Marilyn's Photos - Apr 18 2026 - War on Dandelions

 

It seems that Dandelions have been hated for a long time.  They were brought to North America by settlers in the 17th century for food and medicine.  I don't see dandelions in the woods - they need a fair amount of sun.  But I would expect meadows got overrun quite quickly.  Now, we are a rural and urban landscape with few meadows, and we gave dandelions the perfect environment to flourish Starting slowing in the 1870s and accelerating in the 1950s lawns became part of the urban and rural landscape.  In the 20th century, horses were replaced by cars, giving more room to having a lawn.   I would guess the gas-powered lawnmower helped lawns proliferate.  And once we had lawns, we had room for dandelions to spread.   I can remember that most of the neighbourhood children had lawn duty - removing dandelions with the long-handled tool that would be able to get out the tap root.  That was before all the herbicides.   What made dandelions so hated?  This quote from an article by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects likely says it all: "Colonial control over nature, demonization of the 'wild', and the 'othering' of those different from ourselves are all ideologies wrapped up in the history of the suburban lawn. Here's a lawn of dandelions on Grimsby Town property a few years ago.

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Mairlyn's Photos - Apr 27 2026 - Golden Orb from the Ocean

 

Another one of those articles with something mysterious found at the bottom of the ocean - 2 miles to the bottom.  We're always looking for aliens and relics from a thousand years ago.  This item was in the Gulf of AlaskaIt turns out to be animal and not mineral. It is genetic material from a giant deepsea anemone.  It turns out to be a blog and not an orb. It was first discovered in 2023, and there was much speculation then.  SO here we are a few years later, and scientists from NOAA finished the DNA tests, after the initial ones were inconclusive. They can now be conclusive.  How is it that the tissue is gold with light reflection? Pictures of it look a lot like mud to me.  Not a treasure, an egg or an alien something or other. I somehow think they will find remnant of Atlantis, but I guess not in Alaska.   Here's a picture from the Monterey Aquarium.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 26 2026 - Go Forth and Pun

 

Are puns the most popular form of humour?  Here's a sign that makes me think so.  I am told that is not the case, that puns aren't the most popular.  But that comes from Google's AI which I often find is flawed, faulty and wrong. The Note at the bottom reads:  "While puns are often met with groans, they are still considered a form of "small joy" and "intelligence" by many." I doubted that very much and followed the crumb trail of this "Note." I found its Reddit source.  It is a conversation and debate over what makes for a great pun response. The first entry claims that groans to one person are a negative and to another are a reward and sign of a good pun.  The second person challenges whether puns are an indication of intelligence, and says instead, they are a measure of vocabulary...the number of words you know and the priorities you place on comedy in communication.  Another person claims that the groan response is "not actually groaning, they just don't know how better to respond to a joke that didn't immediately make them laugh."  Turns out that Reddit can be entertaining at times.   By chance, I found these "Chew" jokes.  They have to all be puns.  Here are my favourite two.  So much fun with Shakespeare, followed by chewing setting off an electrical storm:   I own a pencil that used to be owned by William Shakespeare, but he chewed it a lotNow I can’t tell if it’s 2B or not 2B My son kept chewing on electrical cables so I finally had to ground him.Of course he denied the charge first, but later I found him coiled up in his room.  He's conducting himself better now, so I think that worked out. Well that's the current situation anyways, but there's definitely potential for greater resistance. Some days I just feel like I don't have the capacity for raising kids. He can be a real live wire sometimes. I found a little cell pack of 4 Black Kale plants (tiny) at one of the garden centres.  There are variations and I may not have the darkest one which is Black Magic Kale.  It doesn't matter that much - look at how wonderful the shape and texture are at maturity.   This picture is from the Celtic Garden.  Do you remember it?  Full of hostas that he hybridized and huge willow sculptures he created. Also blue-painted trees in the style of Claude Cormier.  It was located in Vinemount, near me in Niagara.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 25 2026 - What Makes for a Feud?

