Widow's Endorphins: Happy New Year!

Widow's Endorphins: Happy New Year!: Take time every day to do something good for your soul: laugh, take photographs, draw, paint, colour, go for a walk on the beach, play w...

Happy New Year!

Take time every day to do something good for your soul: laugh, take photographs, draw, paint, colour, go for a walk on the beach, play with your dog, sing in the shower, laugh, bake cookies, listen to music, watch an old movie, laugh, read a book, write, email a friend, phone a friend, laugh, plant flowers, roast vegetables, throw a party, laugh, meditate, do a puzzle, invite someone for tea, dance, laugh, take dance lessons, take them again...

Each passing year, reminds us that time is precious.  Wishing you a 2016 of peace, joy, laughter, good health, and time to do something good for your soul.


Photograph Copyright:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Widow's Endorphins: Merry Christmas!

Widow's Endorphins: Merry Christmas!: Every year, I make hand painted glass Christmas ornaments to give as gifts, and place in the tree.  It is so relaxing, and ...

Merry Christmas!

Every year, I make hand painted glass Christmas ornaments to give as gifts, and place in the tree.  It is so relaxing, and gets me into the Christmas spirit.  No two are ever alike.  This year's collection featured copper, gold, turquoise and opal acrylic paints, and has a gemstone look about it, that reminds me of my shoebox of rock samples which my Dad gave me. Can you say, Chalcopyrite?

Have a Merry Christmas, and may there be peace in your heart.


Photograph Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Widow's Endorphins: Rose Quartz and Serenity

Widow's Endorphins: Rose Quartz and Serenity: Serenity.  In these turbulent times, it is something so desired by all in the world.  The more stressed we are, the more we seek or ...

Rose Quartz and Serenity

Serenity.  In these turbulent times, it is something so desired by all in the world.  The more stressed we are, the more we seek or create space for quiet reflection, and renewal. 

Every year, the Pantone Color Institute unveils it's choice for Color of the Year.  For the first time, two colours, Rose Quartz and Serenity have been chosen for 2016.  The selection is based on what I like to call, fashion anthropology, or in the words of the Pantone Color Institute, "a color snapshot of what we see taking place in our culture that serves as an expression of a mood and an attitude". Fashion designers, interior designers and decorators, home decor designers, jewelers, makeup artists, landscapers, and car manufacturers take note of each year's colour, and translate that into new works.

Rose Quartz (Pantone 13-1520) is described as "a persuasive yet gentle tone that conveys compassion and a sense of composure".    

Serenity (Pantone 15-3919) is described as "weightless and airy, like the expanse of the blue sky above us, bringing feelings of respite and relaxation even in turbulent times".

There's a peaceful, almost ethereal quality to the two colours, and magic happens when they are combined.  The Institute's Executive Director, Leatrice Eiseman says that, "joined together Rose Quartz and Serenity demonstrate an inherent balance between a warmer embracing rose tone and the cooler tranquil blue, reflecting connection and wellness as well as a soothing sense of order and peace".


Pantone Color of the Year 2016 image:  Pantone, Google Images
Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Widow's Endorphins: Bright Copper Kittens

Widow's Endorphins: Bright Copper Kittens: I've been humming My Favorite Things , since early November.  That's when work began on the Raindrops and Roses, Whisker...

Bright Copper Kittens

I've been humming My Favorite Things, since early November.  That's when work began on the Raindrops and Roses, Whiskers on Kittens blog post (see archives: November 23, 2015).   I hope the ghosts of Rodgers and Hammerstein won't haunt me like Jacob Marley's ghost.  I've changed the lyrics to their Broadway musical hit ever so slightly.  

You see, I don't have any bright copper kettles to photograph.  I have bright brass tea kettles, a copper pot (the kind a leprechaun would dance around), a copper bottomed au gratin dish (you'll remember it from The Mystery of the Autumn Woods, archives: September 27, 2015).  I also have a pounded copper serving tray, even a tarnished copper pitcher, stashed under the kitchen sink because it would break my heart to throw it away.  Not a copper tea kettle to be had.     

