Recipe : mix the difficulties you face in life together with a scoop of ice-cream in a blender , crush your fears with some coOkies , pure together in the cup of life , with the people you love & the whipped cream above all . Finally add an oreo on the top & you've got an amazing taste & look from the outside & the inside ... Chears

This is a special for 7anoOn my BFF :**

"Forget difficulties, but not the lessons learned from them." - author unknown

 

i saw this dragonfly taking a rest. i was impressed on how it holds on while time passes by. this photo was taken at digos, davao del sur, philippines.

 

listen:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKYWOwWAguk

 

Copyright © Paojus Alquiza. All rights reserved. Please note that the fact that "This photo is public" doesn't mean it is public domain or a free stock image. Therefore, its use without written consent by the author is illegal and punished by law.

: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty

 

Goolwa.

The Currency Creek Special Survey was taken out in 1839 by the Currency Creek Association based in England. Locally it was taken out by their agent Robert Wright on behalf of about 30 men. The Currency Creek Association laid out a major town which they hoped would become the New Orleans of the South. It was after all on a good river, near a great lake and near the mouth of the might Murray River system just like the location of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi in the USA. They named it after the local river- Currency Creek. They also laid out a much smaller port for the town which they called Goolwa. Currency Creek town covered 8 acres, Goolwa 2 acres. History would show they made the wrong decision as Goolwa prospered and Currency Creek withered! One of the early explorers of this region Young Hutchinson (who explored with Thomas Strangways) liked the area so much that he became a major landowner in Goolwa in 1856. Another explorer William Younghusband gave his name to the peninsula near the Murray Mouth. Although the town was laid out in 1840 sales were minimal until the Governor committed the state to developing Goolwa as a river port and Port Elliot as a coastal port for future riverboat trade up the Murray with a horse railway to connect the two. Work began on this £20,000 project in 1851. (An alternate plan to build a canal between the two at an estimated cost of £28,000 was not pursued by the government.) Apart from the Currency Creek Special Survey of 1839 the government also surveyed land along the proposed rail route to Port Elliot in 1849 making land available to buyers. The first land purchases in this region were made in 1849 at Middleton. But Governor Young’s dream of river trade up the Murray and a railway to Port Elliot were not generally popular. A newspaperman wrote in the SA Gazette and Mining Journal in 1851 “There is great difficulty in characterising Sir Henry Young's job "in terms polite". The Goolwa Railway, in the nostrils of the colonists, is odorous of assafoetida, and there are in their mouths, in common use, epithets reflecting upon his Excellency far more offensive than have ever yet appeared in print... Where are the produce, the population, the traffic of the Murray crowding the banks, and suffering for want of an outlet to a market? Why, a single bullock dray once a month will suffice to bring to Adelaide all its exportable produce for the next five years...”

 

At Goolwa work proceeded and the government invested in the new port town with the construction of the Railway Superintendent’s house in 1852(first occupied in 1854) and the Goolwa wharf in 1852. But the town laid out by the Currency Creek Special Survey in 1840 was still almost non-existent. Its English names like Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street are now located in North Goolwa. The government surveyed a government town in 1853 next to the Currency Creek Survey town. The first commercial building in the new government town was the Goolwa Hotel (oldest single storey part) built in 1853 and the two storey section was added in around 1865. In that year the Governor announced a prize of several thousand pounds for the first river boat to prove the Murray was navigable from Goolwa to Wentworth on the Darling. The Governor and his wife and party journeyed with Captain Cadell. Meantime Captain Randell of Mannum also set off about the same time and the two boats raced to Wentworth. The friend of the Governor - Cadell picked up the prize money and Randell received nothing. But this river boat expedition was so important to indicate a prosperous future and so Goolwa began to emerge as a small town with the main street named Cadell after the famous riverboat captain. Next to the government town “Little Scotland” was subdivided into town blocks in 1854. Sales of more town blocks continued in 1855 followed by more in 1856 and some of the first buildings included the bow fronted general store in the Main Street near the old horse tram museum, the first Post office 1857(now the Visitor Information Centre), the Police station and Courthouse 1859, the Customs House 1859, the former Australasian Hotel 1857(closed 1934) and the Corio Hotel also 1857. Land speculators could see a future for Goolwa by then and they also began to purchase blocks of land. The first residential stone cottages were erected around 1857. Goolwa prospered in the 1860s and 1870s when significant development occurred.

 

One of the finest private buildings of this period from 1860 to 1880 was what is now known as Rose Eden House. This grand two storey Italianate house was built in 1876 with some wrought iron lacework and upper veranda. It was built for the town school headmaster Mr Phillip Hill who must have run a private school in the town as well as the government school, of which he was headmaster, did not opened until 1879. But Mr Hill was a headmaster from 1873 of the town school which became the state school after the passing of the 1785 Education Act. It is claimed that he accommodated school boarders in this large house so that they could attend the Goolwa government school from 1879. Hill left the town of Goolwa in 1884 and the property was sold by him in 1886 when it was known as Hygiene House. It changes hands several times before it was purchased by the SA government in 1913 as a residence for the headmaster of Goolwa Primary School. It served this purpose until sold by the Education Department in 1973. In 2005 it was restored and re-opened as luxury bed and breakfast accommodation with the new name of Rose Eden House. Other fine structures of this 1860 to 1890 era are:

•Thomas Goode’s General Store next to the Goolwa Hotel was built in 1860 and then rebuilt in classical style in 1884. Thomas Goode was the first Post Master of Goolwa in 1857.

•the former Bank of South Australia (1872).

•the Holy Evangelist Anglican church was built in 1867, with the tower added in 1905. But the church was surrounded in controversy as the Governor gave a free land grant in 1855 for the church to be erected.

•the town morgue behind the Courthouse 1883.

•the first part of the Institute opened in 1878. That was the rear part of the current building in a very different style. The Town Hall (now the Alexandrina Council Chamber/Library) was added to the Institute in 1907 facing onto Cadell Street. It was later doubled in size when a matching room was added to the 1907 one.

•the superb Gothic state school built in 1879. The first town school began in Goolwa in 1855.

• the figurehead from the wreck of the Mozambique on the roof line of the Goolwa Hotel.

•the magnificent ceiling paintings in the Corio Hotel dining room (The Great Yankee Doodle Tobacco mural

•the original railway station(1872) now an opportunity shop beside public toilet block near the town rotunda. The railway station as moved to the Goolwa wharf after 1884 when steam trains started operating through to Adelaide. The old yards converted to a park, now the Soldiers’ Memorial Park as the rail yards moved to the Goolwa wharf where it is still located.

•Highlands House in Goyder Street built in 1853. Probably the oldest residence in Goolwa still in use.

 

The early churches of Goolwa apart from the Anglican Church include the Congregational Church built in 1859 and now a dental practice office but it was also used as a Catholic Church from 1896 to 1961, the Wesleyan Methodist Church built in 1861 with transepts added in 1881 and the Goolwa Church of Christ built in 1905. The Anglican Church was surrounded in some controversy as without any real authority Governor MacDonnell donated a town block to the Anglican Church in 1855. This was against state policy as it was favouring the Anglican Church as an established church. But the Premier of the day Boyle Finniss put some political spin on it and said the Governor had the right give away one of the government reserves in Goolwa. The local Congregational Minister Reverend Newland of Encounter Bay disputed this and rightly objected but to no avail. The newspapers were flooded with letters of objection.

 

The fine stone Goolwa flourmill was totally demolished in the 1920s. Edward Dutton had a brewery at Goolwa for some years from 1864 to 1879. Shipbuilding as in river boats and repairs was a major industry in Goolwa but few of these structures remain as they were usually iron and timber and relatively temporary. One of the main companies repairing and building boats were the Goolwa Foundry and Iron Works and Abraham Graham’s Patent Slip and Iron Works established in 1864. Abraham Graham owned Graham’s Castle etc. Ten river barges or steamers were made at Goolwa between 1853 and 1859. Many more followed. Among the many paddle stammers built in Goolwa were the PS Industry (number two) in 1911, the government owned vessel named Prince Alfred (1867), the Canberra a diesel paddle steamer built late in 1912 and well known paddle steamers such as the Eureka, the Goolwa, the Avoca, the Darling, the Wentworth, the Queen, the Miriam, the Express, the Princess Royal, the Cadell, the Victor, the Kookaburra, the Renmark, etc. Around 60 paddle steamers and barges were constructed in Goolwa with the last completed in 1912. As the ship building industry collapsed in the late 1880s much of the foundry equipment was sold to the Chaffey Brothers at Renmark for their irrigation works and boiler pumps.

 

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. – Keynes”

 

Dismissal for this Week Macro Monday challenge!

 

Macro Monday project – 08/12/13

“Round”

I had difficulty trying to fit everything into this shot. My back was already against the corner wall :) A fisheye or an UWA lens would have been useful but currently those would have to wait. Anyway, I just wanted you to see a part of the beautiful lobby of this hotel. I'll try posting an overhead view next time.

 

Explore: April 1, 2009 #453 | H.P. #318 Thanks for the support everyone!

