Dec 25 2021 - Christmas Day and the Reveal

 

This is Christmas Day - the day of the big reveal.  What was that day?   Scholars have tried to figure this out and the closest that can be determined and not debunked is somewhere in the month of September.  We know now that the date of December 25 was established overtly by the Roman Catholic Church, and became the most significant of the Christmas traditions. There is much writing about the stories that became traditions rather than having a source in the Bible.   For example, the popular Nativity Scene is said to have started in the seventh century, and then made really popular by St. Francis of Assisi who set up a Nativity in his town where "miracles' were said to happen - healing sick animals, etc. I guess that culminated in the Saint aspect. The paintings of the Nativity reveal got more and more ornate over time.  One painting has a peacock that peers over the top of the manger to catch a glimpse of Jesus. One visual representation of Christmas settled on Three Wise Men/Kings/Magi along with the Star of Bethlehem.  The visual depictions over the centuries have developed to include camels (not likely say the historians) and how many kings remains unknown. Our gift-giving at Christmas is generally traced back to the gifts of the Three Wise Men to the infant Jesus.   That's a tradition many people appreciate. We'd have to zig-zag to get to Santa where the tradition follows another track.  I did find this excellent Santa joke: The 3 stages of man: He believes in Santa Claus. He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. He is Santa Claus.   It is a rainy day here today so I went to last year's archives and found a snowy orchard scene on John Street followed by Millie the puppy racing about in the snow.

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July 3 2020 - Selling Wildly

What has been selling wildly during COVID-19?  First off was toilet paper.  Then eggs, flour, yeast.  And that meant that bread makers sold out too.  Also rice cookers, vacuum sealers, soda makers.  Grocery stores all of a sudden had a lot of snack food - Oreos and Cheetos, and lots of potato chips and popcorn. There was an immediate rush of suspect websites looking to cash in on COVID-19 products - Shopify registered 500 new e-commerce sites, according to the New York Times.   Bicycle sales have spiked-  or is it skyrocketed?.  Swimming pools from tiny to large are all sold out too..   Office supplies went up for those working. When not working?  All the hobbies - from gardening to crafts, feeding the birds, and getting furry pet friends.   What plummeted were car sales - yet it seems to me that car sales may go up now - driving seems so safe compared to transit. Our pictures today tell a story - the beautiful blossom trail looks ragged to me in the summer.  Or maybe I find the ragged fields under moody skies.  I have to show you this pair of houses on Sann Road at the Lake - the first road east of Beamsville's Ontario street.  There's a mushroom cloud size house  next to the tiny summer cottage sitting on a lot not more than 15 feet wide.

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Weather Alerts Every Which Way

Which alert to look for?  A Warning (red) a Watch (yellow) or a Statement (grey).  If we were north of Toronto in Barrie, there is both a wind and snow squall warning.  Here in Niagara, it is a wind warning so our map of Southern Ontario shows red in Niagara.  The colour code of red for danger has been use for quite a while. The British newspaper ,The Telegraph has an article about it, written in 2008.  Red is take action.  Orange is be prepared,  Yellow is be aware, and Green no severe weather.   Yesterday's satellite radar image showed green rain flowing from the south to the north, except at Grimsby - pink and red for freezing rain. Code systems using colours are common in hospitals.  While hospital system codes vary between countries and provinces,  code blue inevitably means cardiac emergency.  Doctor codes - paging Dr. Sinclair - uses a doctor's name as a code word for a dangerous situation or a patient in crisis.  There are a lot of potential crises in hospitals - the codes vary from flood, fire, gang activity, bomb, child abduction and so on. In comparison, the U.K. hospital codes are numeric - 2222 crash call, 3333 security alert, 4444 fire alert. But mostly where safety is involved, there are color codes for labelling and communicating - this is universal in all industries and businesses with any kind of safety concerns. Back to our weather - it has been on alert for most of the week.  We had to cancel the big closing evening of the Fantasy of Trees last night because of freezing rain, high winds, and black ice warnings.  And add to that a freezing fog earlier.  I didn't even know there is such a thing as freezing fog. So our pictures today show the John Street orchards, covered in ice an inch or two thick.  Everything is white, like an infrared landscape.  It was a surreal landscape - white from top to bottom.

The Blossom Trail

Niagara has been in bloom for about 2 weeks.  It seems shorter, and it is coming to an end.  Most orchards  are close to the Lake (on both sides of the QEW) and below the escarpment.  There are orchards from Grimsby right through to Niagara-on-the-Lake. These two orchards are in Vineland.  There are a lot of good orchards there - along John Street and Green Lane.  These are rural roads, and I am able to stop the car and take pictures from the car if I want.  This is drive-by photography at its best. I was lucky to catch some peach trees with their trimmed branches on the ground before they withered.  The peach trees are trimmed just at blooming, so the carpet of pink on the ground is a gorgeous display.

Mayday and May Day!

How is it that May Day is a springtime festival and a call for urgent help? As a spring festival it includes dances, singing and cake.  As an emergency procedure it is used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications.  It is used three times in a row to distinguish it as a Mayday call rather than about a message about a Mayday call.  Isn't that the best! Our news headlines today in Quebec also let us know that this is International Workers Day.  There are workers' rights demonstrations planned for Montreal and streets will be closed for the route.  In past years, in Montreal, some May Day demonstrations have ended in violence and mass arrests. Our second picture today is a close-up of a weeping Katsura tree on the grounds where the weeping cherry is located.  What is special about a Katsura in the fall?