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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Mar 30 2008, 07:05 AM
This year marks the 95th anniversary of the gift of cherry trees to the United States, from Japan.
I can just imagine the fragrance of the sweet cherry blossoms.
It makes me long for a warm spring day with birds singing , the sun on my face, and a slight breeze.
While I look outside and can still see some piles of snow, I also see signs of spring finally popping up. I have patches of white snowdrops with green leaves blooming up against the house. And in the back corner by the deck, my daffodils finally have yellow tops trying to peek through.
I saw two chubby robins and one bright red cardinal. And our gold finches, which never went away all winter this year, because we provide food and a heated bird bath, have finally gone from a brownish-green, to their familiar bight yellow color.
But how I love cherry blossoms....I think even more than lilacs, which, out in the yard, I noticed finally have their buds.
The sad thing about spring, especially in Wisconsin, is that we wait so long for it to come, and there are such beautiful flowers that pop up....tulips, daffodils, crocus, dogwood, magnolia....and then before you know it...they are gone.
They seem to last only for a few days, while summer flowers linger, just like the long, hot days.....
So, I'll close my eyes and picture the cherry blossoms and remember days when I was a child...days that were carefree...days that seemed to last forever.
And I'll try not to let spring pass me by so quickly (when it finally does arrive).
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Feb 15 2008, 05:17 PM
"Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming."
What's that?
Why, we're talking about the Loch Ness Monster, of course!
After 37 years of searching for "Nessie," 85-year-old American, Robert Rines is calling it a day.
It seems he is finally getting too old to continue his search for the Loch Ness Monster.
"World War II veteran Robert has devoted almost half his life to scouring Loch Ness."
"He started in 1971. The following year, he watched a 25ft-long hump with the texture of elephant skin gliding through the water."
"His original trip was to help another monster hunter with sonar equipment and quickly identified large moving targets."
"He was smitten and returned the next year, which is when, he says: "I had the misfortune of seeing one of these things with my own eyes."
Read the entire article from the Daily Record
Veteran Loch Ness Monster Hunter Gives Up í here
It would be a real shame if global warming is what finally did Nessie in.
Wouldn't you think some other critters in the pond would have had the same fate?
Maybe something would have washed up on shore somewhere?
I guess everything just sunk.
Yep.
Pity.
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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Jan 13 2008, 08:25 PM
The 2008 Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, in China, is home to the largest snow sculpture ever created.
The sculpture is called Romantic Feelings and is is 115 ft high and 656 ft long.
 
2008 Harbin Ice and Snow festival, China “Romantic Feelings”
"Romantic Feelings" was made by joining together 15ft square blocks of natural ice and snow, taken from the nearby Songhua River, which have been compressed to withstand blows from hatchets, saws and shovels.
600 sculptors from 40 countries have used 120,000 cubic feet of snow and ice to create the Olympic themed landscape - a vista of Russian churches, French cathedrals, Chinese palaces and, an ice Acropolis.
Many of the sculptures are melting rapidly in the midday sun and emergency repairs have already been carried out to stop them collapsing completely.
Read the article from The Daily Mail
The Ice Maiden: China unveils largest snow sculpture ever created ä here
Snow sculpture of Napoleon
Snow sculpture of the "Thinker"
Ice sculpture of the Tiananmen gate
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By Janet Evans
Monday, Dec 31 2007, 12:57 AM
Glenn Beck has written new book.
An Inconvenient Book
Glenn has a far different prespective than the typical conservative and the book covers different subjects than just the Republican-Democrat thing. Glenn Beck wrote a great book here, read it and become aware.
FUNNY.
OUTRAGEOUS.
TRUE.
Have you ever wondered why some of the biggest problems we face, from illegal immigration to global warming to poverty, never seem to get fixed? The reason is simple: the solutions just aren't very convenient. Fortunately, radio and television host Glenn Beck doesn't care much about convenience; he cares about common sense.
Take the issue of poverty, for example. Over the last forty years, America's ten poorest cities all had one simple thing in common, but self-serving politicians will never tell you what that is (or explain how easy it would be to change): Glenn Beck will (see chapter 20).