Why do human beings find relationships so hard? Many of the difficulties we experience in life come directly from our relationships-not just with our mates, but with our parents, children, teachers, bosses, friends. In short, with virtually anyone from whom we want something. This is a key point; almost all of our relationship difficulties come from wanting something or someone to be different. Considering the amount of suffering that arises from relationships, it’s surprising that the Buddha didn’t include them in his list of the primary causes of suffering, along with sickness, old age, and death. One thing is certain: relationships, like serious illnesses, push us right to the edge of where we’re stuck. Stephen Levine has noted that relationship, though not the easiest method for finding peace, is certainly the most effective for discovering what blocks it.

 

The fact that relationships often bring the most painful and unhealed aspects of our life out of the shadows makes them a potentially powerful teacher. But let’s be honest, who actually wants such a teacher? What do we really want from relationships? We want what we want! We want someone to fulfill our needs, someone who will make us feel good, give us security, appreciation, affection, and love. We also want our relationships, at least in part, to mask our core pain: the anxious quiver of being that cries out for relief. But the more we rely on our relationships to either gratify our needs or assuage our pain, the more we solidify our suffering. Another person can never heal our core pain; we can only do that for ourselves. But that doesn’t keep us from asking others to do it. And when we don’t get what we want, the messiness of relationship begins.

 

As soon as a conflict arises and we feel threatened in some way, we tend to forget all about relationships as a vehicle of awakening. We tenaciously hold on to our views, judgments, and need to be right. We protect and defend our self-image. We close down or lash out. And, believing in all these reactions as the unquestioned truth, we perpetuate our suffering. As we continue to do this, the disappointment we cause ourselves and others becomes a pain we can’t ignore. That’s the beauty of relationships as spiritual practice. The pain motivates us to awaken; disappointment is often our best teacher. This is when practice can really begin. But this view of relationship is very different from what we have been taught.

 

We were taught that relationships are supposed to give us security or save us. We usually assume that they’re supposed to make us feel good through being supported, appreciated, loved, nurtured, or pleasured. We imagine that being in a relationship will relieve us of our loneliness.

 

That’s how we approach relationships. Based on these expectation, requirements, and desires, we want something. We need, or think we need, the other person to BE a certain way, or to make US feel a certain way-safe, happy, or whatever. “I care for you” often means “I need you.” We care for others as long as they satisfy our particular need, as long as they make us feel some special way. That’s the set up.

 

(to be continued)

from: At Home in the Muddy Water: A guide to finding peace within everyday chaos, by Ezra Bayda

  

This is my daughter who informed me that these shoes 'fit her' so therefore they are hers now. This photo was for a blog post where I talk about the difficulties/joys of working from home with 3 little kids.

 

jenniferfaris.com/are-those-cheerios-in-your-toilet/

The Kuryong Waterfall Tour Course is one of several tour courses of varying difficulty available to visitors to the Kumgang Mountain area. This course is about 12 mi./19 km. long. It will take the slowest walkers 4-5 hours, and the faster ones only 1-2 hours, to complete the roundtrip. The object is not to race along but to view the various scenic spots and vistas along the way up to the Kuryong Waterfall. The path itself follows a relatively narrow valley up into the mountains. The waterfall is one of the three tallest waterfalls in Korea, measuring 46 ft./74 m. high. One of the unique features of the waterfall and the pond below it is that they are made from one solid rock.

 

At the end of the falls is Kuryong Pond about 13 meters deep. According to a legend, there lived nine dragons in the pond.

 

Repository: California Historical Society

Photographer: Wetmore, George P.

Date: Undated

Format: Photographic print: b&w; 11 x 11 cm.

Digital object ID: CHS2014.1608.jpg

Preferred citation: [Bay City Wheelmen, touring under difficulties], courtesy, California Historical Society, CHS2014.1608.jpg.

Online finding aid: www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt009nc26n

 

Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. It was referred to as Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover in bills passed by Congress during its construction, but was named Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. The Hoover Dam name was restored by Congress in 1947.

 

Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.

 

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.

 

As the United States developed the Southwest, the Colorado River was seen as a potential source of irrigation water. An initial attempt at diverting the river for irrigation purposes occurred in the late 1890s, when land speculator William Beatty built the Alamo Canal just north of the Mexican border; the canal dipped into Mexico before running to a desolate area Beatty named the Imperial Valley. Though water from the Imperial Canal allowed for the widespread settlement of the valley, the canal proved expensive to operate. After a catastrophic breach that caused the Colorado River to fill the Salton Sea, the Southern Pacific Railroad spent $3 million in 1906–07 to stabilize the waterway, an amount it hoped in vain would be reimbursed by the federal government. Even after the waterway was stabilized, it proved unsatisfactory because of constant disputes with landowners on the Mexican side of the border.

 

As the technology of electric power transmission improved, the Lower Colorado was considered for its hydroelectric-power potential. In 1902, the Edison Electric Company of Los Angeles surveyed the river in the hope of building a 40-foot (12 m) rock dam which could generate 10,000 horsepower (7,500 kW). However, at the time, the limit of transmission of electric power was 80 miles (130 km), and there were few customers (mostly mines) within that limit. Edison allowed land options it held on the river to lapse—including an option for what became the site of Hoover Dam.

 

In the following years, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), known as the Reclamation Service at the time, also considered the Lower Colorado as the site for a dam. Service chief Arthur Powell Davis proposed using dynamite to collapse the walls of Boulder Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) north of the eventual dam site, into the river. The river would carry off the smaller pieces of debris, and a dam would be built incorporating the remaining rubble. In 1922, after considering it for several years, the Reclamation Service finally rejected the proposal, citing doubts about the unproven technique and questions as to whether it would, in fact, save money.

 

Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed people converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then a small city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it. A government camp was established for surveyors and other personnel near the dam site; this soon became surrounded by a squatters' camp. Known as McKeeversville, the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along the Colorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as "Ragtown". When construction began, Six Companies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. "Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was prevented by the construction contract, while the number of black people employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets.

 

As part of the contract, Six Companies, Inc. was to build Boulder City to house the workers. The original timetable called for Boulder City to be built before the dam project began, but President Hoover ordered work on the dam to begin in March 1931 rather than in October. The company built bunkhouses, attached to the canyon wall, to house 480 single men at what became known as River Camp. Workers with families were left to provide their own accommodations until Boulder City could be completed, and many lived in Ragtown. The site of Hoover Dam endures extremely hot weather, and the summer of 1931 was especially torrid, with the daytime high averaging 119.9 °F (48.8 °C). Sixteen workers and other riverbank residents died of heat prostration between June 25 and July 26, 1931.

 

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or "Wobblies"), though much-reduced from their heyday as militant labor organizers in the early years of the century, hoped to unionize the Six Companies workers by capitalizing on their discontent. They sent eleven organizers, several of whom were arrested by Las Vegas police. On August 7, 1931, the company cut wages for all tunnel workers. Although the workers sent the organizers away, not wanting to be associated with the "Wobblies", they formed a committee to represent them with the company. The committee drew up a list of demands that evening and presented them to Crowe the following morning. He was noncommittal. The workers hoped that Crowe, the general superintendent of the job, would be sympathetic; instead, he gave a scathing interview to a newspaper, describing the workers as "malcontents".

 

On the morning of the 9th, Crowe met with the committee and told them that management refused their demands, was stopping all work, and was laying off the entire work force, except for a few office workers and carpenters. The workers were given until 5 p.m. to vacate the premises. Concerned that a violent confrontation was imminent, most workers took their paychecks and left for Las Vegas to await developments. Two days later, the remainder were talked into leaving by law enforcement. On August 13, the company began hiring workers again, and two days later, the strike was called off. While the workers received none of their demands, the company guaranteed there would be no further reductions in wages. Living conditions began to improve as the first residents moved into Boulder City in late 1931.

 

A second labor action took place in July 1935, as construction on the dam wound down. When a Six Companies manager altered working times to force workers to take lunch on their own time, workers responded with a strike. Emboldened by Crowe's reversal of the lunch decree, workers raised their demands to include a $1-per-day raise. The company agreed to ask the Federal government to supplement the pay, but no money was forthcoming from Washington. The strike ended.

 

Before the dam could be built, the Colorado River needed to be diverted away from the construction site. To accomplish this, four diversion tunnels were driven through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels were 56 ft (17 m) in diameter. Their combined length was nearly 16,000 ft, or more than 3 miles (5 km). The contract required these tunnels to be completed by October 1, 1933, with a $3,000-per-day fine to be assessed for any delay. To meet the deadline, Six Companies had to complete work by early 1933, since only in late fall and winter was the water level in the river low enough to safely divert.

 

Tunneling began at the lower portals of the Nevada tunnels in May 1931. Shortly afterward, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932, work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. First the base, or invert, was poured. Gantry cranes, running on rails through the entire length of each tunnel were used to place the concrete. The sidewalls were poured next. Movable sections of steel forms were used for the sidewalls. Finally, using pneumatic guns, the overheads were filled in. The concrete lining is 3 feet (1 m) thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to 50 ft (15 m). The river was diverted into the two Arizona tunnels on November 13, 1932; the Nevada tunnels were kept in reserve for high water. This was done by exploding a temporary cofferdam protecting the Arizona tunnels while at the same time dumping rubble into the river until its natural course was blocked.

