Feb 13 2025 - Beavers Get It Done

 

There's a story of Beavers getting a dam job finished in the Czech republic.  It was a restoration project for a natural wetland.  There were delays for planning and permits, and little progress was made.  With all that time on their hands, the beavers constructed dams along the bypass ditch, initiating the wetland restoration process.  Here's the story at the dodo.  there are a few beaver stories at the website.  The next story was about a Canadian beaver dam that is visible from space - 2,790 feet long.  It is estimated that it took 20 years to build.  There are many heart-strings articles on this site about animals - the site is dodo.com - there are themes like dog wellness, cat wellness and happy corner.  All good-feel happy-ending stories.

Here's a heart in a Florida tree trunk. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 2 2025 - Freeman Patterson

 

Freeman Patterson is one of Canada's foremost photographers.  He's still active in his late 80s, and sends out a regular newsletter.  This one had a startling story.  I have reproduced the introduction below:   "When you are reading this letter, you can safely assume that I’ve just celebrated an anniversary I never expected to celebrate – my 25th. On the last day of January 2000 Dr. Vivian McAlister O.C., his team, and a donor somewhere in Canada gave me a new liver. It was my second new liver in five days, the first having been rejected by my body immediately. Of course, I knew nothing about the events at the time nor for a long while after, as I was kept in an induced coma until well into March. When I was finally permitted to emerge from my long sleep, Dr. McAlister dropped by my bedside to tell me what all my family and friends had known for weeks. “You’ve had two liver transplants,” he told me, “not one,” adding these arresting words, “You’ve won the 649 national lottery five weeks in a row, you had less than one percent chance of surviving, you shouldn’t be here.” Sobering, incredibly challenging words to begin a new life, yet my odds of being born in the first place had been much greater. On the day I was conceived something approaching a trillion of my father’s sperm rushed to meet my mother’s egg. One sperm won the race; all its competitors died and were discarded by nature. That was the first lottery I won, the big lottery we all won – and the prize was the gift of life. So, celebrate with me. Celebrate your big win!" Read more HERE. And this is my Freeman Patterson tree image.  He's well-known for this placement of the tree in the lower part of the image.

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Nov 12 2024 - Where not to retire in Canada

 

Are immigrants and Americans going to start flooding over the border?  We wonder.  Google searches have trended dramatically:  "leaving the country" and "how to move to ..." - with the search for "how to move to Canada" peaking No 6th.  A survey earlier in the month said 21% of Americans would consider moving.  In that article, Canada was at the top of the list of countries of interest. Currently, though, there's an eerie calm in the press - focused on how much Trump can accomplish.  All the barriers and hurdles are being outlined in great detail. It seems like they are trying to quell the panic.   So the headlines have started creeping in - best and worst places to retire in Canada.  What would be the criteria?  Culture, healthcare, weather, crime, cost of living, taxes, education, job opportunities.  It turns out there are lots of places people don't want to retire to in Canada.  The article says that Vaughan, Ontario is one of these.  It is part of greater Toronto - north of the city centre. It has a colder climate than Toronto and heavy traffic being part of Toronto.  It is packed with large single-family homes that drive up the cost of housing and make for driving congestion. Think more broadly though.  If we were appealing to more wealthy, liberal U.S. citizens looking for a more stable place to live, we'd have lots of choices.  There's an article from an American point of view:  8 reasons you don't want to retire in Canada. Bad climate, cost of living and housing, health care for permanent residents only, complicated taxes for U.S. citizens.  Here's the summary advice: "If you want to retire to a different country, you may want to steer clear of Canada. As always, we suggest that you take the time to visit possible retirement locations in advance. You’re also going to want to work with a tax professional to ensure that you’re aware of the implications of retiring in Canada." It seems like a smorgasbord of choices in other articles. Like the buffet of living options:  Spain, Portugal, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mexico, New Zealand, Italy, Canada Ireland and France in ranked order.  Pie in the sky thinking for now.

I took this picture of the Bloodgood Japanese Maple tree around the corner. a few years ago.  It was brilliant red against a snow fall mid-November  The tree is a massive size.  so I thought a portrait of it would be nice.  All the background detail - the house, etc had to be painted over in photoshop.   I would like a more interesting background, but haven't figured out the technical details.  There is "white" in the mass of the tree, difficult to deal with.    I think I will continue to "fill in" with red leaves, and then go for a painterly background.