In desperation, I turned on the television to the Fireplace Channel, and placed the brass kettles on the copper tray, in the hopes that the flames of the faux fire would reflect in the brass kettles, creating a copper look. Awful. 

So, bright copper kittens it is. 

Ginger, marmalade, orange and apricot - delicious words, all used to describe the copper coloured fur on these little kittens.  Lori, from Kitty Cat Rescue, calls them "red" kittens, which may sound odd, until you realize that that's exactly how we refer to ginger haired humans - red heads!

Did you know that 75% of ginger cats are male?  It's just easier:  male gingers need the orange gene to attach to only one X Chromosome.  To produce a female ginger, the orange gene must be attached to two X Chromosomes.  

While we're lapping up scientific information, the University of California actually studied cat popularity.  Gingers are the most popular, because they're seen as "lovable and friendly".  

The first movie that I can remember seeing was Walt Disney's The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964). Thomasina is a Scottish ginger cat, and she narrates the story of her life - or lives.  

The year is 1912, World War I is far in the future, and Thomasina lives in one of the grey stone houses, along the cobbled streets of Inveranoch, Scotland.  Thomasina is a glorified doll for a little girl named Mary MacDhui.  Mary loves to dress Thomasina in a white gown and bonnet, and parade her through the village in a baby buggy (I was inspired.  My own cat - with the embarrassing name of Thomasina Puss-In-Boots Fluffball Adams - would have none of it).

Mary's mother has died, and Mary's father (Patrick McGoohan), the village Veterinarian, blames God for her death. Andrew MacDhui is not a nice Vet, and has a reputation for putting down dogs and cats that aren't working animals (and I don't mean by use of condescending words).  Horses, cows, guide dogs for the blind, even chickens matter more to him than Thomasina.  

When Thomasina is chased by dogs, and develops tetanus from her injuries, he has her euthanized. Mary vows to never speak to her father again.  What he, and tearful Mary don't realize, is that the injection didn't kill the cat, it only put her in a coma.

Mary and her friends, bagpipes a-wailing, give Thomasina a funeral in the glen.  When they see "Mad Lori" (the lovely Susan Hampshire, who also played Fleur in The Forsyte Saga) they run for home in terror, because they think she's a witch.  Of course, she's not a witch!  She's a healer of animals. 

Lori brings Thomasina back to her home, where the ginger cat begins her second life.  In Lori's hands, Thomasina makes a full recovery...except for her memory.  She can't remember her first life, with Mary.

Meanwhile, back at the Vet's - MacDhui is furious that the children, who've now discovered that Lori can cure animals (but still don't know that Thomasina is alive), are telling villagers to boycott his clinic.  The Vet storms over to Lori's hillside home, and winds up treating one of her injured woodland creatures.  It's the beginning of a lovely romance.

Thomasina's memory is returning in flashbacks.  She remembers her way back home, but runs away from Mary, who chases her through a violent thunderstorm.  Mary gets pneumonia.  For the first time since his wife died, MacDhui prays for a miracle.  Then, a bolt of lightning strikes a tree in the glen, and suddenly, Thomasina remembers everything!  She knows where she belongs!

She runs straight to Mary's bedroom window, peers in, and sees Mary's distraught father - the man who "killed" her.  She's learned about love from Lori, and in an act of forgiveness, she steps in through the window, and MacDhui places her in Mary's arms.  Mary survives!  

So begins Thomasina's third life, the one in which she and everyone else live happily ever after, when the Vet marries the witch who really isn't a witch.

This Christmas, think of adopting a kitten or cat that needs a good home.  You'll be glad you did.


Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins, Photographic Images Inc.

Widow's Endorphins: Thank You Five Thousand Times!

Widow's Endorphins: Thank You Five Thousand Times!: Widow's Endorphins just reached five thousand visits to the blog site!  Over the past few months, people from all across Canada, ...

Thank You Five Thousand Times!

Widow's Endorphins just reached five thousand visits to the blog site!  Over the past few months, people from all across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, India, China, and Australia have popped into for visits, and WE couldn't be more thrilled.