 

Following the completion of the dam, the entrances to the two outer diversion tunnels were sealed at the opening and halfway through the tunnels with large concrete plugs. The downstream halves of the tunnels following the inner plugs are now the main bodies of the spillway tunnels. The inner diversion tunnels were plugged at approximately one-third of their length, beyond which they now carry steel pipes connecting the intake towers to the power plant and outlet works. The inner tunnels' outlets are equipped with gates that can be closed to drain the tunnels for maintenance.

 

To protect the construction site from the Colorado River and to facilitate the river's diversion, two cofferdams were constructed. Work on the upper cofferdam began in September 1932, even though the river had not yet been diverted. The cofferdams were designed to protect against the possibility of the river's flooding a site at which two thousand men might be at work, and their specifications were covered in the bid documents in nearly as much detail as the dam itself. The upper cofferdam was 96 ft (29 m) high, and 750 feet (230 m) thick at its base, thicker than the dam itself. It contained 650,000 cubic yards (500,000 m3) of material.

 

When the cofferdams were in place and the construction site was drained of water, excavation for the dam foundation began. For the dam to rest on solid rock, it was necessary to remove accumulated erosion soils and other loose materials in the riverbed until sound bedrock was reached. Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During this excavation, approximately 1,500,000 cu yd (1,100,000 m3) of material was removed. Since the dam was an arch-gravity type, the side-walls of the canyon would bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore, the side-walls were also excavated to reach virgin rock, as weathered rock might provide pathways for water seepage. Shovels for the excavation came from the Marion Power Shovel Company.

 

The men who removed this rock were called "high scalers". While suspended from the top of the canyon with ropes, the high-scalers climbed down the canyon walls and removed the loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite. Falling objects were the most common cause of death on the dam site; the high scalers' work thus helped ensure worker safety. One high scaler was able to save a life in a more direct manner: when a government inspector lost his grip on a safety line and began tumbling down a slope towards almost certain death, a high scaler was able to intercept him and pull him into the air. The construction site had become a magnet for tourists. The high scalers were prime attractions and showed off for the watchers. The high scalers received considerable media attention, with one worker dubbed the "Human Pendulum" for swinging co-workers (and, at other times, cases of dynamite) across the canyon. To protect themselves against falling objects, some high scalers dipped cloth hats in tar and allowed them to harden. When workers wearing such headgear were struck hard enough to inflict broken jaws, they sustained no skull damage. Six Companies ordered thousands of what initially were called "hard boiled hats" (later "hard hats") and strongly encouraged their use.

 

The cleared, underlying rock foundation of the dam site was reinforced with grout, forming a grout curtain. Holes were driven into the walls and base of the canyon, as deep as 150 feet (46 m) into the rock, and any cavities encountered were to be filled with grout. This was done to stabilize the rock, to prevent water from seeping past the dam through the canyon rock, and to limit "uplift"—upward pressure from water seeping under the dam. The workers were under severe time constraints due to the beginning of the concrete pour. When they encountered hot springs or cavities too large to readily fill, they moved on without resolving the problem. A total of 58 of the 393 holes were incompletely filled. After the dam was completed and the lake began to fill, large numbers of significant leaks caused the Bureau of Reclamation to examine the situation. It found that the work had been incompletely done, and was based on less than a full understanding of the canyon's geology. New holes were drilled from inspection galleries inside the dam into the surrounding bedrock. It took nine years (1938–47) under relative secrecy to complete the supplemental grout curtain.

 

The first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule. Since concrete heats and contracts as it cures, the potential for uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were to be built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would take 125 years to cool, and the resulting stresses would cause the dam to crack and crumble. Instead, the ground where the dam would rise was marked with rectangles, and concrete blocks in columns were poured, some as large as 50 ft square (15 m) and 5 feet (1.5 m) high. Each five-foot form contained a set of 1-inch (25 mm) steel pipes; cool river water would be poured through the pipes, followed by ice-cold water from a refrigeration plant. When an individual block had cured and had stopped contracting, the pipes were filled with grout. Grout was also used to fill the hairline spaces between columns, which were grooved to increase the strength of the joints.

 

The concrete was delivered in huge steel buckets 7 feet high (2.1 m) and almost 7 feet in diameter; Crowe was awarded two patents for their design. These buckets, which weighed 20 short tons (18.1 t; 17.9 long tons) when full, were filled at two massive concrete plants on the Nevada side, and were delivered to the site in special railcars. The buckets were then suspended from aerial cableways which were used to deliver the bucket to a specific column. As the required grade of aggregate in the concrete differed depending on placement in the dam (from pea-sized gravel to 9 inches [230 mm] stones), it was vital that the bucket be maneuvered to the proper column. When the bottom of the bucket opened up, disgorging 8 cu yd (6.1 m3) of concrete, a team of men worked it throughout the form. Although there are myths that men were caught in the pour and are entombed in the dam to this day, each bucket deepened the concrete in a form by only 1 inch (25 mm), and Six Companies engineers would not have permitted a flaw caused by the presence of a human body.

 

A total of 3,250,000 cubic yards (2,480,000 cubic meters) of concrete was used in the dam before concrete pouring ceased on May 29, 1935. In addition, 1,110,000 cu yd (850,000 m3) were used in the power plant and other works. More than 582 miles (937 km) of cooling pipes were placed within the concrete. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Concrete cores were removed from the dam for testing in 1995; they showed that "Hoover Dam's concrete has continued to slowly gain strength" and the dam is composed of a "durable concrete having a compressive strength exceeding the range typically found in normal mass concrete". Hoover Dam concrete is not subject to alkali–silica reaction (ASR), as the Hoover Dam builders happened to use nonreactive aggregate, unlike that at downstream Parker Dam, where ASR has caused measurable deterioration.

 

With most work finished on the dam itself (the powerhouse remained uncompleted), a formal dedication ceremony was arranged for September 30, 1935, to coincide with a western tour being made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The morning of the dedication, it was moved forward three hours from 2 p.m. Pacific time to 11 a.m.; this was done because Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had reserved a radio slot for the President for 2 p.m. but officials did not realize until the day of the ceremony that the slot was for 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Despite the change in the ceremony time, and temperatures of 102 °F (39 °C), 10,000 people were present for the President's speech, in which he avoided mentioning the name of former President Hoover, who was not invited to the ceremony. To mark the occasion, a three-cent stamp was issued by the United States Post Office Department—bearing the name "Boulder Dam", the official name of the dam between 1933 and 1947. After the ceremony, Roosevelt made the first visit by any American president to Las Vegas.

 

Most work had been completed by the dedication, and Six Companies negotiated with the government through late 1935 and early 1936 to settle all claims and arrange for the formal transfer of the dam to the Federal Government. The parties came to an agreement and on March 1, 1936, Secretary Ickes formally accepted the dam on behalf of the government. Six Companies was not required to complete work on one item, a concrete plug for one of the bypass tunnels, as the tunnel had to be used to take in irrigation water until the powerhouse went into operation.

 

There were 112 deaths reported as associated with the construction of the dam. The first was Bureau of Reclamation employee Harold Connelly who died on May 15, 1921, after falling from a barge while surveying the Colorado River for an ideal spot for the dam. Surveyor John Gregory ("J.G.") Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1922, in a flash flood while looking for an ideal spot for the dam was the second person. The official list's final death occurred on December 20, 1935, when Patrick Tierney, electrician's helper and the son of J.G. Tierney, fell from one of the two Arizona-side intake towers. Included in the fatality list are three workers who took their own lives on site, one in 1932 and two in 1933. Of the 112 fatalities, 91 were Six Companies employees, three were Bureau of Reclamation employees, and one was a visitor to the site; the remainder were employees of various contractors not part of Six Companies.

 

Ninety-six of the deaths occurred during construction at the site. Not included in the official number of fatalities were deaths that were recorded as pneumonia. Workers alleged that this diagnosis was a cover for death from carbon monoxide poisoning (brought on by the use of gasoline-fueled vehicles in the diversion tunnels), and a classification used by Six Companies to avoid paying compensation claims. The site's diversion tunnels frequently reached 140 °F (60 °C), enveloped in thick plumes of vehicle exhaust gases. A total of 42 workers were recorded as having died from pneumonia and were not included in the above total; none were listed as having died from carbon monoxide poisoning. No deaths of non-workers from pneumonia were recorded in Boulder City during the construction period.

 

The initial plans for the facade of the dam, the power plant, the outlet tunnels and ornaments clashed with the modern look of an arch dam. The Bureau of Reclamation, more concerned with the dam's functionality, adorned it with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and eagle statues. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, then the supervising architect to the Bureau of Reclamation, was brought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the design and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project. He designed sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for the time in Nevada and Arizona—both states are in different time zones, but since Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the clocks display the same time for more than half the year.