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Oct 21 2024 - Lessons of the Unlearned Lessons

 

Such a brilliant phrase.  It is on the editorial page of the Globe and Mail this morning. I went looking for it to find out more, but it doesn't retrieve a definition. It retrieves interesting articles. Lessons learned and unlearned from history Lessons taught, learned, forgotten and ignored History is not a teacher but a warden The Lesson(s) to unlearn from school - there are a lot of these articles  There is the unlearned lessons syndrome - it is about learned helplessness.  But mostly unlearned lessons come under the history section or the psychology section.  The psychology section wants people to detail their most difficult lessons they learned and the most difficult lessons they unlearned.   The Globe and Mail was pointing to the recent report on the COVID-19 pandemic. Using this phrase -  the lessons of the pandemic lessons unlearned - certainly draws attention to it.  It would be great to find a "lesson unlearned" joke, but that is too sophisticated a topic.  Jokes are by definition simple in content and theme.  I did see this as the lead-in line for Reditt's Upjokes: I taught my son a valuable life lesson by eating his homework. Tomorrow he will learn that many people will not believe you, even when you tell the truth. That joke is a relief from all of the feel-good "Learn, Unlearn, Relearn"  words and pictures out there.  Here's a picture from a few years ago.  It is taken through the car windshield with heavy rain, causing the abstract shapes of the autumn tree.

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Mar 1 2024 - Secret Code Languages

 

There are common code languages that are considered secret languages - morse code, pigpen, phonetic alphabet, tap code, substitution ciphers, letters for numbers, American sign language. .  I wouldn't call these secret. Mostly one retrieves secret codes are fun for the kids.  That's a reflection of our times right now to ignore real topic in favour of sponsored ones.   Scroll down through the retrieval. - way down.  Secret societies, cults and other groups have always had secret language systems to communicate.  Every once in a while I bump into something like this with an innocent-seeming word.  Usually one I've made up and think would be fun, and find out how immensely wrong that is.  I went to Wikipedia's topic of secret language.  It is a reference entry and the main entry seems to be Cant - the jargon or language of a group often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.  That's the name for secret languages. It is interesting in itself. Then I find out there is such as thing as anti-language.  I've never heard of this - it is a language created and used by an anti-society - a small, separate community intentionally created within a larger society as an alternative to or resistance of it.  The two examples are Polish prisoners and criminals in Calcutta.  The other groups are homosexuals and teenagers.  Who would have thought that teenagers are equivalent to prisoners and criminals.  We understand homosexuals in the group as they have been viewed as criminals and potential prisoners historically in the larger society.   But for teenagers to be in the prisoner and criminal catchment group, now that's an interesting sociological idea of our times.  And then I realize it isn't new.  Think of this movie: "A Clockwork Orange is a popular example of a novel where the main character is a teenage boy who speaks an anti-language called Nadsat. This language is often referred to as an argot, but it has been argued that it is an anti-language because of the social structure it maintains through the social class of the droogs." Returning to Cant - it is used as a suffix - for example medicant - the language of the medical profession that is largely unintelligible to lay people.

Isn't this a beautiful tree - a headstone carving from the Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  I've turned it into graphic sort if image.  Maybe a celebration of life for Brian Mulroney who died yesterday.  When I look at the articles on him, the pictures show him to be a smiling, confident and outgoing person.  He laughed a lot - that had to be true for there to be so many pictures of him with a big small or a laugh.  What would the alternative be?  He was so admired and appreciated by the photographic press that these are the pictures they would submit for publication.  What a great legacy. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 10 20242 - Random Life hacks

 

Life Hacks.  This is a topic area all over the internet.  Generally hacks refer to doing things cheaper, easier, more efficient, and are not obvious.  For example: "If the gum is stuck on your hair, use peanut butter to remove it"  - that comes from the website with this table of contents:   100 Amazing Life Hacks (in Images!) 100 More Practical Life Hacks to Try Some Good Life Hacks Life Hacks To Do At Home Real Life Hacks Daily Life Hacks Life Hacks To Make Life Easier Everyday Life Hacks Life Hack Examples Helpful Hacks For Making Life Easier Final Thoughts I scrolled through the list and they fascinate me.  I did stop at this one: "Doritos are great for kindling if you can't find any" - I find this hilarious.  There are many fun ideas this very long list HERE.  They are inventive, silly things for one's every day.  There are  odd and unexplainable life hacks for which full instructions are needed.   One can just scroll down to the conclusion of Final Thoughts. Our author says that doing everyday errands again and again can get disappointing.  Easy life hacks handles this.  The author explains that they are stunts to make everyday work simpler.   And wouldn't that make us happier, too.  Who would guess that Life Hacks could be so impactful!  Now to get some gum.   Here's a crab apple tree that hadn't yet suffered from a freeze.  So far, we've had mostly rain, but I'm looking ahead to see what the next "Winter Wallop" forecast will be.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Oct 20 2023 - The Five Senses...No the Nine, the 21 the 33 Senses