Endorphins are natural pain and stress relievers, and flowers are my endorphins.  Just look at this image of my "leftover" birthday bouquet.  The vivid colours are energizing, while the reflection of flowers in the crystal vase, is calming...and reflective!  You could meditate, just staring into the image.  

Now that I have placed you in a subliminal trance...Please drop in for a visit each week, and invite your friends!

Photograph Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Widow's Endorphins: Raindrops on Roses, Whiskers on Kittens

Widow's Endorphins: Raindrops on Roses, Whiskers on Kittens: Raindrops on Roses, and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens, Brown paper packages, tied up with ...

Raindrops on Roses, Whiskers on Kittens

Raindrops on Roses, and whiskers on kittens,

Bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens,

Brown paper packages, tied up with string,

These are a few of my favorite things.

I have been humming My Favorite Things for weeks!  The Rodgers and Hammerstein classic from the Broadway musical and movie, The Sound of Music, is one of my favourites (Canadian spelling!) With a nod to warm woolen mittens, sleigh bells, copper kettles, and packages tied up with string, the song reads like a Christmas wish list. 

With music composed by Richard Rodgers, the memorable lyrics - "Silver white Winters that melt into Spring", and "Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes" - were all written by Oscar Hammerstein II.  My Favorite Things has been featured on Christmas albums recorded by everyone from Barbra Streisand and Tony Bennett, to Mary J. Blige. 

  

The song, My Favorite Things was originally written for the 1959 Broadway musical, The Sound of Music. The theatre version was quite different from the movie version.  In the stage production, Maria, a young Nun, not quite cut out for convent life, tells the Mother Abbess about her fears of leaving the convent to care for the seven children of Captain Von Trapp.  It is at this point, that she sings My Favorite Things, telling Mother Abbess that she will think of her favourite things whenever she feels down, and then she won't feel so bad.  

In the movie version, Maria sings to the children, who've run into her bedroom, frightened by the thunderstorm outside.  It is a turning point in her relationship with the children, who've been doing their best to get rid of her until now.

    

This is Della.  I kept calling her Bella, because she is.  Della is one of five little kittens from Kitty Cat Rescue, that ran around my home one sunny November morning, for one of the happiest photo shoots ever!  While Della was giving me her, "far away dreamy eyed" look, the other four were climbing through the sound system, discovering a world under the leather sofa, and getting to know my wooden folk art cat.  

It is normal life for Lori, who along with volunteers, runs the cat rescue service, finding homes for young kittens, and older cats who's owners can no longer care for them.  Lori was the "Wrangler" for the photo shoot, bringing her young brood, a litter box, all of their food, water, and toys to my home in a baby stroller. Behind the scenes, Lori was waving an eye-catching metallic ribbon wand in front of the kittens, so that I could catch these wonderful expressions.  

Little Della is a feline Meryl Streep!  She portrayed a whistful dreamer, surprised comic, elegant and refined society matron (watch those claws), and a character out of  Les Miserables.  She just loves the camera!

As for the raindrops on roses...in this picture, you really do see why they call it, "liquid sunshine"!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Widow's Endorphins: Paris, Imagine

Widow's Endorphins: Paris, Imagine: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite Imagine all the people living life in peace. Photograph Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorp...

Paris, Imagine

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite

Imagine all the people living life in peace.

Photograph Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Etsy:  etsy.com/ca/shop/widowsendorphins

Widow's Endorphins: Flanders Fields and Bluebirds

Widow's Endorphins: Flanders Fields and Bluebirds: To the sound of distant shelling and close screams, they assisted in surgery, cleaned wounds, and comforted the dying. Canada's...

Flanders Fields and Bluebirds

To the sound of distant shelling and close screams, they assisted in surgery, cleaned wounds, and comforted the dying. Canada's World War I nurses were as tough and brave as any soldier.

