Friday; unusual gifts;

Surprise someone with an  unusual surprise gift. For grown up KIDS only, 12 years or older!

Bucky Balls; Magnetic Building Spheres

Ah, carbon - how sweet you are. You are the basis of life on Earth, you let our pencils write, and you form the most fortuitous fullerenes. And what are fullerenes, a collection of balls. Now, imagine replacing those hard to play with atoms, with rare earth magnetic spheres. Suddenly, you have BuckyBalls Magnetic Building Spheres, and now your life will never be the same.

Super absorbent Polymer Spheres

These are made from a hydrogel, a super-absorbent polymer, Sodium Polyacrylate, formed into round balls that are available in various colours and sizes*. They can absorb more than 200 (some say 800) times their weight in water. 

* This material is available in various shapes, as well. Most commonly, the round shape in a variety of colours  is used by gardeners who wish to water their plants, especially house plants, in artistic and practical ways. This material slowly meters its stored water to plant roots, eliminating the need for daily watering. From time to time, a gardener simply adds water enough to keep the marbles plump.

Sugru silicone rubber;

Sugru, or Formerol, is a patented multi-purpose, non-slumping brand of silicone rubber that resembles modelling clay. Sugru was developed  and is  marketed by FormFormForm. Sugru retains its plasticity for thirty minutes, self-curing at room temperature after approximately 24 hours. The material adheres to aluminium and ABS plastics. When cured, it has a 'soft touch' or slightly flexible, grippable texture similar to features commonly found in soft over molds. It is waterproof and dishwasher-safe. The material is thermally insulating, with a service temperature range between -60 and 180 °C. Sugru is not resistant to some solvents.The product has a shelf life of six months.

The name Sugru derives from the Irish language word "súgradh" for "play".

Salt and Pepper Batteries (Shakers)

Although shaped EXACTLY like real-life batteries, the battery shaped salt & pepper shakers gadget is absolutely harmless and is hygienically fit for storing salt and pepper. 

♥

OR

a few tubes of oil paint to try something new!

The paint tube was invented in 1841, superseding pig bladders and glass syringes as the primary tool of paint transport. Artists, or their assistants, previously ground each pigment by hand, carefully mixing the binding oil in the proper proportions. Paints could now be produced in bulk and sold in tin tubes with a cap. The cap could be screwed back on and the paints preserved for future use, providing flexibility and efficiency to painting outdoors. The manufactured paints had a balanced consistency that the artist could thin with oil, turpentine, or other mediums.

Paint in tubes also changed the way some artists approached painting. The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir said, “Without tubes of paint, there would have been no Impressionism.” For the Impressionists, tubed paints offered an easily accessible variety of colors for their plain air palettes, motivating them to make spontaneous colour choices. With greater quantities of preserved paint, they were able to apply paint more thickly.

Wednesday; once upon a time...

Lilli, a helping hand; 

I am sitting on  the grass and listen to the little birds and the sparrow calls me, Lilli  write a letter to your mother.

©Photos Ts

Sepia Saturday 168;

Natalya Fyodorovna Meklin née Kravtsova (Russian, Ukrainian:  1922–2005) was a much decorated World War II combat pilot in one of the three women-only Soviet air regiments. They were nicknamed the 'Night Witches' by their German opponents.
She was born on September 8, 1922, in Lubny, Ukraine. In 1940 she joined the glider school at the Kiev Young Pioneer Palace. When she was 19, in 1942 she joined the Night Witches, piloting a Polikarpov Po-2 light bomber, and by the end of the war had flown 980 night missions.
In 1953 she graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, subsequently she worked as a translator before retiring. She became a member of the Union of Soviet Writers. It is rewarded with the Order of Lenin, with Orders of the Patriotic War of the 1st and 2nd degrees, of the Red Star, with medals. Several schools are named after her in Smolensk, Poltava, Stavropol' and other cities. She was entitled honorable citizen of the city of Gdansk (Poland). She died in Moscow on 5 June 2005.

When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.
 Jean-Paul Sartre 

Allein! wieder allein!
 Einsam wie immer.
 Vorüber rauscht die Jugendzeit
 In langer, banger Einsamkeit.
 Mein Herz ist schwer und trüb mein Sinn,
 Ich sitz' im gold'nen Käfig drin.
 Es steht ein Soldat am Wolgastrand,
 Hält Wache für sein Vaterland.
 In dunkler Nacht allein und fern,
 Es leuchtet ihm kein Mond, kein Stern.