 

I have a theory that the more we know, the more complicated things are.  I wondered if the five senses are universal to beings on the planet.  Well, is it five senses?  Is it six, or nine, or is it 22 or 33?  How did this happen when I wasn't paying attention - are there are six times more senses than before? And Aristotle as been declared wrong on the number five.   Margaret Crable writes this: "While the notion that people have five basic human senses is often considered a universal truth and can be traced back to Aristotle’s De Anima (On the Soul), many philosophers and neuroscientists are now debating whether we may have anywhere from 22 to 33 different senses.   Among these lesser-known senses are equilibrioception, which is associated with our sense of balance; proprioception, which enables us to know which parts of our bodies are where without looking; and chronoception, how we sense the passing of time." What about what she calls the "X" Sense?  That's the sixth sense that is under debate.  The one that is known as extrasensory perception. But let's get back to the other senses that we haven't been naming in the past:   If we were to think of 9, then the list is vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, pain, mechanoreception (balance etc.), temperature, interoreceptors (e.g. blood pressure, bladder stretch). If we want to find out about the 21/22 or 33 senses, then the table below is our guide.   So I prove my theory of the day.  The more we know, the more complicated it becomes.   I do like a comparison table, though.   Here's a whimsical moment in a back garden on Elizabeth Street in Grimsby.

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Oct 13 2023 - Bakers Dozen Day

 

The tradition of giving an extra item when selling things by the dozen is what is known as the Baker's Dozen.  So why isn't this day Baker's Dozen Day?  Shouldn't one Friday the 13th be reserved for this?  Well, Friday the 13th isn't consistent every year so maybe that's the reason.  The Baker's Dozen was started in the13th century England where bakers skimped on the size of their baked goods. The King made a declaration of the requirement of 13 to make up the gap.  I guess things were sold by weight/size as well as in numbers.  So this would have been the original version of shrinkflation.  But alas!  There is no Baker's Dozen Day celebrated on a Friday the 13trh.   National Donut Day mentions 13 donuts, but no one has taken up the cause of a Baker's Dozen Celebration.   There are lots of references to Baker's Dozen - and there are Bakers Dozen Holiday Festivals - here's one: "For the second consecutive year, The Norris will present a “Baker’s Dozen Holiday Festival,” featuring 13 daily online episodes, starting December 1 and concluding December 13. As established in last year’s inaugural Baker’s Dozen festival, this year’s edition will feature a variety of local singers, instrumentalists, dancers and actors in brief performances of holiday-themed music, dance and spoken word."   Tree roots are the subject of today's picture.  Typically roots at ground level get gnarled like this due to grounds crew lawn mowers and whipper snippers.

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Sept 27 2023 - Stuttering

 

What is stuttering? Stuttering is a communication disorder in which the flow of speech is broken by repetitions (li-li-like this), prolongations (lllllike this), or abnormal stoppages (no sound) of sounds and syllables. There may also be unusual facial and body movements associated with the effort to speak. Stuttering is also referred to as stammering. "Hamlet, whose own father has been murdered and his mother wed to the killer... His lapse into “stuttering” or impeded speech can be seen an act of self-preservation."   But is there any actual stuttering in Hamlet? Marc Shell, the scholar thinks so in his book "Stutter". He says that Hamlet displays "the secondary characteristics of stuttering - deliberate repetitions, singsong rhyming, word substitution, unexpected pausing during speech, avoidance behaviour, and expressions of paralysis, both physical and mental." A successful, often quoted book that doesn't seem to make sense to me in regards to Hamlet.  I have turned to September Jokes, and found this surprise joke: What did the detective in the Arctic say to the suspect? Where were you on the night of September to March? This is a picture of exposed tree roots.  Typically these are created by commercial lawnmowers.  I find them in industrial/commercial areas with grass and a few trees around the building.