 

At Kaufmann's request, Denver artist Allen Tupper True was hired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region. Although some were initially opposed to these designs, True was given the go-ahead and was officially appointed consulting artist. With the assistance of the National Laboratory of Anthropology, True researched authentic decorative motifs from Indian sand paintings, textiles, baskets and ceramics. The images and colors are based on Native American visions of rain, lightning, water, clouds, and local animals—lizards, serpents, birds—and on the Southwestern landscape of stepped mesas. In these works, which are integrated into the walkways and interior halls of the dam, True also reflected on the machinery of the operation, making the symbolic patterns appear both ancient and modern.

 

With the agreement of Kaufmann and the engineers, True also devised for the pipes and machinery an innovative color-coding which was implemented throughout all BOR projects. True's consulting artist job lasted through 1942; it was extended so he could complete design work for the Parker, Shasta and Grand Coulee dams and power plants. True's work on the Hoover Dam was humorously referred to in a poem published in The New Yorker, part of which read, "lose the spark, and justify the dream; but also worthy of remark will be the color scheme".

 

Complementing Kaufmann and True's work, sculptor Oskar J. W. Hansen designed many of the sculptures on and around the dam. His works include the monument of dedication plaza, a plaque to memorialize the workers killed and the bas-reliefs on the elevator towers. In his words, Hansen wanted his work to express "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment", because "the building of Hoover Dam belongs to the sagas of the daring." Hansen's dedication plaza, on the Nevada abutment, contains a sculpture of two winged figures flanking a flagpole.

 

Surrounding the base of the monument is a terrazzo floor embedded with a "star map". The map depicts the Northern Hemisphere sky at the moment of President Roosevelt's dedication of the dam. This is intended to help future astronomers, if necessary, calculate the exact date of dedication. The 30-foot-high (9.1 m) bronze figures, dubbed "Winged Figures of the Republic", were both formed in a continuous pour. To put such large bronzes into place without marring the highly polished bronze surface, they were placed on ice and guided into position as the ice melted. Hansen's bas-relief on the Nevada elevator tower depicts the benefits of the dam: flood control, navigation, irrigation, water storage, and power. The bas-relief on the Arizona elevator depicts, in his words, "the visages of those Indian tribes who have inhabited mountains and plains from ages distant."

 

Excavation for the powerhouse was carried out simultaneously with the excavation for the dam foundation and abutments. The excavation of this U-shaped structure located at the downstream toe of the dam was completed in late 1933 with the first concrete placed in November 1933. Filling of Lake Mead began February 1, 1935, even before the last of the concrete was poured that May. The powerhouse was one of the projects uncompleted at the time of the formal dedication on September 30, 1935; a crew of 500 men remained to finish it and other structures. To make the powerhouse roof bombproof, it was constructed of layers of concrete, rock, and steel with a total thickness of about 3.5 feet (1.1 m), topped with layers of sand and tar.

 

In the latter half of 1936, water levels in Lake Mead were high enough to permit power generation, and the first three Allis Chalmers built Francis turbine-generators, all on the Nevada side, began operating. In March 1937, one more Nevada generator went online and the first Arizona generator by August. By September 1939, four more generators were operating, and the dam's power plant became the largest hydroelectricity facility in the world. The final generator was not placed in service until 1961, bringing the maximum generating capacity to 1,345 megawatts at the time. Original plans called for 16 large generators, eight on each side of the river, but two smaller generators were installed instead of one large one on the Arizona side for a total of 17. The smaller generators were used to serve smaller communities at a time when the output of each generator was dedicated to a single municipality, before the dam's total power output was placed on the grid and made arbitrarily distributable.

 

Before water from Lake Mead reaches the turbines, it enters the intake towers and then four gradually narrowing penstocks which funnel the water down towards the powerhouse. The intakes provide a maximum hydraulic head (water pressure) of 590 ft (180 m) as the water reaches a speed of about 85 mph (140 km/h). The entire flow of the Colorado River usually passes through the turbines. The spillways and outlet works (jet-flow gates) are rarely used. The jet-flow gates, located in concrete structures 180 feet (55 m) above the river and also at the outlets of the inner diversion tunnels at river level, may be used to divert water around the dam in emergency or flood conditions, but have never done so, and in practice are used only to drain water from the penstocks for maintenance. Following an uprating project from 1986 to 1993, the total gross power rating for the plant, including two 2.4 megawatt Pelton turbine-generators that power Hoover Dam's own operations is a maximum capacity of 2080 megawatts. The annual generation of Hoover Dam varies. The maximum net generation was 10.348 TWh in 1984, and the minimum since 1940 was 2.648 TWh in 1956. The average power generated was 4.2 TWh/year for 1947–2008. In 2015, the dam generated 3.6 TWh.

 

The amount of electricity generated by Hoover Dam has been decreasing along with the falling water level in Lake Mead due to the prolonged drought since year 2000 and high demand for the Colorado River's water. By 2014 its generating capacity was downrated by 23% to 1592 MW and was providing power only during periods of peak demand. Lake Mead fell to a new record low elevation of 1,071.61 feet (326.63 m) on July 1, 2016, before beginning to rebound slowly. Under its original design, the dam would no longer be able to generate power once the water level fell below 1,050 feet (320 m), which might have occurred in 2017 had water restrictions not been enforced. To lower the minimum power pool elevation from 1,050 to 950 feet (320 to 290 m), five wide-head turbines, designed to work efficiently with less flow, were installed.[102] Water levels were maintained at over 1,075 feet (328 m) in 2018 and 2019, but fell to a new record low of 1,071.55 feet (326.61 m) on June 10, 2021[104] and were projected to fall below 1,066 feet (325 m) by the end of 2021.

 

Control of water was the primary concern in the building of the dam. Power generation has allowed the dam project to be self-sustaining: proceeds from the sale of power repaid the 50-year construction loan, and those revenues also finance the multimillion-dollar yearly maintenance budget. Power is generated in step with and only with the release of water in response to downstream water demands.

 

Lake Mead and downstream releases from the dam also provide water for both municipal and irrigation uses. Water released from the Hoover Dam eventually reaches several canals. The Colorado River Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project branch off Lake Havasu while the All-American Canal is supplied by the Imperial Dam. In total, water from Lake Mead serves 18 million people in Arizona, Nevada, and California and supplies the irrigation of over 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of land.

 

In 2018, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) proposed a $3 billion pumped-storage hydroelectricity project—a "battery" of sorts—that would use wind and solar power to recirculate water back up to Lake Mead from a pumping station 20 miles (32 km) downriver.

 

Electricity from the dam's powerhouse was originally sold pursuant to a fifty-year contract, authorized by Congress in 1934, which ran from 1937 to 1987. In 1984, Congress passed a new statute which set power allocations to southern California, Arizona, and Nevada from the dam from 1987 to 2017. The powerhouse was run under the original authorization by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison; in 1987, the Bureau of Reclamation assumed control. In 2011, Congress enacted legislation extending the current contracts until 2067, after setting aside 5% of Hoover Dam's power for sale to Native American tribes, electric cooperatives, and other entities. The new arrangement began on October 1, 2017.

 

The dam is protected against over-topping by two spillways. The spillway entrances are located behind each dam abutment, running roughly parallel to the canyon walls. The spillway entrance arrangement forms a classic side-flow weir with each spillway containing four 100-foot-long (30 m) and 16-foot-wide (4.9 m) steel-drum gates. Each gate weighs 5,000,000 pounds (2,300 metric tons) and can be operated manually or automatically. Gates are raised and lowered depending on water levels in the reservoir and flood conditions. The gates cannot entirely prevent water from entering the spillways but can maintain an extra 16 ft (4.9 m) of lake level.

 

Water flowing over the spillways falls dramatically into 600-foot-long (180 m), 50-foot-wide (15 m) spillway tunnels before connecting to the outer diversion tunnels and reentering the main river channel below the dam. This complex spillway entrance arrangement combined with the approximate 700-foot (210 m) elevation drop from the top of the reservoir to the river below was a difficult engineering problem and posed numerous design challenges. Each spillway's capacity of 200,000 cu ft/s (5,700 m3/s) was empirically verified in post-construction tests in 1941.

 

The large spillway tunnels have only been used twice, for testing in 1941 and because of flooding in 1983. Both times, when inspecting the tunnels after the spillways were used, engineers found major damage to the concrete linings and underlying rock. The 1941 damage was attributed to a slight misalignment of the tunnel invert (or base), which caused cavitation, a phenomenon in fast-flowing liquids in which vapor bubbles collapse with explosive force. In response to this finding, the tunnels were patched with special heavy-duty concrete and the surface of the concrete was polished mirror-smooth. The spillways were modified in 1947 by adding flip buckets, which both slow the water and decrease the spillway's effective capacity, in an attempt to eliminate conditions thought to have contributed to the 1941 damage. The 1983 damage, also due to cavitation, led to the installation of aerators in the spillways. Tests at Grand Coulee Dam showed that the technique worked, in principle.