 Regungslos die Steppe schweigt,
 Eine Träne ihm ins Auge steigt:
 Und er fühlt, wie's im Herzen frißt und nagt,
 Wenn ein Mensch verlassen ist, und er klagt,
 Und er fragt:
 Hast du dort oben vergessen auf mich?
 Es sehnt doch mein Herz auch nach Liebe sich.
 Du hast im Himmel viel Engel bei dir!
 Schick doch einen davon auch zu mir.




Loosely translated

  Alone so alone;
  Lonely as ever.
  Over the sound of the youth
  In a long, anxious solitude.
  My heart is heavy and dulls my senses,
  I sit in a golden cage.
  A soldier stands on the banks of the Volga,
  Keeping watch for his country.
  A dark night alone and far away,
  No moon, no stars,
  Silent, motionless, the steppe sleeps,
  A tear falls from his eyes
  And he feels like his heart is eaten away
  He is so alone;
  And he asks:
  Did you forget me there up in heaven,
   my heart  is  also  full of love.
  Nobody is here for me,
  But you up there
  You have many  angels in heaven with you!
  Please send  one of them to me.

Now it is all history.

please follow this Link to Sepia Saturday 168

http://www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com

Friday; you beauty...

Peruvian Morning glory;  the last, tiny crystal drop...A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

John Keats

Already Friday, don't you think the days are passing faster and faster, I think I am on  a roller coaster.

©Photo my garden.

Links

http://titania-lavenderandvanilla.blogspot.com.au/

http://t-picturesque.blogspot.com.au/

http://pelluciidityblogspotcom.blogspot.com.au/

Thursday; seriously..

STEPHON kissed me in the spring, 

Robin in the fall, 

But Colin only looked at me 

And never kissed at all.

Stephon's kiss was lost in jest, 

Robin's lost in play, 

But the kiss in Colin's eyes 

Haunts me night and day.

♥

The Kiss is an 1889 marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. . 

The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante's Inferno who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta's younger brother Paolo.  

The couple are discovered and killed by Francesca's husband. 

When critics first saw the sculpture in 1887, they suggested the less specific title Le Baiser. 

Rodin indicated that his approach to sculpting women was of homage to them and their bodies, not just submitting to men but as full partners in ardor. The consequent eroticism in the sculpture made it controversial. A bronze version of The Kiss  was sent for display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The sculpture was considered unsuitable for general display and relegated to an inner chamber with admission only by personal application.

Links

http://titania-lavenderandvanilla.blogspot.com.au/

http://pelluciidityblogspotcom.blogspot.com.au/

Wednesday; Island of Wings;

I have finished this book; it was very interesting, as I did not know much of the Hebrides.  Island of Wings, an Island of birds, has captured  the life and hardship of the inhabitants and the outsiders who have come  to bring and teach the gospel to the natives of Hirta. Both struggle to understand each other.The  McKenzie family lived there from 1830 until their departure from the Island in 1843. It is a wonderful account of a natural world with a bitter sweet ending.

The neonatal death rate on St.Kilda in the 1830 was about 60%. the cause of death, the St. Kildan inhabitants called the "eight day sickness" as the affected infants dies within a couple of weeks of birth, was neonatal Tetanus. The origin of Tetanus  was not known until 1884. Scientists have found high levels of the tetanus toxin  in the St. Kildan soil. Possibly due to the facts that bird carcasses were ploughed into the soil as manure. A suggestion was, that they used contaminated fulmar oil on the umbilical cord when a child was born. It is said it is more likely, that the infants were infected by the knife used to cut the cord in a very unhygenic enviroment.
Hirta was finally evacuated in 1930 after life on the Island had become unsustainable.

Exerpts from notes and acknoledgement, page 311.

St Kilda, Main Island of Hirta, a walk along 'Main street' with the remains of the old blackhouses and the 16 newer 1860 built replacement houses. 

The manse, the ministers home.

Interesting facts, click here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland

Friday; flowers in the kitchen...

Blush from my Garden;

Challenge yourself a little bit everyday!

©Photo Ts

Wednesday;Bookshelf;

Reading now;  Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg;

July,1830, on the ten-hour sailing west from the Hebrides to the Island of St.Kilda...

Neil is to become the minister to the small community of Islanders...

Page 60;  They often make shoes out of the necks of gannets, they cut the head off at the eyes and the part  where the skull was serves as the heel of the shoe and the feathers on the throat  offer warmth and water proofing. They generally only last a couple of days, but at times there are so many birds that they can wear these disposable socks almost daily.

Page 61;  Yes it is true, that they are largely used to governing their own affairs, agreed the minister.

