Apr 26 2025 - Floriade

 

The fertility rituals of spring really took a beating with the rise of formal religions.  We still have a faint version at the beginning of May. We can be thankful that we still have spring flower celebrations.  The Keukenhof festival features over 7 million flowers starting in March and concluding in May.  Holland is the great flower trade capital of the world, so you can imagine their show-off festival.  The Dutch don't spend very much time on garden plants.  The industry focuses on pot plants and cut flowers.  And aren't Lilies a great demonstration of that focus.  From the 1980s through to now, many hybrids have been developed - all and every to put into a pot or a bouquet.  But we can be very thankful for their focus, getting those gorgeous oriental lilies like Casablanca (every white oriental lily seems to attract that name) and Stargazer (every pink oriental lily seems to get that name).  Once you've seen a tulip festival, it becomes infectious.  That's how I explain the tulip festivals around the world now.  The Ottawa Tulip Festival, the Canberra Festival, Skagit Valley, Istanbul, Tesselaar Festival in Australia, Albany, N.Y. , Srinagar in Kashmir, India, Tonami Tulip Fair in Japan.   Wikipedia says that the largest tulip festival is Ottawa's.  Maybe they are don't like the expansiveness of Keukenhof - too many types of bulbs and plants in that festival.  Tulips, like many bulbs, have 3 seasons of bloom - the early, the mid and the late bloomers.  Early tulips, like Fostering, can handle the cold and even frost and a bit of snow, but fade out as soon as there's heat.  Compare that to late varieties, like Lily-flowered tulips which can bloom into mid-June in warm temperatures.   If it weren't for the squirrels, voles, rabbits, and chipmunks, I would have a tulip festival each year.  Only daffodils so far this year, despite all that planting of tulips in the past. I'll get to see thousands of tulips soon as Niagara has taken on the tourist challenge and we have a few festivals now.  They start in the next week or so. Remember this picture?  Last year's festival at Seventh and Fourth Streets St. Catharines.  That's right around the corner from 13th Street Winery.  Go pick up an espresso and a butter tart, and then roam the fields of tulips!

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Dec 14 - Festivals of Lights

 

Today's Bing picture is Butchart Gardens' Christmas display.  To me, this is  the triumph of the Solstice celebration of lights in the battle of the holiday season festivities. I like to think that the outdoor lighting displays equal the religious celebrations in our contemporary social realm.  While we won't be flying out to Victoria to see the greens lit up, Niagara Falls is an easy drive to see their display. And it includes the Falls themselves.  They boast 3 million lights, 75 displays for 1010 Nights of Twinkling Lights - from November 12 2022 to February 20 2023. There's also the fireworks display. "To celebrate the beauty and majesty of the winter season and mark the 40th anniversary of the Niagara Falls Winter Festival of Lights, a new illumination light show “Sparkling Winter Lights” has been produced for Niagara Falls Tourism by the Niagara Falls Illumination Board. The display features the subtle and sometimes harsh movements inspired by winter in the north. From gentle snowfalls to the aurora borealis gliding over snowy tundra, to blizzards and the frosted falls; winter’s spectacle is exciting and magical. The mighty American and Canadian Horseshoe Falls will come to life every evening with this tribute to the natural beauty all around us. The display is part of the regular nightly illumination of the Falls, with the five-minute lighting display playing through on the hour, at 6:00 pm, 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm each evening between November 12, 2022 and February 20, 2023." What better way to make this enjoyable than to include a chocolate trail.  The write-up offers a Velvet Kiss or a Dirty Snowman. Today's stars  were at the Niagara Falls display and then the Longwood display a few years ago. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 22 2022 - Friday to Festivals

 

Somewhere between Thursday and Saturday.  Do you look forward to Fridays?  If you go to the Better Living Centre in Toronto the beer festival starts today and goes all weekend.  There are 50 top festivals listed in Toronto this summer.  There are twenty-five  listed for this weekend.  Mostly food and music.  There are two puppy festivals for Millie to choose from. Festivals definitely cluster in summer - The Summer Solstice kicks it off and they just continue on.  I assume that it is those of us in the Northern Hemisphere who have made the summer festival so numerous.   We're in for the beg sports event - the Niagara Summer games this year.  That's from August 7 - 21.  The opening ceremony will be at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines.  There is a 13 for 13 festival - every night a different music group representing a different place in Canada.   Grimsby gets Prince Edward Island on August 20th  from 4:00 - 10:00pm at the Peach King Centre.   Everyone seems to have a summer festival in their back yard.  It's a happy toad in the garden.

