Marilyn's Photos - Feb 16 2026 - Playing with Money

 

The news recently covered Valentine’s bouquets that were unlike our North American versions.  Not red roses gathered by the dozens into a bouquet.  The flowers were replaced with paper money in decorative shapes.  With the different colours of bills, these are most attractive.  They are named “cash blooms.” East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, South Africa and Eastern Europe all have this tradition.  Each culture uses different techniques.  They are popular gifts at weddings, and now growing in popularity for Valentines.  It doesn’t appear to be a long-time tradition, but a recent surge with younger generations.  Countries with high inflation or cash dominant economies are the hot spots.  Zimbabwe keeps coming up in the news as one of the African countries that has issued warnings against defacing banknotes to make bouquets.   The ones below look very spendable to me. Origami shapes are most popular in Japan.  The roses look so realistic.  There are many tutorials on YouTube to get one started.  European countries, including Britain have a growing interest in the bouquets. Our North American cultural tradition remains with flowers and cards. Sentiment, personalization and the aesthetic beauty of traditional flowers - these are our calling.  We consider gift cards, digital transfers and cash in a card as superior.  And perhaps we are less inclined in Canada with no more one or two dollar bills.  Starting at 5 dollars might make for an expensive bouquet.   There are many origami choices below -  butterflies, unicorns, a tulip bouquet.  I was thinking of St. Patrick’s Day four-leafed clovers.  That would astonish people. Isn’t this what we’d like every snow fall to look like. There’s nothing like the sun to make those little flakes dance and shine.

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Marilyn's Photos - Feb 17 2026 - On This Day

 

Every day has some historical event.  History has been recorded for thousands of years.  The earliest recorded, specific event is in 3100 BCE - a transaction for barley.   It seems to me that it would make sense for us to have a favourite historical event(s) associated with our birthday.   We would choose from history what events should be associated with our birthday.  Maybe or maybe not.  here are some notables for February 17th, in 1876 Sardines were first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine.  In 1878 the first telephone exchange in San Francisco opens. Or in 1904 Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly premeired at La Scala in Milan. Otherwise, it is all about wars, catastrophes, and dramatic deaths. Since it is Gerry’s birthday today, we would take a theme approach and choose cars.  There’s a big historical milestone for this date: on February 17th 1972, the Volkswagen Beetle became the world’s best-selling car, surpassing the Ford Model T’s record.  Ford’s record had lasted over four decades.  This seems to be the only historical car moment that historians consider worthy of record. Perhaps we could turn to car racing events. There’s NASCAR’s Daytona 500 each year - it always includes February 17th so one could pick milestones from there.  We would prefer to find something in the Grand Prix range.  Here are a few. In 1960, Stirling Moss won the Cuban Grand Prix.  In 1901, the second edition of the Circuit du Sud-Ouest in France took place.  In 1962 the Oran Park Raceway in Australia was established for motorsport.  The site formulaonehistory.com has a few more milestones.  It is HERE.   This is a start.  It would be nice to have a few more events on this day.  One can turn to the national celebration day calendar. That’s the let’s celebrate something - really anything - for a day.  As today is National Random Acts of Kindness Day and National Cabbage Day, one could give a cabbage leaf to people randomly and persuade them it is an act of kindness. Here’s my favourite  steam train Birthday card.

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Marilyn's Photos - Feb 15 2026 - Big Plants

 

Arum Titan is the biggest “plant” on the planet.  One tall stem and leaf structure - 20 feet tall.  One big 6 to 10 foot tall flower that is very stinky.  I’ve got the miniature versions in my garden.  Very stinky - rotting flesh is the smell. That smell attracts flies who pollinate the plant.  It must work as there are always little bundles of red berry-looking seeds at ground level each year.  And more stinky plants coming up in various places.  That’s our current largest plant.  Before that in the far distant past, preserved in fossils are the Prototaxites.  It was almost 30 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. It would look like a tall tree trunk on the horizon. And that was before trees existed. It was a complex fungal rhizomorph rather than a towering, upright structure. Yet it was distinct from fungi in physiological functions. It is proposed that it was a completely new and extinct lineage, separate from plants, fungi and other eukaryotes.  I guess we should just call it a living organism.   Remember last week’s story of the oldest evidence of sewn fabrics lying in a museum for 50 years before being dated.  Here’s the similar story for Prototaxite.  A fossil specimen collected by Charles Darwin’s friend, Joseph Hooker, was mislaid for 163 years at the British Geological Survey offices in London.  That would have collected a lot of dust.  Don’t on’t you think they might notice? There are fantastic renderings - beautiful drawings full of mystery and intrigue of the landscape with Prototaxites present.  Here are a few. This seems more botanically inclincled. Here’s the Titan Arum in Niagara Falls. Could this be a Ringling Circus rendition of man during the Prototaxite era?