 

There are two lanes for automobile traffic across the top of the dam, which formerly served as the Colorado River crossing for U.S. Route 93. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, authorities expressed security concerns and the Hoover Dam Bypass project was expedited. Pending the completion of the bypass, restricted traffic was permitted over Hoover Dam. Some types of vehicles were inspected prior to crossing the dam while semi-trailer trucks, buses carrying luggage, and enclosed-box trucks over 40 ft (12 m) long were not allowed on the dam at all, and were diverted to U.S. Route 95 or Nevada State Routes 163/68. The four-lane Hoover Dam Bypass opened on October 19, 2010. It includes a composite steel and concrete arch bridge, the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, 1,500 ft (460 m) downstream from the dam. With the opening of the bypass, through traffic is no longer allowed across Hoover Dam; dam visitors are allowed to use the existing roadway to approach from the Nevada side and cross to parking lots and other facilities on the Arizona side.

 

Hoover Dam opened for tours in 1937 after its completion but following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was closed to the public when the United States entered World War II, during which only authorized traffic, in convoys, was permitted. After the war, it reopened September 2, 1945, and by 1953, annual attendance had risen to 448,081. The dam closed on November 25, 1963, and March 31, 1969, days of mourning in remembrance of Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. In 1995, a new visitors' center was built, and the following year, visits exceeded one million for the first time. The dam closed again to the public on September 11, 2001; modified tours were resumed in December and a new "Discovery Tour" was added the following year. Today, nearly a million people per year take the tours of the dam offered by the Bureau of Reclamation. Increased security concerns by the government have led to most of the interior structure's being inaccessible to tourists. As a result, few of True's decorations can now be seen by visitors. Visitors can only purchase tickets on-site and have the options of a guided tour of the whole facility or only the power plant area. The only self-guided tour option is for the visitor center itself, where visitors can view various exhibits and enjoy a 360-degree view of the dam.

 

The changes in water flow and use caused by Hoover Dam's construction and operation have had a large impact on the Colorado River Delta. The construction of the dam has been implicated in causing the decline of this estuarine ecosystem. For six years after the construction of the dam, while Lake Mead filled, virtually no water reached the mouth of the river. The delta's estuary, which once had a freshwater-saltwater mixing zone stretching 40 miles (64 km) south of the river's mouth, was turned into an inverse estuary where the level of salinity was higher close to the river's mouth.

 

The Colorado River had experienced natural flooding before the construction of the Hoover Dam. The dam eliminated the natural flooding, threatening many species adapted to the flooding, including both plants and animals. The construction of the dam devastated the populations of native fish in the river downstream from the dam. Four species of fish native to the Colorado River, the Bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow, Humpback chub, and Razorback sucker, are listed as endangered.

 

During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, the press generally referred to the dam as "Boulder Dam" or as "Boulder Canyon Dam", even though the proposed site had shifted to Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentioned a proposed name or title for the dam. The BCPA merely allows the government to "construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon".

 

When Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building of the railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam "Hoover Dam", citing a tradition of naming dams after Presidents, though none had been so honored during their terms of office. Wilbur justified his choice on the ground that Hoover was "the great engineer whose vision and persistence ... has done so much to make [the dam] possible". One writer complained in response that "the Great Engineer had quickly drained, ditched, and dammed the country."

 

After Hoover's election defeat in 1932 and the accession of the Roosevelt administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933, that the dam be referred to as Boulder Dam. Ickes stated that Wilbur had been imprudent in naming the dam after a sitting president, that Congress had never ratified his choice, and that it had long been referred to as Boulder Dam. Unknown to the general public, Attorney General Homer Cummings informed Ickes that Congress had indeed used the name "Hoover Dam" in five different bills appropriating money for construction of the dam. The official status this conferred to the name "Hoover Dam" had been noted on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado on December 12, 1930, but was likewise ignored by Ickes.

 

When Ickes spoke at the dedication ceremony on September 30, 1935, he was determined, as he recorded in his diary, "to try to nail down for good and all the name Boulder Dam." At one point in the speech, he spoke the words "Boulder Dam" five times within thirty seconds. Further, he suggested that if the dam were to be named after any one person, it should be for California Senator Hiram Johnson, a lead sponsor of the authorizing legislation. Roosevelt also referred to the dam as Boulder Dam, and the Republican-leaning Los Angeles Times, which at the time of Ickes' name change had run an editorial cartoon showing Ickes ineffectively chipping away at an enormous sign "HOOVER DAM", reran it showing Roosevelt reinforcing Ickes, but having no greater success.

 

In the following years, the name "Boulder Dam" failed to fully take hold, with many Americans using both names interchangeably and mapmakers divided as to which name should be printed. Memories of the Great Depression faded, and Hoover to some extent rehabilitated himself through good works during and after World War II. In 1947, a bill passed both Houses of Congress unanimously restoring the name "Hoover Dam." Ickes, who was by then a private citizen, opposed the change, stating, "I didn't know Hoover was that small a man to take credit for something he had nothing to do with."

 

Hoover Dam was recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, cited for its engineering innovations.

A typical fishing village, with all its symbols and nostalgia.

Upon arrival, we had some difficulty choosing the best perspective along the main road, one that would capture the sea, the town, and its main church. All were charming.

The old church (photos 3-5) was the place we chose to linger for a while, to experience the sounds of the waves, the mild temperature. The decision not to restore the ruin seemed perfect. It's charismatic and mysterious.

Interestingly, we later discovered it wasn't the last earthquake that partially destroyed it, but rather a storm/hurricane in the late 19th century. It's undoubtedly among our top ten favourite spots on the island.

*

Uma típica vila piscatória, com todos os seus símbolos e nostalgia.

Na estrada principal, à chegada, tivemos dificuldade em escolher a melhor perspectiva, que enquadrasse o mar, a povoação e a sua igreja matriz. Todas nos agradaram.

A igreja velha (fotos 3-5) foi o local que escolhemos para permanecer um pouco, sentir o som das ondas, a temperatura amena. A decisão de não restaurar a ruína pareceu-nos perfeita. É carismática, misteriosa.

Curiosamente, soubemos depois, não foi o último terramoto que a destruiu parcialmente, mas sim um temporal/furacão nos finais do Século XIX. Está, sem dúvida, entre os nossos dez locais preferidos na ilha.

Ursula has been fully deboxed, and placed sitting down next the empty display stand. I turn her head (with great difficulty) so she is facing forward.

 

I got the Ariel and Ursula Doll Set on Tuesday October 20, 2015, at my local Disney Store's raffle. I was 17th of 18 called, so I'm very glad I was able to get her in store. There was about the same amount of people who were there for the Snow/Hag set, so about 10 people missed out today. My set is #4185 of 6000. I will show this set boxed, during deboxing, and fully deboxed. I took the set I was given. I noticed that Ariel's eyelashes were not at the same angle between her two eyes, but it didn't bother me enough to ask for another set. There were no other noticeable defects in the set.

 

I have deboxed Ariel, and found to my surprise that the pile of rocks is totally separate from the display case, and is free standing. Ariel is supposed to free sit on the rock stand, and stay in position just by the friction of her sequined tail on the uneven surface of the top rock. It also helps if the floor of is rough (like a carpet) rather than the smooth surface that I was using for the photoshoot. Next, I was pleasantly surprised is that she has the old Designer Princess body, so rubber legs and swivel waist joint. As I expected, her hair is heavily gelled to keep her curls, but not as heavily as the 17'' LE Ariel from 2013. So only the bottom third of her curls are stiff. There were a couple of stray hairs stuck in her neck joint (ouch!) and some short hairs (like trimmings) that I had to remove from her face and chest. She is pretty, but not drop dead gorgeous as were the previous two Designer Ariel dolls (from 2011 and 2013). I also don't like her see through top. It has a rough surface, so her hairs kept on getting caught in it.

 

Her sequins making up her tail are iridescent, so it appears to be different colors (various shades of green, blue and purple) depending on the angle of the light and angle of viewing. That is similar to how the scales of an actual fish appear. This was an unexpected feature of her tail that makes me like it much more than I did from the stock photos, or even from viewing her in person in the display dolls before I bought her and deboxed her. I also really like her fins, which are wired to stiffen them, and are posable.

 

I also compare Designer Ariel side by side with the OOAK Ariel made by a fellow collector, who used the 2014 Classic Ariel as the base.

 

I have now deboxed Ursula. I like her alot, I think more than the LE Ursula. But she is by no means a perfect Ursula. The build in stand for her is a smaller version of the one for the LE doll. It is a metal pole with a flat disk that fits into a pocket on the underside of Ursula. Unlike the LE doll stand, this one is not portable. Only her front four tentacles are articulated. The two rear ones are just stuffed, so don't really help support Ursula. However she can still free stand, with her tentacles stretched out. Her arms are fully articulated, a big improvement over the LE Ursula, but her hands don't have much freedom of movement forward or backward. Her neck is VERY stiff, so I moved her head will great difficulty, and I was afraid to damage her head or neck if I applied any more force. Perhaps it will become looser with over time. As with LE Ursula, her top is removable (although I haven't done so yet), and the lower portion of her torso is stuffed with her leather like skin permanently sewn on. With her sitting down with her tentacles spread out, she looks like a starfish, and she is very stable. With her tentacles upright, she can free stand, but isn't very stable. It would have helped greatly if her two rear tentacles were articulated, to help support her standing pose. Standing up, she comes up to about Ariel's height, so is far smaller than the animated character. While deboxing and posing her, one rhinestone and one sequin fell off, but I don't miss them since there are hundreds of those on her body and tentacles.

