April 29 2022 - Ottawa Tulip Festival vs Port Dover Day

 

There aren't any tulips blooming in my garden yet.  And Ottawa is a much colder growing zone, so tulips bloom later.  How much later?  Not till May. Do you know the Canadian Tulip Festival begins Friday, May 13th?  This is Port Dover's Big Event Day.  Could there be motorcycles in both locations?   The Canadian Tulip Festival boasts 300,000 tulips planted each year, and over 650,000 visitors to see them.  The festival came about with a gift in 1945 from the Dutch royal family.  One hundred thousand tulip bulbs were sent to Ottawa in gratitude for sheltering Queen Juliana and her family - which increased when her daughter Margriet was born in Ottawa.  The maternity ward was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial - so Princess Margriet's Dutch citizenship was preserved.  Another 20,500 bulbs came the next year, and 10,000 more bulbs each year.   Malak Karsh organized the first Canadian Tulip Festival in 1953.  As a symbol of international friendship, it is a perfect celebration flower to create a garden in any capital city.  Each year celebrates a new variation on this global friendship theme The Netherlands continues to send 20,000 bulbs to Canada each year (10,000 from the Royal Family and 10,000 from the Dutch Bulb Growers Association). By 1963 the festival featured more than 2 million, and today sees nearly 3 million tulips purchased from Dutch and Canadian distributors.   I wonder how they manage this?  My own garden has invading stealing the tulips each year. Back to Ottawa, the main site of the display is Commissioners Park.  It isn't particularly close to Parliament Hill.  But then, who would travel to a Tulip Festival if there's a major protest clogging up the streets? Isn't this Volunteers Week?  Here's a tulip-themed Thank You to volunteers everywhere.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

February 15 2022 - Hockey Riot vs Astroturfed Movement Siege

 

The Toronto Star had an article yesterday on what it terms the "lacklustre" response of the Ottawa police force to the trucker convoy.  The article compares the response of the Ottawa police to the Vancouver police in 2011 to the riot that followed the Canucks' Game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup finals.    At that 'siege', 155,000 people congregated in the streets of downtown Vancouver and it was titled "The Night the City Became a Stadium".  It took only 928 officers to quell the riot in just three hours.   It seems like a miracle in comparison. The article asserts that both police forces knew of the impending problem - the trucks drove across Canada to converge on Ottawa.  There's more going on now, according to author Christopher J. Schneider in his comparison in the Star HERE  He is a professor of sociology at Brandon University and author of "Policing and Social Media:  Social Control in an Era of New Media."  He says: "The Vancouver rioters were not motivated by politics, which made it less politically problematic for police to quickly bring an end to the melee. The rioters had no political agenda, whereas the “freedom convoy” is obviously politically charged, which, in part, helps explain why there are images on social media of officers in Ottawa posing for photos with occupiers. One would be hard pressed to find any photos of Vancouver Police standing with rioters!" He has brought insight to the situation.  Can he point the way to the solution? Not in that article so far.   A new term to describe this siege comes from the Guardian. An article named this "an astroturfed movement" with this definition: one that creates the impression of widespread grassroots support where little exists, funded by a global network of highly organized far-right groups and amplified by Facebook's misinformation machine.  We can expect to see more written about this before and after the clearing of the streets in Ottawa.  How will the Ottawa citizens pay the $8 or so million for the lacklustre policing and clean-up activities?  Maybe via gofundme.  Here's our post-Valentine's Day image - I call this one Silly Clown.  Chicoree is a "coffee substitute." Don't suggest any chocolate substitutes on Valentine's Day.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

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Sink into Spring

What might sink in the spring? "I don't know what happened:  the boat was sitting there on the bottom." As we drove back from Ottawa, the highway revealed travelling boats heading to their summer destinations.  These boats didn't sit in water over winter. What would happen to make a boat sink over the winter? It looks like there are lots of parts to a boat, so quite a few things can be the cause - Boatus.com has the answer HERE 1. Heavy spring rains get through poorly caulked ports, hatches, chainplates, and deck fittings 2. If the owner is unaware of leaks because the automatic bilge pump dutifully kept the bilge dry during the warmer months, the battery and bilge pump may go dead over the winter.  Water accumulates. 3. A poorly attached hose (secured with only one hose clamp) can be "lifted" off the seacock as the water freezes and expands. 4. If water is left in the intake sea strainer, it can freeze and break the bowl. 5. If a stuffing box isn't tightened before the boat is laid up, even small amounts of water - steady drip - can eventually swamp a boat. My own experience with boats is at the parking lot in Port Dalhousie where they are being stored.  Some are for sale. Of course, I am looking for the scrapes and  scratches on the bottom that make good photo opportunities.   Ottawa has its namesake sign, complete with muskoka chairs.  This will be a busy scene in the summer when tourists arrive.  The market is a tourist attraction with the beavertail pastries and maple syrup for sale.