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Marilyn's Photos - Feb 14 2026 - Bleeding Hearts

 

How did the flower Bleeding Hearts come about?  The shape is so perfect a symbolic heart.   “The outer, heart-shaped petals act as landing platforms for larger insects, particularly bumblebees. The white, “bleeding” droplet is actually a modified petal that guides the pollinator towards the nectar spurs located on top of the heart…” Originating in China,Korea and Japan the plant’s common Chinese name means Purse Peony.  The peony reference is with the leaves being similar to peonies. The Korean common name is Gold Bag Flower - the same comparison with a drawstring purse.  The Japanese common name Sea Bream Fishing Rod - the similarity in appearance of the inflorescence to a number of little fish hanging by their tails from a rod, while clasping yet smaller fish in their jaws.  I have to guess that our common name of Bleeding Heart derives from Europeans, though there is a Japanese love story associated with it. The smaller Dicentra formosa was discovered by Scottish surgeon and naturalist Archibald Menzies on the Vancouver Expedition. He collected seed in 1792 in Nootka Sound and gave it to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in 1795. The one we think of as Bleeding Heart was introduced to England in 1810 - it isn’t Dicentra but Lamprocapnos as Dicentra is considered obsolete. However, the North American native bleeding heart plants are of the genus Dicentra.  So I guess confusion can reign over Bleeding Heart’s genus names but definitely not over its shape of a symbolic heart. Here are some Bleeding Hearts, hearts found and a Valentine on ths February 14th Valentine’s Day.

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Marilyn's Photos - Feb 13 2026 - Is this Friday?

 

It seems unusual that we have so few superstitious days - Friday the 13th.  Why don’t we celebrate the number 12 which is considered “complete” and be positive rather than something that is bad luck? Everywhere it says the origin is likely the 13th guest/disciple being Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper, along with Jesus dying on a Friday even there’s no explicit reference in the Bible that Friday the 13th “carries a curse.” The Bible generally condemns superstitions and says the opposite -  that nothing is done outside of “god’s sovereign control”. Don’t mind me thinking that’s even scarier.  I guess this superstition would be an “afterthought” superstition - something that made sense in the rear-view mirror.   Thinking of the idea of the rear-view mirror metaphor, the rear-view mirror was invented in the 19th century.  It was first patented in 1921 for regular cars. It was called a wing-mirror.  It was known as the “Cop-Spotter.”  There may have been rear-facing mirrors on horse-drawn carriages, and it seems to me this would be likely.  How else will the Americans know that their stage coach is being overtaken by robbers? There’s a reference in Wikipedia that one of the motor racers claimed he got the idea from seeing a horse-drawn vehicle with one.  That was in 1904. We have three of these Friday the 13th this year.  That’s the maximum in any year.  The next is March and the final one is November.  I checked that out thinking of Port Dover and its place in history as the motorcycle convention capital on every Friday the 13th.  Good thing it happens in Canada where the weather is mostly too cold.   There are two lesser known superstitious days.  Tuesday the 13th in Spain and Greece, and December 28th in Britain, France and Spain. In Italy Friday the 17th is considered more unlucky that Friday the 13th. So I guess they won’t be worrying about their gold medal standing today as much as the other countries. These are all Western traditions.  There are many superstitious days in Eastern cultures - way too many.  It seems like the opposite of Western cultures. And what about this ironic headline for today:  “Funny Friday the 13th Jokes to Brighten Your Day.” I didn’t find any Paperwhite Narcissus bulbs this fall.  They would be blooming now in the greenhouse.  We’ll have to make do with a picture.

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