 

Fourth release of the 2015 Disney Fairytale Designer Collection is Ariel in mermaid form and Ursula in sea witch form. She sold out online a few hours after the release.

 

Ariel and Ursula Doll Set - Disney Fairytale Designer Collection

US Disney Store

Released In Store 2015-10-20

Released Online 2015-10-21

Sold Out Online 2015-10-21

$129.95

Item No. 6003040901260P

 

Tail of wonder

Ariel is paired with the wicked sea witch Ursula in this limited edition The Little Mermaid set. Part of the Disney Fairytale Designer Collection's heroes and villains series, the finely detailed duo feature exquisite costumes.

 

Magic in the details...

 

Please Note: Purchase of this item is limited to 1 per Guest.

 

As part of the Disney Fairytale Designer Collection's heroes and villains series, Ariel and Ursula were carefully crafted by artists inspired by Disney's The Little Mermaid. Reimagined in exquisite detail, these limited edition dolls were brought to life with thoughtful attention, and uniquely capture the essence of the fairytale characters, creating a one-of-a-kind set that will be a treasured keepsake of collectors and Disney fans.

 

• Global Limited Edition of 6000

• Includes Certificate of Authenticity

• Ariel's diaphanous bodice is adorned with intricate embroidery and sparkling rhinestones

• Tail features iridescent sequins with translucent fins accented with glitter

• Rooted red hair

• Dramatic make-up and rooted eyelashes

• Ursula's black faux leather bodice and outer tentacles are studded with black rhinestones

• Purple underside of tentacles are accented with sequins

• Gold shell earrings and gold shell necklace

• Rooted white hair

• Rock accessory

• Dolls sold in a special keepsake display case with intricate details on the base, including a golden plate with the names of Ariel and Ursula

• Includes special Disney Fairytale Designer Collection Gift Bag

• Part of the Disney Fairytale Designer Collection

 

* Intended for adult collectors -- Not a child's toy.

 

The bare necessities

 

• Plastic / polyester

• Ariel: 16'' H

• Ursula: 11'' H

• Imported

ate Arch trail.

Length: 3 miles roundtrip

Difficulty: Moderate

 

Description: Delicate Arch is the most recognizable arch in Arches National Park, and perhaps anywhere in the world. It also happens to be located along one of the most dynamic hiking trails within Arches National Park. More than 480 feet above the parking lot and trailhead in the valley below, Delicate Arch is hidden in a bowl at the top of one of the park’s famous sandstone fins. Delicate Arch is freestanding, and magnificently alone in the natural sandstone bowl, standing out against the multitude of horizontal planes around it. The arch was once part of the upper section of the fin, until erosion took its toll upon the sandstone throughout the years, and now Delicate Arch is all that remains of that Entrada sandstone formation.

 

The Delicate Arch Trailhead is located on the Wolfe Ranch turnoff, which is 11.5 miles up the Arches Entrance Road. The right turn to Delicate Arch is advertised at the turnoff, and the trailhead is on the left side of the road, at the ranch. The trail is rugged and steep, especially near the end as it mounts the sloped side of the sandstone fin. Along the way, visitors will pass a pioneer homestead, Ute Indian petroglyphs, an overgrown streambed, throngs of juniper, a smaller arch, and the famous slickrock for which the Moab area is world-famous.

 

Delicate Arch Trailhead

The trail starts at a fairly large parking lot off the side of the road, passes the old Wolfe Homestead, and then crosses a bridge over Salt Wash.

 

Wolfe Ranch

This homestead was built by a disabled Civil War vet, John Wesley Wolfe, in 1888 and inhabited until 1910, when the aging owner moved back to Ohio.

 

Ute Petroglyphs

This panel of rock art is attributed to the Ute culture. In includes a number of bighorn sheep, horses and dogs.

 

Frame Arch

Frame Arch is next to invisible when compared with the splendor of Delicate Arch just around the corner; most hikers barely even recognize the arch on its own merits. However, Frame Arch is famous for being the perfect window through which to photograph Delicate Arch, and many people use it to frame their shots of its more photogenic sibling, as its name suggests.

 

Delicate Arch

Delicate Arch has graced many magazine covers, mantle pieces, coffee tables, stamps, license plates, and a variety of other media. It is an international attraction, and has drawn its fair share of abuse over the years, including (now illegal) climbing, and ignorant pyrotechnics.

 

Thursday, September 06, 2012

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to everyone who celebrates this special day today!

 

What a mess Flickr was last night! I had difficulty adding titles to my uploaded images, comments didn't save and, after I had added a description to each of the 20 photos, the descriptions all disappeared. When I opened Flickr this morning, there was still no sign of them. Then, suddenly, they re-appeared.

 

My photos taken at the National Butterfly Centre, Mission, South Texas, have now come to an end, so you can sigh a huge sigh of relief : ) After that, I have just a few photos taken at another place that we called in at later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there before closing time, but how glad we were that we found this place. The highlight there was watching 25 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons coming in to roost for the night in the trees, right where we were standing! What a great sight this was, and we were lucky enough to have a good, close view of these gorgeous birds. We also saw some Purple Martins and their circular, hanging nest "gourds".

 

On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.

 

We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!

 

nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...

 

"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.

 

The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.

 

www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...

 

"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."

 

"What the Border Wall will do here:

1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.

 

2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.

 

3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.

 

IN ADDITION:

 

4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.

 

5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.

 

6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.

St Thomas’ Church is the principal Roman Catholic church in

Jersey. It is said by some to be the finest example of modern ecclesiastical architecture in the Channel Islands

 

History

When the Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate arrived in Jersey at the end of 1880 they found the actual church much too small for the numerous population of French-speaking Catholics. While these numbered over 4,000, the Church itself could accommodate, at the utmost, only 400.

 

Their predecessors, no doubt, had been anxious to solve the problem, but were held up by the difficulty of finding among a poor congregation, for the majority, the resources necessary for building a suitable place of worship. One of these, the Rev F Volkerick, Rector of St Thomas' from 1860 to 1878, having already provided a school for girls in 1869, with the assistance of the Ladies of St Andrew, and desirous to have a proper parochial school for boys, who were badly off for room in New Street, and a more spacious church, had acquired part of the necessary ground in Val Plaisant, and had collected some £2,000 for this double purpose.

 

He was not given the pleasure of realizing his project. After 18 years of a very saintly and apostolic ministry in Jersey, he was recalled to England and was succeeded by the Rev Fr Morin, a French priest from the diocese of Rennes. He, in turn, was replaced very shortly after, at the end of 1880, by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who, when the Religious Orders in France were refused the liberty of association, were invited by Bishop Dana, the Vicar Apostolic of London, to take charge.

 

Fr Bourde was the first Oblate of MI to he named Superior and Rector of St Thomas's. He held office from 1880 to the end of 1885. It was during his Rectorship that Rev Fr Michaux, OMI, was invited to preach at St Thomas' Church in the special occasion of First Communion, and, as events proved, this choice was a very providential one.

 

Fr Michaux was grieved at the sight of the children crowded together in the sanctuary, and of their parents and other members of the faithful being unable to find a seat in the much too small edifice. “What" said he, "in a town like St Helier where error is glaringly spread abroad, where there are decent churches for all denominations, should Catholics he the only ones without a church worthy of their Faith and of their God?"

 

I dare say that this inspired apostrophe of the preacher decided the building of the new chuich at an early date, for Fr Michaux was asked to undertake the work he had suggested.

 

The Rev Father, who had already given proof of his ability in the restoration of the famous sanctuary of Our Lady of Sion in Lorraine, France, was the man sent by Divine Providence to the Jersey French-speaking Catholics to enable them to realize their dream of many years.

 

Offerings

He began his heavy task of collecting offerings, being greatly helped by the Rev Fr Volkerick was still greatly devoted to his former parish, where he had left half of his heart, made him acquainted with all his benefactors or would-be benefactors.

 

Indeed all the parishioners, rich and poor, were generous in their help. He sent an appeal to all the descendants cf the noble refugees who came to Jersey during the French Revolution and to the wealthy Catholics of France. The answers to his call were so numerous that he was able to lay the foundation stone of the new church on 6 September 1883.

 

Four years later, 30 October 1887, the Church was solemnly blessed and opened to public worship. The consecration took place on 5 September 1893, to commemorate the centenary of the re-establishment of the Catholic Church in the Channel Isles, in 1793, when the bill of tolerance was handed over to Mathieu de Gruchy, a Jerseyman and a convert who became a priest in the French diocese of Lucon before the Revolution.

 

Having refused to subscribe to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, he had to fly and came to his native land where also five bishops and more than 2,000 priests took shelter during these hard days. Of these, two bishops and nearly 200 priests died during their exile in the Island.

 

The church

St Thomas' Church is constructed in the 13th century style and comprises nave, aisles, transepts with chapels forming the arms of the Cross, and a chancel. Two small chapels lengthening the lower sides westward have the appearance of chancels to either aisles. On each side of the tower are two other chapels with groined vaults of a very pleasing effect, that at the south end having a deep recess in the centre of which stands the baptismal font.