When the "war to end all wars" erupted in 1914, just over 100 nurses with the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC), led by Matron in Chief, Margaret MacDonald, set sail for England.  By 1918, more than 3-thousand women - one third of the all the nurses in Canada - had volunteered, serving in dressing stations near battle fields, casualty clearing stations, and hospitals.  They endured the long hours of exhausting work, and the stress of emergency and intensive care nursing, in rat and lice infested locations in France, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Malta.  Some gave their lives.

The Red Cross in England, recruited volunteers throughout the Commonwealth, and many Canadian women answered the call.  The need was great, and it didn't matter if they were not trained nurses. The Red Cross volunteers were taught first aid, and given white uniforms emblazoned with a large red cross.  They learned hard lessons - fast.  

By contrast, the trained and experienced CAMC nurses, recruited from hospitals and religious nursing orders, were fully integrated into Canada's armed forces.  The nurses were given the rank of Lieutenant, and earned $4.10 a day, compared with Infantry Men on the front lines who's daily earnings were only $1.10. Margaret MacDonald became the first woman in the British Commonwealth to rise to the rank of Major.  With their light blue uniforms, white aprons, and white veils, the CAMC nurses were affectionately known as Bluebirds.   

Entrenched in the war, nurses were never actually in the trenches.  They would be near enough to the battle zone to meet the Stretcher Bearers carrying the wounded on foot, or by ambulance.  Emergency surgery could be performed in Dressing Stations.  Soldiers who survived that ordeal, were then moved to Casualty Clearing Stations.  From there, patients would be taken by truck or rail to Stationary or General Hospitals in France or England.  

Hospitals were not safe from attack. In May of 1918 two Canadian hospitals in Etaples, France were attacked, leaving 66 patients and hospital staff dead, and another 73 injured.  Many patients couldn't move.  Nurses who stayed with immobile patients, were later awarded medals for courage.  

One month later, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank a hospital ship, Llandovery Castle, as it crossed the Atlantic from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to Liverpool, England.  The explosion, sinking and machine-gunning down of anyone who escaped, left 258 crew and medical personnel dead, including 14 nurses.  The war crime was illustrated by G. W. Wilkinson, on the one-year anniversary of the tragic event.

The description of the October 3, 2015 bombing of the neutral Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, by American forces, is eerily similar to the accounts from the survivors of the WWI hospital bombings, nearly one hundred years earlier.  The bombings were relentless, patients who couldn't move, burned to death on hospital tables, doctors and nurses were shot from above, as they helped patients evacuate.

In the Great War, bullets and explosions tore limbs and faces off soldiers, yet, it was infection and contagious disease that killed the most people.  The trenches were dug from manure laden farm fields, and even the smallest open wound was susceptible to infection.  In the years before antibiotics, nurses applied Sodium Hypochlorite directly over wounds.  Wound cleaning and inspection was one of the most important nursing duties.  Keeping a sterile environment was nearly impossible.

Soldiers shot in the torso, rarely survived, so few are even listed in hospital records.  As for head injuries, the war was already a year old before someone thought to give the men helmets.  Explosions maimed soldiers so badly, that limbs were frequently amputated.  Nurses were helpless to deal with both the surgical pain, and the long term phantom pain of lost limbs.  Sometimes, all they could do was keep up a soldier's spirits with talk of life back home.

Soldiers died of something as relatively simple as a broken femur.  At the start of the war, 80% of soldiers with a broken femur, died.  Then, Dr. Hugh Owen Thomas, a Welsh Surgeon invented the Thomas Splint to secure a broken leg.  Two years later, a soldier nursed back to health with the aid of a splint, had an 80% survival rate.

Looking at a soldier being brought in on a stretcher, a nurse could quickly tell by his pale face, and cold sweat, that he was experiencing hemorrhagic shock.  Blood loss was a serious issue.  The British Army came up with a way of transferring blood on the spot, from a healthy person, to the injured.  In 1917, an American Army Doctor created the first blood bank, enabling doctors to keep blood for up to 28 days.  Demand led to innovation - advancements welcomed by nurses.

