Marilyn's Photos - Oct 16 2025 - Chicago Rat hole

 

What makes the Chicago rat hole story so much fun?  It is a story of a sidewalk imprint made while the cement was wet.  It looks just like a rat. Just look at that with its detail. These stories are great because they bring together science to bear on our urban myth sorts of stories that run rampant and go viral.  It has been named the Chicago rate hole, and in a naming contest the winner was Splatatouille.  With social media it became a famed pilgrimage spot where selfie photos are shared on X by the famous and the ordinary.   Neighbourhood complaints resulted in the removal of the cement chunk in 2024.  Too bad, because when scientists were asked to look into the story, they didn’t have the actual imprint to work with.  They detailed the scientific method used and their conclusion was that a squirrel made the imprint rather than a rat. Read the CNN story details HERE.  It turns out that the removed rat hole cement block was preserved and is awaiting a permanent home in order to have public viewing.  Then it can have its fame again.  As in: “Marilyn Monroe wasn’t her real name, but Norma Jean still captured the heart of the world,” Dumaine wrote in an email. “The rodent responsible for the Chicago Rat Hole does not need to be a rat to accomplish the very same.” Below is a bit of Santa Fe sidewalk art from a few years ago.  I haven’t found anything rat-shaped in my wanderings.

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Marilyn's PHotos - Oct 15 2025 - Red Yellow Green

 

Red yellow green.  Stop lights.  The first one was installed in December 1868 in London, England.  It was based on railway signals and had semaphore arms with red and green gas lamps.  The gas lantern was manually turned by an operator. It was powered by gas and a leak caused it to explode and injure the police operator a few months after its installation so was discontinued.  It was in the early 20th century that electric traffic lights came into operation. And what we consider ordinary today - the four way traffic light intersection - came about in 1920 when the first four-way, three-colour traffic light was installed in Detroit, Michigan.  Canada’s first traffic lights were installed in Hamilton at King and Main Streets.  It had ringing bells to go with the yellow light cycle. Did you know that the meaning of green is caution?  I’ve always thought of it as “go”, then yellow as caution and red as stop.  And there is a red and amber together - they mean the light is about to turn green - you must not proceed yet.  Seems like department of redundancy department. Traffic lights have made their way to museums for curious reasons. Here’s one:  the Canadian Museum for Human Rights received a Dutch pedestrian crossing light nicknamed "Sophie" - a realistic female body image instead of the traditional male figure - and its purpose is to illustrate discussions on women's rights.  I have found but one joke about traffic lights today that seems funny: What makes us really humans? Selecting all images with traffic lights I see a traffic light in the background of this picture. This is Bay and Bloor in Toronto. But really that isn’t the story here, is it?

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Marilyn's Photos - Oct 14 2025 - Earthstar Fungus - Geastrum quadrifidum

 

What do you think of this?  I didn’t know what it was.  It is in a pot with an Hibiscus tree growing in it.  I thought it was some decoration from my wreath stuff that had fallen into it.  So I reached to take it out and it is growing in there.  Sorry about the puncture wound I gave it.  It has the great name of Earthstar Fungus. Not edible.  And we’ll see how it develops as the star folds right back.  This is a woodland fungus - I think it came with the organic pine mulch I used in the pot.  It says it is a woodland fungus.  So it happily goes with the giant puffball that grew behind the toolshed.  It likely came with the organic cedar mulch from B.C.  I know that puffballs are very delicious, but I couldn’t harvest it. I remember paying $10 for a small chunk of one at the St. Lawrence Market many years ago.  I can tell you they are delicious.  This year’s was not harvested and is collapsing down.  I plan to leave it to spread spores for next year.   And there was a Morel mushroom from the cedar organic mulch this year, as there was last year.  Millie found it and ran to it then looked up at me and then looked at it again.  I assume iti was a true Morel, yet I left it there. Millie did too. And remember the strange stinkhorn fungus in the front lawn? That is not unusual for Niagara.  I’d just never seen it in my lawn before.  That one was a shock - it is from the Phallaceae family - which tells you what they look like. Don’t forget the Dog Barf Fungus from a few years go.  We thought that Dezi had thrown up in Brian’s Lilycrest field - but then there was another one and another one.  All too realistic, but hilarious to find out what they are. And I haven’t even thought about the tiny little mushrooms that come up in the lawn in late spring.  They are likely edible as there are tiny bite marks - I assume mice or chipmunks.  Sitting amongst the grass blades with dew on them, it is a magical fairy story.  I guess that’s the garden mushroom report for this season.  Here’s the Earthstar fungus in the pot.  It is followed by a collage of my abstract mushroom images.

