Dec 1 2024 - Fairytale Month

 

Glitter is the stuff of fairytales.  And December has turned into a star-lit month with lights and decorations in abundance.  People in Grimsby were so ready that lights were up by mid-November on many homes.  Even Niagara Falls started early - from November 16th until January 5th is their Festival of Lights.   We have the butter tart trail in Ontario.  That's for summer.  For winter, there's  "The Hot Chocolate Trail" - there are 20 stops and over 30 flavours to sip and savour in Niagara Falls and the surrounding area.  Seems Canadian to me.

The Niagara Falls version of fairytale celebrations focus on the light displays.  There are 3.5 million lights on display in Niagara Falls with dozens of display installations in the Falls, the Parkway and Lundy's Lane.  Here's a screen shot of one of them - The Niagara Falls version of a fairytale walkway. . This one by Oreos is 100 feet long. The displays are described here.     One year I create the decorative urn display at the Casa Toscana restaurant in town.  It was a naturalistic display, and received such poor reactions that one patron offered to fix it.  So I went out and bought a lot of red white and green ornaments to bling it up.  This minimalistic displaya few years ago at the Niagara Falls Greenhouse would likely get a similar response.  This year, it seems to need a whole bunch of lights on the right.  What do you think?   Having a light festival at Winter Solstice is perfect.  It seems a bit of luck that we get to focus on such bright and sparkly displays at the darkest time of year.

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Aug 19 2022 - The Ex

Microsoft Bing's Search Page today has a picture of a ferris wheel and the headline "Let's Go to the Ex".  I remember the song, and they are playing it on the radio again so it is lots of fun.   Something that caught my attention is that there will be a Drone Show every night.   But much attention leading up to the Ex is the food news.  There is always weird and wacky food that brings headlines.  Here's the list:  Light Sabre Cotton Candy Cookie Butter Frites Mac & Cheese Pizza (Macaroni Pizza, as the CNE, puts it) Krispy Kreme Pulled Pork (you read that right) Two-foot long nachos Pirate’s Treasure (vanilla ice cream inside an edible seashell, apparently) Spice Cream (like ice cream, but spicy) Squid Cakes (self-explanatory) Squid-Ink Korean Corndogs State Fair Hot Dog Croffles (Croissant Waffles) Cinnamon Curd Crunch (deep-fried cheese curds topped with cinnamon sugar) Deep Fried Coffee (a deep-fried funnel cake topped with cocoa beans, to be transparent) Giant Mozzarella Sticks Deep Fried Snickers Dole Whip Pineapple Split and Pickle Split (banana split with a twist) Eva’s Mac & Cheese Cones Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Smash Burger and Burrito Edible Rainbow Slime Candy Ketchup and Mustard Ice Cream - this is the news this year Leaning T.O-wer of Pisa Seoul-ful Taters And the drinks? Mac & Cheese Lemonade Spicy Pickle Lemonade Colour-changing purple slime soda Vegan Sorbet Floats And while you are munching on the CNE treats, the drone show sounds like the new thing to see?  What is a drone show?  It is performed by illuminated, synchronized, and choreographed groups of drones that arrange themselves into various aerial formations. Almost any image can be recreated in the sky by a computer program that turns graphics into flight commands and communicates them to the drones.  Does that make fireworks obsolete? Stay tuned.

I somehow have not been to the CNE summer exhibition in quite a few years.  This picture was taken on the grounds, but not during the exhibition. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

 

Cross Town

I was looking for information on how Christmas has so many colours associated with it.  There's the red and green, blue, and white for snow.  I came upon this overview of  crosses and thought it was interesting.  Some of the crosses are so complicated in their meaning. We return to our simpler world of the Christmas season and our pictures today are Centennial Greenhouses' Christmas display.  They are located in the west end of Toronto.   The Cross symbolises that Christians believe Jesus Christ died for everyone on a Cross. The Latin Cross, also sometimes called the Roman Cross. The base of the Cross has three steps that symbolise faith, hope, and love. The Irish or Celtic Cross is a normal cross with a circle in the middle to symbolise eternity. The Triumphant Cross represents the earth with the cross on top. It symbolises Jesus is triumphant over anything we can face in the world. The Jerusalem Cross was worn by the crusaders going to Jerusalem, in the middle ages. It can symbolise the Four Gospels in the Bible, the spread of the Gospel to the four corners of the earth or the five wounds of Jesus when he died on the cross. The Eastern Cross is the Suppedaneium cross with three horizontal crossbeams,  The top represents the plate inscribed with INRI, and the bottom, a footrest. There is more complexity to the story at wikipedia's orthodox cross entry  The Furca or Upsilon Cross comes from the Greek letter Y . It is also called The Thieves' Cross from the two robbers who were crucified on each side of Jesus. It also symbolises the choice between good and evil.

Niagara's Little Garden Show

A Garden Show in Niagara I went to the Niagara College Greenhouse 'Student Open House' last Friday.  This was the day before they presented the open house so I got the preview and got to meet the students. Everyone was running around, getting things ready, and they were all having a good time of it.  The students took time out from organizing the displays to show me their work and explain the compositions and plants.  It is encouraging and delightful to see a new generation of workers who are engaged and enjoying their work.  They had displays showcasing recycling of materials, as in the humorous use of tires with grass.  There were tiny space gardens and vertical displays.  The horticultural program teaches the latest techniques so the hydroponic lettuces were as interesting looking as they were delicious looking. It was so enjoyable to see this kind of garden show compared to Canada Blooms this year.  It is small, creative, personal and alive. More on Canada Blooms tomorrow.

Those Winter Displays

I visited Plantworld this last week. They have a fabulous array of winter greens for urns and decorative displays. There were so many Grandiflora Magnolia leaves on display! Here's the autumn reason why I so love this tree!