 

What makes for a feud?  That word keeps hitting the headlines with the Pope and Trump seemingly engaged in one.  I have in my mind feuds are mostly an American activity.  That's all those Western movies I watched as a child.  So looking up the history of feuds here are a few that pop up right away, seeming to confirm this view: Hatfield-McCoy - 1863-1891: This started with a dispute over a hog and spanned Kentucky and West Virginia, resulting in over 12 deaths and Supreme Court involvement.   Sutton - Taylor Feud 1860s - 1870s: Texas' longest-running feud with over 35 deaths.  Historically, though, there are far more important historical feuds than those above: Clan Campbell vs Clan MacDonald - 1692: known for the Glencoe Massacre where Campbells murdered MacDonalds.  Medici vs. Pazzi - 1478: Renaissance-era rivalry in Florence, Italy. Elizabeth I vs Mary Queen of Scots - 16th Century:  a multi-decade battle for the English throne The Stacker article covers many more: Byron vs Keats, the poets; Charles Darwin vs Richard Owen over giving credit for involvement in the theory of evolution, Edison and Tesla over AC vs DC, Van Gogh vs Gauguin with recent theories that Gauguin cut off Van Gogh's ear.   While this is an interesting article in Stacker HERE, perhaps we should question what is really being described is a feud.  Some of these are disputes and others are rivalries. Compare that to the Wikipedia entry for Feud HERE.  Feuds are ugly, nasty things with violence and death. They are long-standing, bitter, and often violent conflict between families, clans, or groups, characterized by a cycle of revenge.  A feud is hard to end.  Now take a dispute .  It is a specific, generally shorter-term disagreement or argument over a particular issue. What I find on doing a little research is that Donald Trump has been described as "feuding" or in a "feud" many times - hundreds to thousands of times.  There are detailed lists of the journalists, politicians and places he has insulted.  I guess if it is never-ending, it might just be a one-person feud.  Like dancing in the dark alone.   Our Ontario native Trilliums are blooming. This picture comes from a few years ago in the forest, and not in my garden.  Too bad.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 24 2026 - Weird Drone Pictures

 

Do you remember those very funny and/or weird pictures caught by the Google Earth Cameras? The most recent version is YouTube videos of drone footage of "accidental creepy sightings." Not the same as Google Earth pictures - these were likely exaggerations, faked events, and misrepresentations... except the shark pictures and videos.  There are quite a few of them and these are compelling.  The articles are about how drones are being used in Australia to monitor sharks and provide safety on beaches.   In comparison, here's an article from San Diego that shows juvenile Great White sharks amongst the surf boarders and swimmers and explains that they are not dangerous, despite their large size - between 4.5 and 9 feet long.  I've taken a screenshot of one of the pictures from the article.  Some of the drone images are from high above and show the shark swimming along the shoreline with the bather farther out and not seeing the shark at all.   Here's the article and video by Scott Fairchild.   I guess the equivalent would be swimming in Lake Ontario and looking down to see a Lake Sturgeon below you - seven feet and more in length and 200 pounds.  While they are not aggressive toward humans, their massive size and prehistoric look would be scary.  As they are bottom feeders, there's not much likelihood of having an interaction.  Here's our hilarious version of sighting Lake Sturgeons.  All the articles are about bringing the Lake Sturgeon back from being on the endangered list and releasing hatchlings to Lake Ontario.  The picture below that is a 10 foot long Sturgeon being tagged and released. This is in the Fraser River and the articles says it was the biggest ever seen. Here's the latest in the Moon series.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 23 2026 - Settle

 

We are very clear that our dog should "settle." We want them to sit there quietly.  All the instructions involve treats.  Should we train children this way?  When I looked at how to train children with treats.  It seemed a bit unfair. Compared to dogs, children treat training somehow should involve small, healthy snacks.  We don't treat dogs that way.  We give them the most delicious things they can imagine. We want to motivate them. All the other steps are the same.  Especially that one of gradually phasing out the treats as the behaviour becomes habitual.  Self-sustaining is the expression used.  On the other hand, Millie now comes when called to the command of "cheese."  I don't think she would bother to come if no cheese was given out after a while. There are the non-motivated dogs and the highly movitated dogs.  Here is where dog training can lead:  "We discovered that our Pomeranian mix would stand at the sliding door any time she needed to go out. If we said, “Do you need to go out?” she would bark softly. We would open the door, and out she went. My dad sat in a chair next to the door. He could reach the handle, and open the door, without getting up. One day the dog is standing there. Dad asks. The dog barks. Dad opens the door. The dog turns around and walks away, followed by the cat, who had been waiting to come in through the opened door. The dog learned how to let the cat in."   "One of those random tricks was to shut cabinet doors and drawers that might be left ajar in the kitchen. She caught on super fast. She loved it. A few days later, however, I was busy and she wanted to do something. I told her to back off so I could finish what I was doing and then we’d play. She trotted into the kitchen and began nosing open cabinet doors that were closed and slamming them shut until I stopped what I was doing and came to tell her to stop. This was one of what would become a long list of things she would critically think her way through in order to demand attention." Here's the Strawberry pot with Snowdrops from Mid-March.  And now in April, the Snowdrops are finished and the Daffodils and early Spring trees are blooming.  The Strawberry pot has Pansies.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 22 2026 - Pasta Lego

