April 23 2020 - Prickles the Sheep

The best news of the week was about the rogue Tasmanian sheep named Prickles.  She's been living rogue for 7 years, after a brush fire on the sheep farm destroyed some of the fences.  The owners hadn't realized Prickles was gone because they'd lost sheep during the bushfire.  So Prickles was sighted from afar because of her vast coat of wool.  Take a look at Prickles HERE. I don't remember the Guinness Book of Records as a child.  It was started in 1955 so I should have become familiar with them by the 1960's.  Instead, we were familiar with specific area records - sports records, music popularity charts and of course, the Oscars.  I don't remember ever looking at the Guinness Book of Records.  Now somehow I am looking up Chris, the sheep, with a similar story of being found wandering alone with a massive overgrown fleece of 41 kgs - that was in 2015. He's the record-holder.  So will Prickles win out over Chris?  Chris had a lot of wool.  He is HERE being shorn.  I find a few more stories like this:  I guess getting lost in the bushland isn't that unusual. Sheila was found in 2016 after six years in the wild.  She too had a great coat. Today's pictures are strange and interesting.  I took these quite a few years ago at the Toronto Botanical Gardens.  At the entrance is a water wall made of metal mesh that the water runs down.  It had spilled onto the sidewalk with the result being these reflections. The pictures weren't turned to black and white - this is how it looked.

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November's Witches and Big Blows

The month of November is the stormiest on the Great Lakes.  The Witch of November is the name given to the strong winds that blow across the vast waters in Autumn.  It came yesterday night for Halloween and it howled across the Grimsby landscape.  The winds across the lakes can reach hurricane levels.  This accounts for ships sinking in Lake Ontario in November. Waves of up to 30 feet have swamped and overturned ships in the biggest storms. On the west coast the winds are known as Big Blows.  They form as cyclonic windstorms.  Cyclonic sounds ominous, doesn't it?  These storms have caused bridges to fail as well as ships to sink.  So many that it is named the graveyard of the Pacific.  More than 2,000 vessels have sunk since 1800. What made me think of this?  Port Dover on Lake Erie is flooded at record levels. There's video of a truck driving through water that covers the normally long stretch of sandy beach.  I don't think anyone is going to use the telephone booth stranded out there.  You can see the video HERE.  Something I notice is that it is typically a truck driving through the flood waters with its engine just above the water level. It is normal for water levels oscillate back and forth in the lake - and one and a half feet is a typical level. But there this is something called isostatic rebound.   What is this?  Here's the answer from the International's Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board: Overall, isostatic rebound, which is the process whereby the earth’s crust is slowly adjusting to the lack of the weight of the glaciers from the last ice age, affects the north shore as well as the south shore of Lake Ontario. In general, the west end of the lake is sinking relative to the outlet, the St Lawrence River. Isostatic rebound means slightly deeper water for the northwest shore (15 cm) and for the southeast shore (4 cm) for the same given water level compared to 100 years ago. So on the water theme, here is the Folly Waterfalls at Villa Eyrie.  I felt it was mismatched with the path in front and bistro table and chairs.  However, the moody picture with just the building waterfall shows off its eccentric style which is most creative and interesting.

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