Forgive me sir, but do you not think that we have something to learn from them? George insisted.

Neil MacKenzie, the minister and his zealous Christianity, concentrating on his god, is way out of touch with life and how to live. Titania

Hirta (Scottish Gaelic: Hiort) is the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, on the western edge of Scotland. The names "Hiort" (in Scottish Gaelic) and "Hirta" (historically in English) have also been applied to the entire archipelago.

The island measures 3.4 kilometres  from east to west, and 3.3 kilometres from north to south. It has an area of 6.285 square kilometres  and about 15 km of coastline. The only real landing place is in the shelter of Village Bay on the southeast side of the island. The island slopes gently down to the sea at Glen Bay (at the western end of the north coast), but the rocks go straight into the sea at a shallow angle and landing here is not easy if there is any swell at all. Apart from these two places, the cliffs rise sheer out of deep water. The highest summit in the island, Conachair, forms a precipice 430 m high .St Kilda is probably the core of a Tertiary volcano, but, besides volcanic rocks, it contains hills of sandstone in which the stratification is distinct.

The islands were continuously populated from prehistoric times until the 1930s, when the remaining inhabitants were evacuated
Viking burials have been found there. St. Kilda was part of the Lordship of the Isles, then a property of the MacLeods of Dunvegan from 1498 until 1930. There were three chapels on St. Kilda, dedicated to St Brendan, St Columba, and Christ Church, but little remains. There are also the remains of a beehive house, known as the Amazon's House.

The islanders had a tough life, and survived by exploiting the thousands of sea birds living on the islands. There are a large number of cleits, huts used for storing dried sea birds, fish, hay and turf. The islanders had a very democratic system, and decisions were taken by an island council, made up of all the menfolk. The present village was set out in the 1830s above Village Bay, but in the 1880s some of the population left for Australia, and the remaining inhabitants were finally evacuated in the 1930s because of hardship and storms that had cut off the islands for weeks.

Courtesy Wikipedia

Monday/Tuesday; rain;

Limp hangs the washing on the line, trees and shrubs are dripping; the clouds hang deep and grey; blue is rare and fickle.

The garden looks green and the plants rejoice in the rain falling in a steady drumming on my roof.

The Rainy Day

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)


THE DAY is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
    And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
    And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
    Some days must be dark and dreary.


©Photo Ts 

Sunday; Bell birds;

 The Bell Miner (Manorina melanophrys) colloquially known as the Bellbird, is a colonial honeyeater endemic to southeastern Australia. They were given their common name because they feed almost exclusively on the dome-like coverings of certain psyllid bugs, referred to as "bell lerps," that feed on eucalyptus sap from the leaves. The "bell lerps" make these domes from their own honeydew secretions in order to protect themselves from predators and the environment. They are also very likelye named after their bell-like call.

Bell miners live in large, complex social groups. Within each group there are subgroups consisting of several breeding pairs, but also including a number of birds who are not currently breeding. The non breeders help in providing food for the young in all the nests in the subgroup, even though they are not necessarily closely related to them. The birds defend their colony area communally aggressively, excluding most other passerine species. They do this in order to protect their territory from other insect-eating birds that would eat the bell lerps on which they feed. Whenever the local forests die back due to increased lerp psyllid infestations, bell miners undergo a population boom.
Courtesy Wikipedia


I do like the call of the bellbirds, the sound of little bells ring through the forest. Some people  do not like it, they say it is noisy, Crickets  and cicadas  are noisy or the perpetual sound of the sea or rain. I don’t mind the natural sounds.  The ear gets used to it. My ears hurt  and are annoyed by human made noises. Loud music, base amplifiers, if music is the right word for this sort of noise from the abyss! Roaring Motorbikes or cars every noise humans make, like in a shopping centre the constant monotonous droning and thrumming on of voices and sounds are annoying to me.

Bell Birds by Henry Kendall

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,

And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling;

It lives in the mountain, where moss ad the sedges

Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges:

Through breaks of the cedar and sycamore bowers

Struggles the light that is love to the flowers,

And softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,

The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.

The silver voiced bell-birds, the darlings of day-time,

They sing in September their songs of the May-time.

When shadows wax strong, and the thunder bolts hurtle,

They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle;

When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled together,

They start up like fairies that follow fair weather,

And straightway the hues of the feathers unfolden

And the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.

October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,

Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses,

Loiters knee-deep in the grasses to listen,

Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten.

Then is the time when the water-moons splendid

Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended

Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning

Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the morning.

Welcome as waters, unkissed by the summers

Are the voices of bell-birds to thirsty far-comers.

