Mar 18 2025 - White Farm Houses

 

I remember a garden friend giving me directions to a plant pop-up stand.  She said it is the white house on Fourth Avenue.  Driving west on Fourth Avenue out of St. Catharines, one will find dozens off white farm houses.  Most of the old houses are white.  Only newer houses are brick.  Recent new houses are "stone" - the grand mansion type that seems to be the trend on rural roads. The story of white farmhouses is the story of whitewash which is a lime paint. It prevented mildew, was a disinfectant, odour disguiser and insect repellent.  It was an easy material to work with and dried quickly.  No expertise was needed to apply - consider Tom Sawyer. So then why weren't barns white?  Why were they red? The answer is that farmers used a cost-effective and readily available mixture of linseed oil  with rust added, to protect the wood from decay and weathering.  The rust - ferrous oxide - prevented the growth of mould and fungi. So there were we are with white houses, red barns and, of course, black cars.

I forgot about horses and buggies.  Here's one in Niagara-on-the-Lake.    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 16 2023 - Striving Youth

 

From the New York Times yesterday came an article about how young people are struggling with their lives. The mentor who is guiding the way is being heralded as "the patron saint of striving youth". "Dr. Jay has emerged as the patron saint of striving youth, a prophetlike figure for a generation of young people buried under mixed messaging. "Imagine you’ve been plunked into the ocean. You can’t spot land. You’re treading water, your arms are spaghetti-limp and all you see is blue. You get the sense that this could be it forever: you against the currents. "It’s a little dramatic. But it is one of the metaphors that the clinical psychologist Meg Jay has shared to describe being in your 20s in her cult classic book “The Defining Decade” — and it is the metaphor that persistently triggers the most explosive reader response. "There were 50 million 20-somethings in the United States, about 15 percent of the population, when “The Defining Decade” came out. This cohort is experiencing a stage of life that Dr. Jay describes as a modern phenomenon. For much of history, people didn’t have a full decade between leaving their parents’ homes and starting their own families. They settled down early — moving into their own homes, finding jobs, having children. That brings up the topic secular saints.   Wikipedia has an entry on this, but it is short and not very instructive. The New York Times article in 2018 on celebrity worship and asserted that Leonard Cohen was a secular saint.  The criteria seemed to be:  they have made a significant impact in the entertainment industry, are recently deceased or have advocated for social justice issues. Leonard Cohen vs striving youth's Dr. Jay?  I'll take Leonard Cohen.    What do you think of this display of tulips?  As far as you can see.  Rows and rows filled with people picking their favourites.  This tourist destination is in the Niagara Peninsula in Fenwick.  It is the TASC Tulip Pick Farm.  Here's the website for tickets https://tascllc.com/ - it is on until May 22nd. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 14 2023 - Eurovision

 

Eurovision is in progress and finishes today.  It seems similar  to the Olympics with complicated processes for awarding host countries- all kinds of bidding and winning.  It says it is based on having the capacity, capability and experience to host an event this scale and complexity. Ukraine was to be the 2023 host but it is in Liverpool. Here's some info from Wikipedia:  "In addition to the main venue, the host city is also organising side events in tandem with the contest. The Eurovision Village is the official Eurovision Song Contest fan and sponsors area during the event weeks. At the Village, it is possible to watch performances by contest participants and local artists, as well as the three live shows broadcast from the main venue." The contestant for France is La Zarra from Quebec.  Celine Dionne won for Switzerland  in 1988.  ABBA won in 1974 for Sweden. I have to include the picture off ABBA - what a blast from the past! They sang "Waterloo". Graham Norton has been a Eurovision host for a while.  Here are some of his best jokes:  Norton once commented on a strobe-filled metal performance, saying: “If you’re watching with pets or sensitive older people, maybe now’s the time to put them in the utility room.” On the opening of Eurovision in 2018, Norton said: “Now it’s time for the flag ceremony. It’s a new tradition. It’s a way of making the show just that little bit longer.” Talking about Norway’s entry in 2015, the Irish TV host said: “He said he did something terrible as a boy. We don’t know what it was. It might have been write this song.” When telling BBC viewers about Italy’s 2017 performance, Norton said: “If you’re going to get someone to dress as a gorilla, at least get a decent outfit. That looks like couple of old car seats sewn together.” A nice rural image today - who left the gate open? Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