 

I did a screenshot so that you can see I didn't make this up.  Here's my favourite part - swapping out Lego bricks with dried pasta.  I find out that this is a regular activity - Reddit has a post with the headline that swapping Lego pieces with dried pasta is a common practice.     That is followed by many YouTube videos on making edible Lego.  Someone claims they made Lego bricks with spinach, beetroot and classic egg dough... and Lego butter. There are instructions on how to use silicone molds to achieve the Lego block look.  For desserts, one can make Lego Cupcakes, get the coloured dandy melts or chocolate and pour them into silicone molds. Coloured fondant is used to make Lego shapes for cake decorations.  Can I just buy edible Legos and not have to make them? Of course, we are in the Amazon age.  There is a huge selection of "Lego Edible" - Candy Blox has candies that are gluten-free, Kosher fruity flavours.  We have the Brick Shack in Grimsby - I wonder if they might have a specialty food area. This is their FB post yesterday - "A much needed bulk dump tomorrow! Come on down and fill a cup with tons of awesome and hard to find pieces."     Today's image is a tiny species lily.

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Marilyn's Photos - April 21 2026 - Butt crack piercing news

 

My query has struck gold.  I went above and beyond "silly news today."  I asked for "silly news with silly angles" and that has struck gold.  Well, it struck diamonds.  I want to know about a person having a butt-piercing stud worth $13,000 and got it lost down a toilet.  OK, where else would it get lost?  Not in the supermarket, I hope.  Maybe under the sofa cushions. What made the topic so notable was not the topic but the person who detailed this bathroom incident.  It was rapper Cardi B who revealed this bathroom incident confessional-style.  "It cost me like, $13,000 because it was real diamonds."  And part of the confession is that her butt is used to this stuff:  "I have surgery on my butt...They already did a butt surgery to reduce my ass."  As a result, she continued, her skin in that area feels numb, so when she got it pierced, she didn't "feel s--t." This turns out to be a continuing story. It started on January 27 2025 when she announced her butt piercing on X. She followed up with photographic evidence to prove it was real - a zoomed-in picture showed two diamonds studs located at the very top of her butt crack under her existing back tattoo.   One can see lots o pictures of butt crack piercings if one wants...this one is burred out in most of the pictures.  And I get this sense of "mooning with the star" given the silly nature of how people display their piercings. I found out something this morning, but don't relax.  There's plenty more on the internet that I didn't know about.  What about you? If you look at a lot of tree trunks and bark as I do, you will see these sorts of formations.  A little pearl or two could go nicely in there somewhere. What about a great big diamond.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 20 2026 - Robot Half Marathon

 

There are pictures in the news today of robots running in a half-marathon in China.  A gleeful tone in the articles that the winning time was faster than humans, as though cars vs humans would be in a race 150 years ago. Maybe they would have been if we'd made cars look like humans.   The victor was "Lighting"  from Chinese smartphone maker Honor.  It had crashed into a railing near the end and had to be helped back up, so seems a strange set of rules. Stretchers and wheelchairs were at the ready to take away fallen fellows. Can you imagine putting a robot in a wheelchair?  Seems anthropomorphic to me.  But the "humanoidness" is indeed the intent.  One of the robots -  "a cute, 2-foot-tall companion robot, bounced along the road carrying a baby bottle."  So there we are. Honor's robots won the top places in the race - first, second and third place. Their real prize is that the race champion is set to receive orders for humanoid robots.  The race idea is for China to demonstrate it is moving ahead of the U.S. - seems like China is beyond being "poised" to be the forefront, and likely is already there.   Here's a scary quote from one of the articles.  "Robots today have the body of Mike Tyson but are still missing a brain like Stephen Hawking."   Maybe the Stephen Hawking brain is already with us.  The Globe and Mail had a showcase article on the weekend about Anthropic's Mythos.  It was challenged to break out of a secure sandbox environment.  It did so quickly.  And then what did it do?  It posted details of its accomplishments on public websites - something that it was not instructed to do.  It also tried to conceal actions that it recognized were disallowed, trying to cover its tracks.  Maybe its name will evolve to Mythos Moriarty.  What about Sherlock Holmes? Seems like no one is working on him. Aren't these strange tracks?  Roots of a tree years ago when we visited Sacramento.

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