 

At the apsis of the chancel and in corbel on a low granite shaft with moulded base and sculptured capital is a richly framed niche, occupying the centre arch of an arcade with a bud ornament. Inside the niche is a group representing the Apparition of the Sacred Heart to St Margaret Mary at Paray-le-Monial (France). Above is a circular window with a twelve section tracery work.

 

The frescos

The simili-fresco paintings on either side of the rose window represent, at the top, left to right, St Michael and guardian angels, angels playing musical instruments and angels singing, and above the cornice, saints: St Thomas of Aquinas and St Thomas the Apostle, St Louis, King of France, St George, the patron saint of England, St Joan of Arc, St Peter, the Blessed Virgin, St Joseph, St Anne, two Carmelite Saints, and two Virgins and Martyrs. They are by P Dubois and P Couturier of the Maurice Denis School of Art.

 

The two other paintings in the lancet arches, with a blending of allegorical and realistic designs, symbolize the Good Shepherd and the Holy Redeemer. They are by P Couturier.

 

The hollow of the cornice under the niche, the lancets and on the sides of the altar is of a richly foliated work.

 

The Nave

The nave is divided into seven arches, two lancets and five large; the chancel is separated from the adjacent chapels by a large equilateral arch and a lancet-arch. Each of the lancets, west and east of the transepts is surmounted by sculptured brackets to receive statues for which sculptured canopies have also been arranged. The walls of the nave and of the chancel are supported on each side by piers of clustered shafts in Crozannes stone. Each semi-detached shaft is crowned with a sculptured capital from which spring the arches. Each capital has a different design of sculptured foliage, flowers and buds, both in the nave and chancel and the aisles and transepts.

 

All the sculpturing inside and outside is the work of the late Mr Bedane, the sculptor, and gives abundant evidence of his talent.

 

Dimensions

The height of the nave is 60 feet beneath the vault; that of the aisles is 30 feet.

 

The length of the nave is 109 feet from the communion rail to the inner door of the porch; the chancel is 36 feet. The breadth across the transepts is 89 feet.

 

The total length of the Church externally is 179 feet from the niche to the portal; internally it is 163 feet, inclusive of the depth of the porch under the steeple which is 18 feet.

 

The vaults

All the groined roof is made of hollow bricks covered with plaster, having the appearance of stone, that of the nave, of the chancel, of the transepts and of the chapels forming the arms of the Cross is ornamented with moulded arches with sculptured keystones.

 

The vaults arc strengthened by interior and exterior buttresses surmounted by gargoyles representing chimeras of different kinds

 

The steeple

The tower, built of Brittany granite, is composed of a rectangular portion into which the portal opens and is surmounted by an open-work spire. The portal, with a tympanum representing the Apparition of our Lord, after His Resurrection, to St Thomas, the Apostle, and signed Louis Dupont, is surmounted by a beautiful three-light window with mullions and a tracery rose, in blue granite of Brittany very artistically sculptured.

 

It gives light to the gallery from the east. The steeple is 111 feet from the ground to the spire windows, and from these to the summit of the Cross it is 85 feet, giving a total of 196 feet.

 

The Belfry

The portion of the tower above the roof of the church holds the belfry with a peal of five bells :

 

treble B, 5 cwt, Eloise-Ida-Therese de l’FJ

3 F sharp, 16 cwt, Clotilde-Louise-Leonie

4 E, 20 cwt, Marie Immaculee

tenor B, 52 cwt, Anne-Marie-Andree-Ignace

Treble B and G sharp have been cast by Cornille-Havard of Villedieu, while F sharp, E and tenor B are by Paccard of Annecy.

 

The clock

In the room below the belfry is the clock which is moved electrically and strikes the hours only.

 

The organ and gallery

The organ was erected in 1959 by Henry Willis and Sons. It is an instrument fully reconditioned with two keyboards and a pedal-board. It seems to be ideal for our church and presents a fine feature upon the gallery.

 

This vast gallery, extending over the porch and projecting into the nave, is supported by a three arched vault with mouldings at the groins. The arches, at the back, spring from the clustered pillars flanking the tower wall, and, on the front side, from the two last piers of clustered shafts of the nave and from the two circular piers, with mouldings at the base and finely sculptured capitals, which stand in the centre, forming three arches, one large and two small. On top of these runs the sloped cornice with a parapet in three panels of quatrefoil open-work.

 

The lancet arches at the sides and under the gallery are of a pleasing effect.

 

The paving

The paving of the chancel and side chapels is in ceramic squares from Anneuil; that of the transepts, of the nave and of the aisles is from a Maubeuge factory.

 

The pulpit

The pulpit which stands against the second pillar of the nave, on the Gospel side, is made of polished oak and beautifully carved. It is supported by four clustered shafts with carved bases and capitals, the capital of the centre shaft supporting the whole surface of the floor. The plan is hexagonal with panels containing the figures of the four evangelists.

 

The canopy in two storeys, richly designed with trefoiled and crocketed pediments and pinnacles with finials, is terminated by a spire in open-work with a Cross as finial, the foot of which is sunk in a fleur de lis centre. The spire is supported by openwork mullions and four-leaved rose windows with flying buttresses or arch-buttants. The rail of the staircase is of an elegant open tracery with a moulded cornice decorated in the hollow with a three-leaved ornament.

 

The pews

The pews are of polished oak with carved ends and finials.

 

The confessionals

These are also of polished oak and of exquisite workmanship, with richly decorated doors and frontons and with slender shafts supporting the cornice with a crested parapet. The latter is surmounted by crocketed pediments and plain pinnacles with finials.

 

Stations of the Cross

The stations of the Cross are of a very delicate colouring, with wonderfully life-like and expressive figures. They are the work of L Chovet and I Beau, of Paris. Each station is framed in a beautifully carved design of polished oak with two decorated shafts hearing angels on the summit, a round and ornamented trefoil arch surmounted by a crocketed Pediment with a cross on the summit as a finial, turrets with crocketed pinnacles at the corners and a bas-rclief stiitli pendants.

 

The high altar

The beautiful Gothic altar which stands at the end of the chancel, at the rise of the first pillars of the great arches, of purest white marble, is the workmanship of the firm Poussielgue, of Paris. The four shafts supporting the altar table are of red marble with gilt brass bases and capitals. Between the shafts and against the wall of the altar there are three gilt brass quatrefoil roses. The middle one has a cross in the rose with centre ot green marble, while the other two have a foliated decoration. On both sides is a coat of arms engraved in a plate of gilt brass with enamel armorial bearings and an inscription in Gaelic.

 

The levels in hollow of the front edges of the altar bear an ornament of gilt brass buds.

 

The tabernacle of gilt brass has the form of a porch supported by circular shafts with moulded bases and carved capitals, surmounted by a flour de lis and enriched with crockets in vine leaves and bunches of grapes.

 

The tympanum bears the monogram of Christ with the two Greek letters A — O (Alpha — Omega) and the door has a statue of Christ the Divine Doctor, on a rectangular bracket.

 

The reredos, with a buttressed square tower in the centre, is also of while marble. The tower, with a three leaved ornament in the hollow of the cornice is surmounted by a quadrangular canopy of gilt brass with four decorated pediments supported by slender cylindrical shafts with moulded bases arid sculptured capitals, encircled midway with annulated mouldings, and standing on a brass basis.

 

The four frontons or pediments in trefoiled arches are adorned with crockets and finials flour de lis in open-work and at each corner is a small square turret with crocketed pinnacles. The four-roofed top of the canopy with ornamented crests is terminated by a cross fixed in a double truncated fleur de lis.

 

The reredos itself comprises three blank arches, each side of the tower, with small shafts of pink marble with gilt brass bases, capitals and trefoils. The centre of the arches bears a foliated decoration on grey marble. The arches arc separated by buttresses with turrets, crocketed pinnacles and finials. The crest of the parapet bears a five leaf and flower ornament. In the hollow is a three-leaved decoration similar to that of the tower. At each end stands a white marble octagonal turret with buttresses and pink marble shafts, and on the summit a candelabrum.

 

Separated from the altar are two white marble pedestals with standing angels bearing candelabra.

 

The stalls

The stalls of the choristers, on either side of the altar, are of polished oak with blank trefoiled pediments, in the upper part, bearing crockets and finials, and divided into sections separated by truncated pinnacles with finials.

 

Those of the clergy, in the large arches, have a back of blank arched work in the lower division, whilst the upper one consists of a series of open pointed and trefoiled arches forming a row of five pediments with crockets and finials, and truncated pinnacles with finials between the sections. The seats work on hinges; when turned up each shows a moulded misericorde. They have on either part elbow rests in moulding supported half-way by a small cylindrical shaft, resting on the sides. These latter are decorated with a quatrefoil opening and mouldings. In front of the seats is a running desk or rail to the kneeling stools resting on a four-leaved parapet in open-work with a carved cornice carried along the top of the lower part which consists of five panels in open-work.

 

Each panel forms three arches composed of two cylindrical and two semi-cylindrical shafts with moulded bases and carved capitals, the latter shafts flanking the buttressed pillars of each section. The rail has a one arch panel at each end.