When fiery December sets foot in the forest,

And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest,

Pent in the ridges for ever and ever,

The bell-birds, direct him to spring and to river,

With ring and with ripple, like runnels whose torrents

Are turned by the pebbles and leaves in the currents.

Often I sit looking back to a childhood

Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,

Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion

Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of passion --

Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters

Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest rafters;

So I might keep in the city and alleys

The beauty and strengths of the deep mountain valleys,

Charming to slumber the pain of my losses

With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.

Links
Lavender and Vanilla;
Poetic Takeaway's;
T-Picturesque

Sepia Saturday 166; Cardboard boxes;

Cardboard boxes, we all use them. I think back when cardboard boxes were quite a rarity. If we craved one for play or other uses we had to wait a long time.  Groceries were taken home in a woven basket or a bag.
Sugar, flour etc, was stored in drawers and sold in paper or cloth bags. In the Swiss village I grew up a paper bag was called a  "Scarnuz" from the Ladin Romanisch an old Etruscan language.
Cardboard has been upcycled and recycled to make a huge array of articles.
Children and animals love them to play, to sleep and all sorts of things. My grand children loved them too.  We made tables, houses, trains anything was fun to make. Not long ago Fabrizia made a house to hide for Billy,as he is afraid of thunder.She wanted him to use it to hide, but he has never used it, which was a bit a disappointment, he rather jumps onto the sofa under a blanket!

The beginning of cardboard;

A human billboard who wears a sandwich board

Decoration;

Furniture;

Baskets and bags;

Sophisticated cardboard hat box;

Victorian French Art Nouveau elegant ladies decorative Hat Box circa 1890's to 1920's of early cardboard or paper board with yellow gold cord handle. Aqua blue lid with art nouveau graphics and La Pointe's signature.

Please go and visit

Sepia Saturday 166;

I gathered, gleaned and picked the photos courtesy Google images.

Friday; Places of Learning;

Picture Book Library - Iwaki City, Japan
Built in 2005, the Picture Book Museum gave the preschoolers of Iwaki, Fukushima, a space to call their own. Turned off by the shhh-ing atmosphere of traditional libraries, the Picture Book Library's founder gave architect Tadao Ando free rein to create a space that would be inviting for children. His only order was to make sure the covers of the books were visible. The glass-walled and vibrant end result was celebrated as a new paradigm in educational spaces in Japan, and as an architectural masterpiece.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina - Alexandria, Egypt
Nothing remains of the original Library of Alexandria -- the biggest and most prominent library of the ancient world -- and nobody knows for sure exactly when and how it was destroyed. But nearly 2,000 years later in 2002, the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened as an homage to the original.

Royal Grammar School Chained Library - Guildford, England

Established in the early 1500s, the Royal Grammar School contains one of few remaining examples of the practice of chaining books to shelves. This allowed important or particularly useful books to be placed in communal areas for public perusal rather than locked away, paving the way  to the public library system. Now the Headmaster's Study, the Chained Library holds books that date back to the late 1400s, including two early editions of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia.  

St. Catherine's Monastery - South Sinai, Egypt

The oldest continually operated library in the world, St. Catherine's Monastery has been around since it was first built by the order of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, sometime around 564 AD. It currently holds over 3,000 religious and educational manuscripts and approximately 8,000 printed books, including first editions of Homer and Plato. 

Trinity College Long Room - Dublin, Ireland

Ireland's oldest university, Trinity College, is also the location of the largest library in Ireland. The oldest and rarest of its collection is housed in the Long Room, the largest single-chamber library in the world with over 200,000 volumes preserved inside. 

When I travel I always like to visit libraries. When I see the might of books and learning I ask myself why is the world still such a savage place? Spending the people's wealth on wars and destruction, still invading other countries to steal and to plunder. 

To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace. Tacitus

Thursday; unforgettable;

My granddaughter Fabrizia leaves little notes for me. I find them in books, in the cutlery drawers, behind mugs, they are always a little surprise.She is now 10, when she could not read nor write she left me drawings and long epistles with  "Hieroglyphics". When only 2 years old she carried always books around, not with pictures just with writing, she loved dictionaries, she still loves notebooks and carries them anywhere to write and draw. This little note says "Dear Goi, I miss you already I will bring back something and maybe stay at your hotel in Europe. Fab

(Goi is short for Grossmammi a Swiss German word for grandma. She invented it when she was two years old.)

Thursday; I wonder...

...who said:" we can not waltz in the clouds?"

© Photo/text Ts.

Wednesday, 2 cents of wisdom;

Dry, spend leaves have their special beauty. 