Global warming is another issue that's ripe with lies and distortion. How many times have you heard that carbon dioxide is responsible for huge natural disasters that have killed millions of people? The truth is, it's actually the other way around: as CO2 has increased, deaths from extreme weather have decreased. Bet you'll never see that in an Al Gore slide show.
An Inconvenient Book contains hundreds of these same "why have I never heard that before?" types of facts that will leave you wondering how political correctness, special interests, and outright stupidity have gotten us so far away from the commonsense solutions this country was built on.
As the host of a nationally syndicated radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, and a prime-time television show on CNN Headline News, Glenn Beck combines a refreshing level of honesty with a biting sense of humor and a lot of research to find solutions that will open your eyes while entertaining you along the way. ( from SimonSays.com)
ALL THE RIGHT PEOPLE LOVE GLENN!
"Glenn Beck is CNN's chief corporate-fascism advocate."
—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
"Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."
—Stephen King
"Glenn Beck shouldn't be on [the air]."
—Al Franken
"Finally! A guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking."
—Jon Stewart
"There's something about him that suggests that, one night, he'll say something that will cost him his career..."
—Keith Olberman
"Beck's (show) has to be one of the weirdest news programs in American history."
—Rolling Stone
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By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Dec 25 2007, 06:15 AM
Finland has Santa Claus. Russia has traditional handmade Christmas ornaments. Germany has Christmas markets. But arguably the most well-known of Christmas traditions -- decorating the Christmas tree -- may have its origin in Latvia. And it's all but unknown.
In the past, there have been stories about Martin Luther walking in the woods near Riga and he created the first Christmas Tree. But actually, the Riga tree reference and the Martin Luther Tree reference are two different occurrences. |
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Riga's First Christmas Tree |
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The Martin Luther Tree was not the Riga Tree. In fact, little is known about the original Riga tree other than the fact that it was attended by men wearing black hats, and that after a ceremony, they burnt the tree.This was a mixture of pagan and Christian custom, as were very many of the customs in Central/Northern Europe at that time.
The Martin Luther walk in the forest, believed to actually in Northern Germany and his lighted tree actually occurred several decades later.In Latvia as in all of northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun as a part of pagan activities where people were living their life as they had done for hundreds of years before.
The pagans of northern Europe celebrated the their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year. As the Sun God grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer.
It was customary to light a candle to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year.
Huge Yule logs were burned in honor of the sun. The word Yule itself means wheel, the wheel being a pagan symbol for the sun. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual. Holly berries were thought to be a food of the gods.
The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again.
In all societies, there were people who filled the roles of judge, doctor, diviner, mage, mystic, and clerical scholar - they were the religious intelligentsia of their culture.
These people often used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshipping huge trees and gathering around a large bonfire.
The legend says that the first Riga tree in 1510 was decorated with paper flowers and burnt on the bonfire after the ceremony; most probably, with a toast for the future, with steins held high!According to Countess Maria Hubert von Staufer of the organization Christmas Archives International based in the England, "Riga is very important in the History of the Christmas Tree". | _____________________________
I’m Latvian, so I’ve always found it interesting that the first Christmas tree is said to have its origin in Riga, Latvia, where my Grandfather was born. Funny, my Grandfather and Grandmother ended up having an artificial, white Christmas tree when my Grandfather was in his 90s. I remember staring at that tree thinking I had never seen anything like it before!
I’ve never had an artificial tree. When I was a child, we always cut our tree down in the woods. It didn’t look picture perfect, but it was large and wild and a family tree. I remember one year helping my dad plant 300 trees in our back yard. Seven years seemed a long time to wait for a tree.
In my own family we have cut our own, and bought them. My favorites? A Blue Spruce when cutting our own and the Frasier Fur when buying a pre-cut tree. My father-in-law used to own some land in Delafield, and getting the Blue Spruce was not hard to do several years ago. Sometimes there would be birds nests included in the deal, though.
As the cost of a tree keeps climbing and the needles keep falling, every year I am tempted to buy an artificial tree. I even know some people who leave their trees with the lights on them (and for all I know they keep the ornaments on them, too). That would sure make it easier, but I guess it would take some of the spirit out of decorating the tree.
So, I guess for now we’ll stick to a fresh Christmas tree and I’ll remember my “roots” when I am decorating it.
Merry Christmas to all and a wish for Peace.
Janet
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