If a soldier survived a blast, and the wounds healed, Tuberculosis or Typhus could kill him. Tuberculosis quickly spread in the cramped trenches.  Typhoid Fever was spread by lice.  Standing in water-filled trenches, soldiers' feet would get "Trench Foot", an infection which led to tissue decay, and death.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or as it was then called, "Shell Shock" would give wounded soldiers terrifying nightmares, and high anxiety, with sometimes violent mood swings.  Nurses had to be strong enough to defend themselves and other patients from attacks from mentally ill soldiers.

As the war drew to an end, weary nurses could not imagine the horror of the Spanish Flu, which they were about to face.

In the last months of World War I, the Spanish Flu swept around the world, killing 50-million people. It was called "Spanish" because Spain was the only country allowing uncensored dispatches on the disease.  The disease's origins were at first believed to be the battle grounds of Etaples, France, which suffered the devastation of air raid bombings in 1918.  Then, researchers thought the deadly flu strain started with soldiers at the US central training base of Camp Funston, Kansas.  In March of 1918, a new strain of flu, had killed 48 men, just as new recruits were shipped out to France.

New research by Mark Humphries, an Historian at Newfoundland's Memorial University, points to the tens of thousands of Chinese labourers brought in to work behind the British and French lines. Humphries says officials ignored plague restrictions, and brought in workers from a region of China which had an epidemic.  The labourers arrived in Vancouver, and were shipped across Canada in sealed rail cars.  Of the 96-thousand Chinese labourers who worked behind the lines, 25-thousand arrived by rail, and of those, three-thousand ended up in quarantine with the flu.  Racist doctors labelled them lazy, and sent them out to work among the healthy soldiers.  Spanish Flu targeted the immune systems of healthy, young people - much like SARS - and nurses were susceptible.       

Every Canadian school child learns to recite, In Flanders Fields, the hauntingly beautiful poem by Guelph, Ontario-born physician, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.  More than half of the doctors in Canada, served overseas in the First World War, and McCrae was one of them.  A 41 year old veteran of the South African War, the Montreal pathologist and McGill University lecturer, enlisted in WWI primarily as a Gunner, and secondly as a Doctor.  He thought he could do more to win the war, by being in the trenches.

He and his close friend, Alexis Helmer fought in the second battle of Ypres, in Belgium's Flanders region.  Canadian troops were attacked with chlorine gas on April 22, 1915, and the Canadians fought a battle that lasted a sleepless 17 days and nights. Helmer was killed on May 2, and McCrae buried him.

The next day, McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields.  He crumpled it up, and tossed it aside.  One of his fellow soldiers retrieved it, and his friends urged him to have it published.  London's Spectator rejected it.  It was published in Punch, in December of 1915, with a change in the first line, from "poppies grow", to "poppies blow".  One hundred years later, In Flanders Fields is recited at the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, at every Remembrance Day ceremony, in every town and city across the land.

In late 1917, while stationed at Boulogne, France, McCrae was promoted to acting Colonel, and came down with pneumonia the same day.  He then developed Meningitis, and died on January 28th, 1918. Nurses placed poppies on his grave.



Photographs Copyright of: Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated

Poppies, the colour of life-giving blood, are a symbol of remembrance of the war dead.  The blue Cornflowers on the French water pitcher, are a symbol of those wounded in war.  The blue flowers recall the wounded soldiers who recovered in France's Les Invalides Hospital, by making blue coloured cloth.  Fields or bouquets of poppies, cornflowers and white daisies are iconic images in France.

Image of two laughing Canadian Army Medical Corps nurses, and the lone nurse in front of a tent, all courtesy of Canadian War Museum archives.
Image of the sinking of the Llandovery Castle, courtesy of McMaster University Libraries, digital archives.
Image of the bronze book shaped plaque of the poem, at the John McCrae memorial in Guelph, Ontario, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.




    

Widow's Endorphins: November's Chrysanthemums

Widow's Endorphins: November's Chrysanthemums: Calling up the florist to order November's flower has it's challenges. A tongue-tier to pronounce, it is even more difficult t...

