orioles rip the petals from crab apple trees, and hadn't realized that would likely be the reason. There are many uses of Cherry blossoms in Japanese cuisine - ice cream, tea, cakes, crepes with sweet beam paste, This year the festival peaked at the earliest date since records began 1,200 years ago.  That was March 26th.  Can you imagine the great love of cherries, to have started the records so long ago.   Model train day today.  Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

I didn't know what epoch it was, then I met you

This news just in from the Guardian: The Anthropocene epoch:  scientists declare dawn of human-influenced age "Humanity’s impact on the Earth is now so profound that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared, according to an official expert group who presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress in Cape Town on Monday. The new epoch should begin about 1950, the experts said, and was likely to be defined by the radioactive elements dispersed across the planet by nuclear bomb tests, although an array of other signals, including plastic pollution, soot from power stations, concrete, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken were now under consideration. The current epoch, the Holocene, is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which all human civilisation developed. But the striking acceleration since the mid-20th century of carbon dioxide emissions and sea level rise, the global mass extinction of species, and the transformation of land by deforestation and development mark the end of that slice of geological time, the experts argue. The Earth is so profoundly changed that the Holocene must give way to the Anthropocene." And so our images today are of the 'spring' of our new age.