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Marilyn's Photos - Oct 13 2025 - Nova Scotia's Cute Eyes

 

Without the CBC how would we know the great Canadian stories across our country.  Here’s a story that reminds me of our own driving up through the rocky outcrops of  Highway 69 when we went to the cottage near Parry Sound. The great granite boulders at the sides of the road first got graffiti in the form of initials and first names, and then  got what is known as Inukshukification when the rural highway was replaced with a superhighway.  Wasn’t that a Mike Harris personal project?  So he could get to his Nipissing riding or his cottage faster?     Back to this cute pair of eyes looking down at Highway 103.  They’ve been there since 2017 and were created by Jason Smith, a friend and Jason’s children. He has maintained the eyeball rocks over the years.   But now the highway is going to be enlarged/widened and the rocks will be blasted away.  Too bad they can’t be moved a little further over, and remain there to entertain drivers.   They aren’t separate, sitting on the ground. They are part of a larger rock, hence the upcoming demise.   It will be no small feat - look at the size of the rocks in the second picture.  Read more about the story of the eyeball rocks HERE.  The picture below that?  A little Inukshuk sculpture on the shores of Lake Ontario.

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Marilyn's Photos - Oct 12 2025 - Canadian Thanksgiving

 

Each year at Thanksgiving, we celebrate our smart thinking in putting Canadian Thanksgiving in October well before Christmas and even before Halloween.  Enough before Halloween that the Halloween decorations only start to come out before Thanksgiving, and then blossom thereafter.  And we don’t have to worry about Thanksgiving and Christmas decor crashing into each other.  Pumpkins will reign until the beginning of November, and then it is a transition into Christmas stuff.  No orange Poinsettias for us. Clearly, from our perspective, American Thanksgiving is too late.  The google answer for why American Thanksgiving is so late is that it was meant to coincide with the end of the harvest period.  Were they thinking of the Southern U.S?  It certainly is well past the harvest season in the northern part of the U.S. and into Canada.  Ours substantially concludes in October.  Our outdoor market in Grimsby concluded this past week. And then to prove my point, what is harvested in November?  Leeks, brussels sprouts, and parsnips - vegetables that need a cold snap and frost  to convert the starches to sugar.   November crops are further south in the U.S. with persimmons and pomegranates harvested in November.  We have persimmons in October here - smaller than the southern U.S. varieties.  But potatoes, squash, beets, carrots, pumpkins - have all been available for a while. Only pumpkins and squash need to wait till October to harden off.   All the rest of the vegetables like beets, carrots, potatoes are all season long.   The decision for the late November date wasn’t because of tradition. The first American Thanksgiving was somewhere between Sept 21 and Nov 11, 1621. The mostly likely date was around Michaelmas - end of September. Canada’s earliest thanksgiving was in 1578 when Martin Frobisher held a ceremony in Nunavut to give thanks for the safety of its fleet.  The Times of India tells us that Canadian Thanksgiving is “rather low-key.”   In contrast to Canada, Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays in the U.S.  There are extra days to the holiday with parades, football games along with the Black Friday shopping extravaganza, followed by Cyber Monday shopping.  Somehow shopping got in there, didn’t it? To conclude our Canadian view of U.S. Thanksgiving, we repeat this picture comparison in two variations.

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