November's Chrysanthemums

Calling up the florist to order November's flower has it's challenges. A tongue-tier to pronounce, it is even more difficult to spell.  Chrisanthamums? Crysanthemums?  Crisanthamums?  If you can't remember how to spell Chrysanthemums, just call them Mums!  Everyone else does. The word is from the ancient Greek, Chrys, meaning golden and anethemion, meaning flower.  

The original Mums were golden, or yellow. Centuries later, they're found in deep purple, vibrant red, bright orange, pink, lilac, white and green.  I like the way this blossom (above) looks against the red and blue of my hand painted living room floor!  The zoom effect is courtesy of my computer.  

The misalignment of the typeset is also courtesy of my computer, or the blog programme.  I have already spent nearly an hour attempting to move these paragraphs flush left, and the blog insists on laying out this section in balanced style.  

I need to chill.  Mums are the perfect flower for meditation...

To yoga masters, the Chrysanthemum represents the heart Chakra.  Devotees concentrate on the radiating beauty of the flower, and radiating heart and love energy.  The Japanese consider the orderly unfurling of its petals to be absolute perfection, and the golden, sun-like flower is the symbol of Imperial Japan.  The lovely mauve-pink Mums (below) which grow at the entrance to our home, remind me of Mandala art, clearly the inspiration for the centuries old art form.  

Chrysanthemums are members of the Daisy family, however, they are so much more complex and interesting, ranging in shape from large pom-poms to starbursts to tiny buttons.  

While we in North America welcome Chrysanthemums in all bouquets, they are a symbol of death and grieving in other parts of the world.  In France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary, and Croatia (all Catholic countries in Europe), they are a symbol of death, and placed in funeral arrangements.

While Chrysanthemums are a symbol of life and rebirth in Asia, the white ones are not.  The white Chrysanthemum is a sombre flower for mourning.  In Japan, white clothing is worn at funerals, not black.

This bursting with life Chrysanthemum (below) was in a spectacular birthday bouquet for my own Mum's 90th birthday.  It radiates life!  Mums for Mums...

Depending on the size, shape and colour of the blossom, Chrysanthemums are either grand and regal, country and homey, or modern and sophisticated.  I love the green Spider Mum in this lovely birthday bouquet.

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Inc.

Widow's Endorphins: Haunted Garden: Witches of Eew Ick

Widow's Endorphins: Haunted Garden: Witches of Eew Ick: My neighbourhood haunt, the park next door, is haunted!  Monstrous creatures lurk everywhere, even near the rose trellis. Captured by ...

My neighbourhood haunt, the park next door, is haunted!  Monstrous creatures lurk everywhere, even near the rose trellis. Captured by my camera, Jabba the Hutt's offspring disguised as a rosebud!

Need a bit of a walk to shake that one off...

Even on a sunlit afternoon, the tall trees cast dark shadows.  As I move in closer, I see that the  leaves are covered with something strange...

Teeth!!!!

On every leaf...all the way up the tree...

Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  I contacted Mark Stewart, the Knowledge Resources Manager of  the Toronto Botanical Garden.  He studied the photographs, and emailed back:

"Those do look like teeth!...I'd say they are leaf galls.  Galls on plants are abnormal growths of plant tissue as a result of some sort of external influence.  It is the plant's attempt to cordon off and contain the work of another organism.  Galls can be formed by invading insects (like aphids), bacteria, or fungi.  Different species of invaders tend to target different species and will actually introduce chemical to the plant's tissues to control its growth and form galls".

It's what Stewart had to say next, that really spooked me.  "The galls serve as microhabitats for the larvae of insects which develop inside them and then emerge.  They are like nurseries for the insect's young, providing both food and shelter while they develop".  Did he say, "emerge"?!!  All of those insects, emerging out of those toothy galls, like a swarm of Hitchcock's birds!

I'm heading back to the rose garden...

Doesn't this shadow look just like a cute little squirrel, hiding behind the backlit white rose?  Cute to you and me, but if you're a rose, you know that a squirrel will devour you and your buds!  To a rose, that little squirrel shadow is as creepy as Count Orlok's shadow climbing the wall in Nosferatu... 