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March 29 2020 - Google's no Pagan Fool

Here's a question?  Is April 1st a pagan holiday?  Every holiday seems to have 'pagan roots'. The 'pagan' term comes from Christians describing the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism. Equivalent terms were hellen, gentile, and heathen.  So it is a label that Christianity applied to others. "Anyone not Christian" is how it started out.  So was April Fool's Day a pagan tradition? The first written reference to April 1st as a day of tricks comes from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.  This reference is disputed.  What is confirmed is the French poet Eloy d'Amerval refer to a poisson d'avail in 1508, considered the first reference to the celebration in France.  Wikipedia says this: "Although no Biblical scholar or historian is known to have mentioned a relationship, some have expressed the belief that the origins of April Fool's Day may go back to the Genesis flood narrative." Reader's Digest claims that the likely origins are the Roman Festival of Hilaria.  It took place around March 25 in honour of the first day of the year longer than the night (equinox).   Because the origins are unknown, there are lots of articles and sites who weigh in on their version. And so it goes.   However, with this year's Covid-19 concerns, there is April Fools' news!  Google has officially canceled its April Fools' joke. Here's the list since year 2000.  We'll have to revisit them instead of getting a new one.  This turns out quite fun. Google's first April Fools' Day hoax, the MentalPlex hoax, invited users to project a mental image of what they wanted to find whilst staring at an animated GIF. Several humorous error messages were then displayed on the search results page, all listed below: Error 005: KUT Weak or no signal detected. Upgrade transmitter and retry. Error 466: Multiple transmitters detected. Silence voices in your head and try again. Error 05: Brainwaves received in analog. Please re-think in digital. Error 4P: Unclear on whether your search is about money or monkeys. Please try again. Error 445: Searching on this topic is prohibited under international law. Error CK8: That information is protected under the National Security Act. Error 104: That information was lost with the Martian Lander. Please try again. Error 007: Query is unclear. Try again after removing hat, glasses and shoes. Error 008: Interference detected. Remove aluminum foil and remote control devices. Error: Insufficient conviction. Please clap hands 3 times, while chanting "I believe" and try again. Error: MentalPlex™ has determined that this is not your final answer. Please try again. And our image today is the flower 'Statice' - this came from the greenhouse tour last year (on this weekend).  This was the Prins greenhouse.

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March 15 2020 - Blossom Festivals

Cherry Blossoms...in Japan.  The start times are expected to be: Tokyo on March 19 through to Sendai March 25th.  The peak day is predicted to be March 27th.  This is an early year - last year the blossom period was in April. But this year is different: Japan cherry blossom festivals cancelled Vancouver cherry blossom festival cancelled California cherry blossom festival cancelled What about California's Almond Blossom festival?  It is finished - February 20th - 23rd is typical - that was in Ripon, south of Sacramento, inland from San Francisco.  The Fresno bloom period has finished. It is more like Niagara - a blossom trail that you drive.  Here's the overview from Fresno: "How to recognize the Blossoms you see... Almond Blossoms have white petals. Two or more varieties may be planted in the same orchard for cross pollination by bees. Harvesting, usually done mechanically, runs from late Aug. to early Oct. Plum Blossoms are white. At least two varieties will be planted in an orchard for cross pollination. Over 200 varieties are grown commercially. Harvested in June to late September. Apricot Blossoms have pink petals. Fewer than 12 varieties are grown commercially. Harvest season lasts two to three weeks during mid to late May. Peach and Nectarine Blossoms feature pink to red petals and bloom at the same time. Over 100 varieties are grown commercially. Harvest runs mid-May to October. Apple Blossoms have white petals. Up to six varieties are grown commercially in Fresno County. Harvest is Aug. to Nov. Citrus Blossoms are white with a most aromatic fragrance. Navel and Valencia oranges, Mandarins, and lemons, are the most common citrus grown locally. Mandarin trees are frequently covered with a fine mesh to prevent bees from pollinating the flowers, which would cause the fruit to form seeds." Scrolling through pictures of almond orchards in California shows all of the above - white and pink.  And lots of "Almond Orchard Engagement Session" results.  That would be the engagement pictures to cherish. It is a more than a few weeks before our blossom trail is ready.  Here's a collage of what to expect in Niagara.