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Aug 4 2023 - Christmas in July

 

We are past the timing for Christmas in July.  That’s July 25th.  I think it has become a Hallmark item now.  It used to be for Southern Hemisphere countries to have a wintery Christmas.  For the Northern Hemisphere it is considered an ironic celebration.  July parties with a Christmas theme seem like a silly and fun thing to do. The Hallmark Channel runs "blocks of their original Christmas television films in July to coincide with the release of the Keepsake Ornaments in stores, thus literally making the event a Hallmark holiday (an accusation that Hallmark Cards officially denies).” There are yearly traditions in various places - Venice - where they have summer celebrations of Christmas. Denmark is reported to have these celebrations.  It may be that our commercialization of various celebrations and traditions have made us resistant to such ideas.  Particularly with Hallmark making it obviously commercial.   My reason for thinking about Christmas is that the Rotary’s Fantasy of Trees activities are underway. It is time to organize some of the decorations.  We will make a few more wreaths for the display, and start to look for Christmas ornaments and decorations on various themes.  That activity really starts in October.  There’s an overlap between Fall festivals - Thanksgiving and Halloween overlap with Christmas.  I found this out in the last few years.  There are very enthusiastic celebrators who go out early and get their Christmas purchasing done.  If you go into a Michaels store now, the fall decorations of pumpkins and autumn leaves are all on display.   I went looking for a suitable image and little did I realize one I created in 2022 is perfect for the July theme.

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Oct 28 - 2022 Frankenstein Friday

 

Bing tells me that the last Friday in October is Frankentein Friday.  It is a celebration of the 1818 novel and the despised but beloved character of "Frankenstein".   Where did she write it?  Lake Geneva during a rainy and cold summer, We think of Frankenstein as real - that's what seems to be the case to me - lots of articles about freaky facts about Frankenstein.  And there's always a headshot of him.  That would be the Boris Karloff picture, which remains compelling. Mary Shelley  believed the name came to her in a vivid dream. In Shelley's novel, Dr. Victor Frankenstein never names his creation.   But "the creature" has a first name.  Shelley calls him Adam and "the creature" calls Victor his father,  so he is Adam Frankenstein, son of Victor. And where has the name spread to and become prevalent?  Frankenfood.  Genetically engineered food.   This is my strange tree trunk on Honsberger Road and Fifteenth Street in Vineland, now gone. It was a living Maple tree in 2019 in one of the google mapping moments.  Travel along the road, and  as you get to the corner on Google Maps it changes from July 2019 to Nov 2021 with just the trunk. This trunk disappeared in Spring 2022 - just a memory now. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 8 2022 - Bubbles are Bouncy

 

Bubbles are very bouncy things.  They bounce in the air, they bounce on water.  They usually burst when you try to catch them.  So elusive.   Here's the kitchen experiment that uses sugar and gloves to bounce bubbles and catch them with your hands.  Even bubbles have enemies: They are oil, dirt and gravity.   Ingredients Small bowl for mixing Spoon for stirring Cotton or wool socks or gloves Drinking Straw 60ml (4 Tbsp) Water 30ml (2 Tbsp) sugar 15ml (1 Tbsp) Dishwashing Liquid Instructions Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves Dip the end of the straw into the solution until a film forms on the end Gently blow into the other end of the straw to form a bubble Cover your hand with a sock or glove and hold your palm out flat Blow a bubble in the air and use your covered hand to gently bounce the bubble without it bursting The Science Behind Bouncing Bubbles Bubbles are simply air trapped inside a thin film of liquid – the bigger the bubble, the more air is inside. The liquid film that makes up the outside of a bubble is mostly water. Water molecules are attracted to each other by intermolecular forces – these are electromagnetic forces which act between molecules. The intermolecular forces draw the water molecules together, creating something called surface tension. Dishwashing liquid lowers the surface tension of the water, making it stretchy enough to stretch around a sphere of air to form a bubble. Bubbles, though, are prone to popping when the film is pierced or if too much water in the film evaporates, leaving too thin a layer. The sugar binds to the water molecules. This helps to stop the bubbles from drying out so they last longer and don’t pop as quickly. Usually, if you touch a bubble it bursts – this is because the natural oil on your hands breaks the surface tension of the water around the bubble. By wearing gloves or socks on your hands you create a barrier between the oil and the bubble, making it possible to bounce a bubble without bursting. All of this directly from:  The Kitchen Science Cookbook by Michelle Dickinson See Steve Spangler's science in action with his bouncing bubble video HERE.    Today's picture was taken at Longwood Gardens at the Orchid Festival a few years ago.  There is so much to admire in this beautiful tree and display.

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