  

The park's roses and trees are haunted with shadowy creatures, monsters, and plants with teeth that serve as incubators for swarming insects (they could hatch Halloween night!!!).  Maybe I'll just stand over by the tall grasses...

Or maybe not...

The White Walkers in Game of Thrones, are the scariest creatures of all.  They're no longer "beyond the wall" - they're in the park next door!

Happy Halloween!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated

Except photographs from these productions:

Jabba the Hutt first appeared in George Lucas' Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983), grossing out everyone, and helping the box office gross enormously.  Jabba the Hutt later appeared in Star Wars: A New Hope (1997),  Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999), and the television series Star Wars:  The Clone Wars (2008-2015). 

Everyone's favourite rock-musical-horror-comedy film, Little Shop of Horrors (1986), produced by David Geffen, and directed by Frank Oz, featured puppets designed by Lyle Conway.  There were six Audrey II puppets, one for each stage of growth of the plant.  The last one, weighed one ton, and needed 60 technicians to operate it.

The 1922 silent movie, Nosferatu is as much a story of blood sucking plagiarism, as it is about a Count who drinks human blood.  The film was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stoker's heirs won a law suit, and all the copies of the film had to be destroyed. 

The White Walkers in Game of Thrones are the artistic creation of Martin Rezard.  The French-born artist, sculptor and prosthetics genius has worked on both Harry Potter and The Hobbit films.

Widow's Endorphins: Autumn's Paint Palette

Widow's Endorphins: Autumn's Paint Palette: Toronto is often thought of as a grey city of concrete and snert (our own special word for snow and dirt).  You don't have t...

Autumn's Paint Palette

Toronto is often thought of as a grey city of concrete and snirt (our own special word for snow and dirt).  You don't have to watch Game of Thrones to know that Winter is coming.  Nature knows it, and as a last hurrah, throws a vibrantly coloured paint party.  The leaves of trees are brushed with Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, and Phthalo Green.

Think of October, and the colour orange comes to mind.  After all, it is the month of Halloween pumpkins, and there are all those brilliant orange coloured Autumn leaves.  Nature's paint palette for October is so much more than just orange.  Just look at the magenta, olive green, periwinkle blue and pale pink of the hydrangea blossom (above), and those little crabapples are well, apple red.

   

Nature's paint palette provides inspiration for artists and designers to create fabric, clothing, jewelry - everything from teacups to laptops.  There are beautiful variations of colour, and colour patterns within a flower.  I love the yellow ochre centres of the violet purple flowers (above), balanced with the dusty periwinkle blue of the buds.  The magenta coloured dahlia's centre is an almost black shade of plum.  The vibrant pink of the chrysanthemums is complemented by the cool minty green of their leaves.
 

As if getting ready for the cold Winter, nature's predominant palette for Fall is warm.  From the golden yellow of morning light, to the deep oranges of the sunset, the days are painted in yellow, orange and red.  Colour experts say that yellow is associated with  joie de vivre, orange with energy and stress reduction, and red with really high energy.  Paint party!

   

Ever wonder why leaves turn red?  It's the anthocyanins, which also colour cranberries, apples, concord grapes, cherries and plums.  Anthocyanins, and the yellow and orange producing carotenoids, are in leaves all the time, we just can't see them.  From Spring through Summer, chlorophyll, which gives leaves their green colour, is constantly being produced, and the green colour covers over the yellow and red. Then, as the days grow shorter, chlorophyll production stops.  The yellows, oranges and reds start to show through.  What an understatement! 

Warm, sunny days and crisp cool nights are best for vibrant red leaves.  In maple trees, glucose in the leaves, turns red with sunlight and cool temperatures. 

On a cold, windy October day, nature gives Torontonians one last brush stroke of blush pink and coral, before giving us an all-white Winter canvas, of Titanium White and Zinc White.  Winter is coming...Oh, snirt!

Photographs copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Inc.

Paint palette:  Google Images