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Celebration Day

Santa is heading to the North Pole, Arctic in 13 minutes.  I guess he's finished his work.  The NORAD map won't let me view the Article Circle as the underside - from the bottom.  There's an 'up' to the planet and that's it - I can see it from the side, though, and this is what is useful -to see the continents and land masses in their correct size and spacial distances.   Now Santa's back home! He delivered over 7.5 billion gifts in his trip this year. That's a lot of children per adults of the 2.2 or 2.4 billion people (depending on whose count you are counting on) considered to be Christian.  How many of the 1.9 billion Muslims might have given gifts.  And the Secular, nonreligious, agnostic or atheists at 1.2 billion - did they participate in the Santa tradition? These numbers come from the Pew Forum in their December 2012 study The Global Religious Landscape. It is HERE. They updated the study as of 2015, and it indicates Christians remain the largest religious group in the world.  So it is no surprise that Christmas is the big festival of the year that it is. But what about the 2/3 of the people who aren't Christian? Those of us who come from the dominant religion ask:  Can we parse the secular from the religious parts of Christmas for all to enjoy the festival part?  Christmas will be here for a while.  Its festival of lights and Santa fun are so easy to engage with and so attractive to us, like Santa Claus and his trip around the world.  Not so easily done is the report that comes back. So Christmas is here with lots to contemplate and to enjoy.  Our traditional Merry Christmas greeting comes from Santa and Mrs. Claus when they visited the Museum's Fantasy of Trees.

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July 25 20-19 - In Cahoots

It wasn't even noon yesterday and the 13th Street Winery's bakery was out of cherry tarts.  They had various flavours of butter tarts - one said its ingredients were everything a nanimo bar had in it AND it was a butter tart.  Now that sounds tasty. The expression in cahoots has its entry in Wiktionary: This word was used in popular English literature in the early nineteenth century. It comes perhaps from French cahute (“cabin”), from Old French [Term?], possibly blend of cabane (“cabin”), and hutte (“hut”). Also thought to be from French cohorte, or a slang form of English cohort in the meaning "accomplice."   The meaning of the expression -  "Cahoot" is used almost exclusively in the phrase "in cahoots," which means "in an alliance or partnership." In most contexts, it describes the conspiring activity of people up to no good.  I must have seen something with this expression.  I could have seen it in many contexts.  It's a bar, a publisher, an album, a theatre company, a survey conducted by the Manitoba government. Carl Sandburg has a poem titled Cahoots: PLAY it across the table. What if we steal this city blind? If they want any thing let 'em nail it down. Harness bulls, dicks, front office men, And the high goats up on the bench, Ain't they all in cahoots? Ain't it fifty-fifty all down the line, Petemen, dips, boosters, stick-ups and guns-what's to hinder? Go fifty-fifty. If they nail you call in a mouthpiece. Fix it, you gazump, you slant-head, fix it. Feed 'em ... Nothin' ever sticks to my fingers, nah, nah, nothin' like that, But there ain't no law we got to wear mittens-huh-is there? Mittens, that's a good one-mittens! There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens. ~Carl Sandburg We were in St. Catharines at the theatre yesterday for a Norm Foster play.  Gerry won the fifty/fifty draw and I got these pictures of the lanterns in the ceiling of the lounge.

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Wheresomeness

When searching for odd words, such as wheresomeness, one retrieves equally odd results.  Here's a quote from a short poem: "Every morning dawns with an ache, a pang of wheresomeness and shallow water." In terms of definitions, "Ness" is an English suffix  forming abstract nouns denoting quality and state - darkness, goodness, kindness, preparedness. There are places, organizations, people, and myths where "Ness" occurs.  One could be named Ness Ness as it is a given and surname.  And if one were an Irish princess from mythology one could be Ness Ness Ness.   Typically a movie or toy character pops up with names that are unusual.  Ness is a game and a playable character in Super Smash Bros.4.  There's nesstheband and their tag line is "whatever's unclear to you, it's the same for me - ness." And there are many products on Amazon with "Ness" in their names - from Scottish clothing to soup ladles, hats, mirrors, motorcycle handlebars, and cat litter pans.   Today our pictures show the Chrysanthemum display at the Niagara Showcase Greenhouses.  It is a popular festival every year throughout the world.  Longwood Gardens has the thousand flower tree display right now. Japan has Chrysanthemum Day - one of five ancient sacred festivals.  Korea, Germany, China, and more have displays where Chrysanthemums are used in mosaic culture displays. The Niagara Parks display always has a Romantic section with pinks, purples and whites, and a contrasting primary colour display section.

Stratford Swans

How is it that swans are associated with Stratford?  "You can download and read about our pride and joy in the brochure The Swans of Stratford". The story of the swans started in 1918, and gained fame when Queen Elizabeth II gave six pairs of Mute swans to Ottawa in 1967.  One of the pairs was then given to Stratford. Read about Clyde, one of the offspring, and his notorious activities.

Eastminster United Fall Festival

Eastminster United Church on the Danforth just east of Broadview had a fall festival on Saturday. I participated by exhibiting my work and selling greeting cards.  I got to meet some great artists - all members of the Riverdale Artists Network, an excellent organization supporting artists in Toronto.

The highlight of the day was bringing the camel into the church for the blessing of the animals.  What a sight!  It was after the camel left that I noticed the intricate carving of the Last Supper at the alter with these fall leaves in front.

Christmas Countdown - Enjoy the Decorations!

Christmas is the festival of decorations, so enjoy them!