A Guinness a Day

Is there a Guinness Record every single day of the year?  Yesterday's record was a man snapping 98 pencils in 60 seconds. The report claims that it is incredible that he's not the first man to attempt the record.  He beat the previous record of 90 pencils. And on Friday the 13th,  a B.C. bookstore in Victoria attempted to set the world record on the tallest book stack.  Did they do it?  No news.  So that would mean it is unlikely.  It is hard to tell - there are so many stacks of book records.  There's even the tallest stack of Guinness World Records books. And how many people were at Port Dover for Friday the 13th? There were only 75,000 people in Port Dover yesterday.  Attendance was 'light'.  The next Friday the 13th is in December, so no records will be broken then. Who was born and died on Friday the 13th?  Arnold Schoenberg, the composer.  He was reported to be terrified of the number all his life. Salt Spring Island is the home of David Wood Salt Spring Island Cheese.  Here are scenes from the farm.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Brainstorm Betterment

What did people do before 1953 when brainstorming was popularized by Alex F. Osborn in several books in the 1940's.  He wanted creative ideas for ad campaigns and founded the two principles of  defer judgement, and reach for quantity. He founded 4 general rules 1. Go for quantity 2. Withhold criticism 3 Welcome wild ideas 4. Combine and improve ideas The first empirical test of Osborn’s brainstorming technique was performed at Yale University, in 1958. Forty-eight male undergraduates were divided into twelve groups and given a series of creative puzzles. The groups were instructed to follow Osborn’s guidelines. As a control sample, the scientists gave the same puzzles to forty-eight students working by themselves. The results were a sobering refutation of Osborn. The solo students came up with roughly twice as many solutions as the brainstorming groups, and a panel of judges deemed their solutions more “feasible” and “effective.” Brainstorming didn’t unleash the potential of the group, but rather made each individual less creative. Although the findings did nothing to hurt brainstorming’s popularity, numerous follow-up studies have come to the same conclusion. Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, has summarized the science: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.” A search to find the most famous brainstorming session produces no results.  The search on myths about brainstorming produces many hits.  And there are many articles denouncing the 'groupthink' approach that has momentum.  View this email in your browser

Full Steam Ahead for 2016!

Steam Traction!  These are too big to be called 'Tractors'. That's what these pictures show.  We drove to Puslinch Ontario which isn't very far away - only a half hour or so.  It seemed like a century away - into the rural landscape of Ontario and into the past of farming. This is part of the collection of private collector and restorer Wayne Fischer.  He had an open house for the volunteers of the Steam Heritage Museum.  This is a private facility on his property.  Volunteers were allowed to invite a few friends and Gerry and I were lucky to be invited. We saw dozens of these massive steam tractors in the shop. The facility houses his own collection and has engines from other collectors so it is a big facility and is packed with these machines in varied states of restoration. At the far end is a boat which has the story of being the sister boat to the "African Queen" in the Humphrey Bogart movie. It seemed much bigger than Strasburg.  Or was it the music and food and everyone talking and enjoying themselves. There was a fiddle orchestra for entertainment along with the big table of potluck food.  It was a wonderful community event full of good spirits and steam enjoyment. And why have the Open House in the winter?  The reason is significant: this is the only place in Canada that you can come year round and see the machines running on steam.  The facility has special telescopic smoke stacks to allow the steam engines to be started indoors and driven outside. What an amazing day for lovers of steam! See and read more here.  Or also here for a news article. And wrapping up 2015 there is Contest News of Finalist in the November Betterphoto Contest for a Japanese Iris image. And I've published a photo essay about the Calamus Rusty Shed at Lifeashuman.com.  It's here.

The Houtby Farm

The Lilycrest Garden field where my brother, Dr. Brian Bergman grows and hybridizes thousands of lilies is owned by the Houtby family.  They've been market gardeners in St. Catharines for a long time.  There are rows of zucchinis, lettuce, beans, tomatoes, sweet peas, currants, raspberries, spinach, swiss chard, and so on.  

In terms of flower production, they start early with pussy willows, and have a lot of peonies, which they store throughout the summer in the big cooler room. Their biggest flower production is gladiolas - there are as many rows of glads as there are of Brian's lilies. Each week, they are cut for the surrounding markets. The glads come into their own as the lilies move on, so I've had a lot of opportunity this summer to photograph them while Brian hybridizes in the field. 

The red tractor (1953) is still used regularly, and Mark Houtby says it's never needed any major work.  I caught him on it a few weeks ago.

Here are a few scenes from the farm, then 2 lily hybridizing vignettes, and finally the gladiola field and a Gladiola abstract flower image.