Coconut found floating in Lake St. Francis

Coconut found floating in Lake St. Francis, St. Lawrence River, July 21, 2024 - not native to Canada! Milk was still inside of it. 

 

Moon watching

 Speaking of Space, local astronomy group, had an observation event outside the Mr. Puffs in Cornwall.

                                         

Photos of moon taken with my phone through one of their telescopes

Promotional Mr. Puffs poster

Strike at LCBO

 

LCBO workers at the province's liquor store are on strike against further privatization of liquor sales - liquor in Canadian provinces is mostly sold at provincial monopolies. I liked the James Bond reference. 

A bowl of cherries

Dwarf cherry full of fruit. Also full of Japanese beetles which eat the leaves and the fruit. I will spray the tree with neem oil which seems to repel the beetles after I've gotten all the fruit off.

will pit and freeze

 

Chopsticks

In 1981 I went to a washroom in a Chinese restaurant in Toronto's main Chinatown along Spadina and I realized I'd just used chopsticks without any problems. A few weeks earlier I'd been at The Whippletree, a a fancy restaurant in the U of Guelph's main building. I'd taken my Singaporean girlfriend out for the first time, and I honestly thought she was extremely poor as she said she'd gone to a school run by missionaries, so I thought I was doing her a favour. The waitress, who we both knew, asked "Would you like chopsticks?"  She showed me how to use them. It was only in the Chinatown restaurant that I wondered why she'd been asked that, even though it was a western meal. She was Cantonese. After I got to know her better, she showed me a picture of  Lord Mountbatten, along with his autograph, when he visited Methodist Girls School when she was there. The school was run by Methodist missionaries, but was actually a fancy private school, among the best in Singapore.

2024 The Cornwall SDG International Afro Diversity Festival

Calla Lily

Calla Lily

 

No, a Mexican church is not selling plots of land in heaven

 The story went out that a Spanish or Mexican church was selling "Land In Heaven For $100/ Sq. Meter" as an MSN headline reported 'Biggest Real Estate Deal On Planet' it went on,  and bylines the story to Times Now Digital. The Nigerian Bulletin was the first news site I found that debunked this. It's been sourced back to a TikTok video that went viral, not a good source. 

The 'church', Iglesia del Final de los Tiempos, is obviously a satirical web page and Facebook group:

"Iglesia del Final de los Tiempos Heavenly Ownership Title is a document blessed and certified by Jehovah that guarantees that your lands in Heaven are under its inscription in the Book of Life.

Signed by God himself and the Prophet Andrés de la Barra and having a lacre stamp of the Iglesia del Final de los Tiempos - Sede Apostólica has eternal validity if you buy your lands.

Remember to read the fine print in order to access your property in heaven you need to fulfill the primary requirement of leading a Christian and Andreist life.

We look forward to your donations to exalt the Lord"

(Facebook translation)

The Facebook page has many obvious jokes - here's an appeal to buy its founder a Cybertruck:

Facebook page of the 'church'

41 year old Towels

 Krystal Watanabe's birthday is today. Third one without her. I used a towel I bought in Key West in 1984, and the copyright said 1983. Sherry Manufacturing, the Miami company that made it, and founded in 1948, is still in business. Krystal died at 39. The towel looks new, and she's gone.

Smith-In, Glengarry Pioneer Museum, June 15, 2024

Craft tables

 

Purdon 2024

White Bog Orchid  (Platanthera dilatata) - smells of vanilla

Bunchberry flowers. ( Quatre-temps,

Cornus canadensis, Cornouiller du Canada) The bunchberry is a kind of dogwood. When tripped by the wind or pollinators, the stamens will pop open, throwing pollen out with a force of 2400 gs, with one of the fastest known speeds of a plant. A specialized camera recording at 10,000 frames per second had to be used to record the motion: The berry is edible, but I found it does taste insipid.

 

 

Dusk rainbow

Rainbow at dusk, little bit of a secondary arc to the left

 

Midland painted turtle, found swimming far from shore.

Found swimming far from the shore in Lake St. Francis. About an inch across. Relocated to a pond that has other Midland Painted turtles.