Be creative;
Do not buy mass produced goods, go for quality;
Choose handmade goods from small cottage industries;
Buy one good painting you really like instead of buying 50 reproductions.
Even better paint one yourself.
Look and listen;
Enjoy  nature, colours, stillness.
Read one of the Philosophers;
Enjoy cooking a special meal, try to make your own recipes.
Learn a new language, even if only a few sentences.
Don’t accept everything at face value, make up your own mind;
Do not follow trends;
Criticize;
Don’t be to materialistic, it takes the pleasure away from being creative.

Miniature Bougainvillea;

.Creative individuals
 have a great deal of energy, but they are also often quiet and at rest,

tend to be smart,

have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility;
alternate between imagination, fantasy, and  their sense of  reality,

seem to harbour opposite tendencies between extroversion and introversion.

Generally, creative people are  rebellious and independent.

©Photos my garden/text Ts

Tuesday; care...

We are lucky to live well, have a  happy life, others don't, children are always the most vulnerable and easily exploited by people who are the most despicable of mankind. They do not care at all how they make money; if possible always on the back of others.

Tell Nintendo Slavery is Not a Game;

Conflict minerals are mined by prisoners of war and child slaves.
 Nintendo doesn't seem to think this matters.
Electronics like laptops, cell phones, and game consoles contain minerals that are often mined by people in the Congo forced to perform this labor under threat of violence or death. This is why they are often called 'conflict minerals.'

Companies like HP, Apple and Microsoft have taken steps to make their products conflict-free, but not Nintendo.

The very first step for Nintendo to rid its products of conflict minerals is to audit its supply chain and make the information public.

The violence and slavery associated with the production of minerals in the Congo is devastating. There is absolutely no excuse for a company with so much money and power to turn a blind eye to this human rights tragedy.

Care2 Action alerts.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/886/663/109/?z00m=20502862

Monday; capricious;

ca·pri·cious

Adjective

Given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior. 

Synonyms

whimsical - wayward - fickle - freakish - crotchety 

Freakish,  flowering now, the Hippeastrum flowers generally in spring, October, November, depending on the weather into December.

Wayward; cherry tree flowering now towards end of summer; it should flower in spring!

Fickle; Lichen are choosy, Lichens and mosses only grow in areas where the air is clean and will not flourish in gardens in polluted inner-city suburbs.

Whimsical; Lovely moth, saw it in the morning on the fence. Moth and Lichens are some of my favourites. 

There is something about them, interesting in all aspects and absolutely beautiful.

©Photos/text Ts

Sepia Saturday 164; Grandfather's Tobacco pipes;

The Appenzeller  tobacco pipe, called a Lindauerli is part the

Alpine  national costume, still worn today for social occasions.

The tobacco pipes  are still produced today  in the same way and style as in earlier times. Generally they are produced from wood of the pear tree  and varnished  very dark brown or black and decorated
with stylized  Edelweiss, Alpen flora and cows from silver or tin.

This one is a tobacco pipe with a swan neck!

This is also a Lindauerli, I should have pointed the head down wards, that's how it is smoked'

A folks song; Myn Vater isch en Appenzeller,

 der isst de' Chäs mitsamt'em Teller.

My father is a born  Appenzeller he eats his cheese and the plate, which means, in earlier time they served the cheese on  a thick piece of bread, so he eats the cheese and the plate!

Still a very traditional  bringing the animals  up to the Alps in early summer and also celebrating when they are returning at the end of summer.

The canton Appenzell, situated in the north-east of Switzerland, was from 1513 to 1597 one single cantons (1597 the canton was divided into the Catholic Innerrhoden and the reformed Ausserrhoden). 

A girl who can Yodel!

www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com

©Photo/text Ts

Friday, surprise...

Privileged; roses in the kitchen;

This morning it was raining and I went grocery shopping. I left at 8 am and was back at 10:30. I usually go to a smaller shopping centre not to far to drive. I quickly went to the library to pick up some books. I read now a lot from my Sony reader, but from time to time it is nice to hold a REAL book!

The books I borrowed are  BAND OF SISTERS by Gathy Gohlke;

AND WHEN SHE WAS GOOD by Laura Lippman;  I don't know about this one THE SINS OF THE MOTHER; Danielle Steel, perhaps I read it perhaps not. Anyway some blissful hours are waiting.

When I returned home I found a small parcel waiting for me;  a beautiful present;

Exquisite bangles made from Buffalo horn. Artisans in  North Vietnam make them. The colours are very beautiful and they are feather-light to wear.  

©Photos/text Ts