 

The communion rail

The communion rail is in a very artistic iron scroll work of long carved foliation and long stems with buds, while the kneeling stool running along the rail is of blue granite. The design is the same for the High Altar rail and those of the aisles altars.

 

The Blessed Virgin Chapel

The chapel of the Blessed Virgin forms a chancel to the south aisle. The altar, the tabernacle and the reredos, all of white marble, are ornamented with trefoiled arches on shafts.

 

On a sculptured bracket above the altar is a beautiful statue of Mary Immaculate, crushing the serpent's head and standing on the moon crescent.

 

St Joseph's Chapel

St Joseph's chapel is the counterpart of the Virgin chapel and forms a chancel to the north aisle. The altar is of white marble, ornamented with trefoiled arches on shafts. On a bracket above the altar is a fine statue of the Saint with the Holy Child Jesus standing by him. The rose windows in the gables of these latter chapels are a double-leaved quatrefoil in tracery. They are much like two large Crosses of the Malta Knights with a curved shape to the corners.

 

St Michael's Chapel

St Michael's altar stands at the southwest end of the transepts, in a recess. It is made of white marble, in Norman style, and is much too small for the place. Above the altar on a bracket stands a statue representing the archangel lighting against the dragon, with a sword in his right hand and a shield in his left.

 

St Theresa of the Child Jesus

Opposite the altar of St Michael is a beautiful statue, in Caen stone, by Bouet, of St Theresa, generally known as "The Little Flower", standing in the centre of a three section pedestal on a semi-octagonal shaft with moulded base and finely sculptured capital with a rose, the emblem of the saint.

 

The two sections, either side of the shaft, have a cornice in moulding with a rose garland running in the hollow. The saint is represented pressing the cross and roses on her heart with one hand and with the other dropping roses on the earth, an allusion to one of her last sayings.

 

The Holy Face

Against the south wall of the transepts, between the one-light windows, is a shield with the Holy Face, whilst underneath is a three section pedestal of polished oak with a moulded cornice projecting in the central section and suivoned by two shafts with mouldings at the base and carved capitals.

 

St Joan of Arc Chapel

St Joan of Arc chapel is at the northeast of the transepts above the altar in painted wood with marbled shafts. The statue of the saint, brandishing her sword point downwards, stands on a sculptured bracket projecting from the wall above the altar.

 

The Chapel of Our Lath of Lourdes

This chapel is at the north side of the tower. Above the altar, of white stone with gilt ornaments, is the statue of our Lady of Lourdes. Against the wall of the steeple on a circular shalt, is the statue representing our Lady as she appeared at Pontmain (Mayenne).

 

The Chapel of the Font

The font, placed at the south end of the steeple, in a recess, has the form of an octagonal vessel in simili-stone decorated with a uniform ornament of squares with buds. It is supported by a clustered pier formed of a central column and four shafts with bases and capitals. The shafts are of red simili-marble with a moulded base of white marble and a white stone plinth.

 

The vessel has the appearance of a gigantic capital to the supporting pier. The cover represents the Baptism of our Lord.

 

In the chapel of the Font, between the one-light windows, is the Memorial Altar erected to the War dead, with a beautiful group surmounting the reredos and representing a Pieta at the foot of the Cross with St John and St Mary Magdalen.

 

The reredos is of white simili-stone and represents crossed flags, swords and rifles with olive branches and oak leaves with acorns. The tabernacle is in the centre of an arch with a tympanum, on double black marble shafts with white moulded bases and sculptured capitals. In the centre of the tympanum is a Cross of the French Legion of Honour.

 

The table of the altar is supported by black marble shafts, forming a square-headed trefoil arch in the centre and pointed arches on either side of the latter. The centre arch bears an In Memoriam on a stab of white marble while the names of the dead of St Thomas’ parish are engraved on a white marble slab fixed on the wall at the east.

 

The English Union Jack, the French and the Jersey flags are hanging on their staffs on either side and in front of the altar, making a pleasing decoration to the chapel.

 

The windows

The stained glass of the windows comes from different establishments. Those of the two-light windows with small roses of the chancel were made by the firm Emmanuel Champigneulle of Bar-le-Duc, from designs supplied by Marechal, the well-known glass painter.

 

The glass of the windows and of the eight-section tracery roses of the transept has been supplied by the firm Champigneulle and Co of Paris; also the one-light windows of the south representing the Virgin Mother with the Holy Child Jesus, and St Michael, the patron saint of Jersey, and those of the north representing St Joseph and St Louis, King of France.

 

The glasswork of the windows of the nave is by Bastard, glass painter of Paris, while the double-light ones, between the buttresses in the aisles, with a slender shaft in the centre, and representing different saints are due to George Claudius Lavergne, of Paris.

 

The subjects are, on the north aisle: St John the Apostle and Evangelist and St Andrew, the Apostle; St Ignatius and St Louis of Gonzague; St Ives and St Lawrence; St Vincent of Paule and St Francis of Assisi; St Anne and our Lady of Pontmain. On the south: St Peter and St Paul; St Helier and St Martin; St Achilles and St Nereus, martyrs; St Thomas and St Matthew, the apostles; St Jane of Valois and St Donat.

 

Of the one-light windows in the chapel of the Baptismal Font and of our Lady of Lourdes two are in stained glass design and two with figures. That of the Font represents the Baptism of our Lord, whilst that of our Lady of Lourdes represents her apparition to Saint Bernadette Soubirous. They are by the firm Champigneulle of Bar-le-Duc.

 

In the centre of the first recess between the two buttresses at the back of the pulpit is the monumental slab of white marble, with two sculptured angels on pinnacles, supported by a plinth of blue granite, erected to the memory of Rev Fr Michaux, the founder of the church, and on either side, two smaller slabs give the names of the bishops and priests since 1792.

 

In the north aisle and facing the pulpit, the monumental slab of white marble gives the historic dates of the church.

 

The Vestries

There are two vestries, north and south, opening off St Joseph's and the Blessed Virgin's chapels by double doors in a square-headed trefoil arch. This is framed in an equilateral arch with an unsculptured tympanum. The windows are in the shape of square-headed trefoil arches.

 

The Holy Rood and the statues

The holy rood at the north entrance of the chancel against the right west pier of the transepts has been erected to commemorate the first Mission preached at St Thomas’. Opposite on a sculptured dais bracket, surmounted by a canopy, stands the statue of the patron saint, St Thomas, the apostle.

 

By the south-west pier of Our Lady's chapel, the Guardian Angel is represented with a child. Opposite, by the north-west pier of St Joseph's chapel is the statue of St Louis of Gonzague, the patron saint of Catholic Youth, while in St Joan of Arc Chapel is the statue of St Benedict.

 

Two other statues in the north and south recesses between the last buttresses are respectively those of St Anne with the Blessed Virgin as a child, and of St Anthony of Padua.

 

The Exterior of the Building

Of the exterior of the church built of blue Brittany granite, are the arrises, cornices, tracery, cappings, the top of the gables, the monumental fleurs de lis, the cross with pierced spandrels surmounting the gable of the apsis, the pinnacles and crosses of the north, south and east gables, the gargoyles as well as all the steeple. The rest is in reidish granite from the La Moye quarries, the colour contrasting with that of Brittany granite.

 

The doors

The doors are of polished oak with a rich iron scroll work at the hinges.

 

The porches

There are five porches to the church, one large under the steeple, with a deep arch on slender shafts, a tympanum representing the Apparition of our Lord, after His resurrection, to St Thomas, the apostle, and bearing the inscription: Dominus meus et Deus meus, "My Lord and my God". At the summit of the crocketed pediment is a cross. The small porches, two at the north and two at the south are formed of a small arch with slender shafts, and the summit of their pediments bears a fleur de lis as finial. The railing of the steps are in iron scroll work.

 

Thomas' Church, but we have not been able to establish what position he held, and when. He is not mentioned in Diane Moore's Deo Gratias, the definitive history of the Roman Catholic Church in Jersey

Priests in charge

The Catholic Church, re-established in Jersey in 1793, was under the double direction of Bishop de Cheylus of Bayeux, and of Bishop de Mintier of St Brieuc. They were helped in their sacred ministry by Rev Mathieu de Gruchy and a certain number of other priests who administered the sacraments in private oratories.

 

Priests in charge of French-speaking Catholics from 1803:

 

J Philibert, 1803 director of St Louis Oratory

F Le Guedois, 1809 director of St Louis Oratory

J Morlais, 1837 director of St Louis Oratory; 1842, Rector of St Thomas and Dean

J Volkerick, 1860 Rector of St Thomas

M Morin, 1878 Rector of St Thomas

V Bourdc, 1880 Rector of St Thomas

V Fick 1885 Rector of St Thomas

C Le Vacon, OMI 1895 Rector of St Thomas

L Legrand, OMI 1899 Rector of St Thomas

L Guillient, OMI 1911 Rector of St Thomas

A Mao, OMI 1920 Rector of St Thomas

T Mare, OMI 1933 Rector of St Thomas

P Jon, OMI 1946 Rector of St Thomas

H Verkin, OMI 1955 Rector of St Thomas

J Simon, OMI 1961 Rector of St Thomas

Not an easy hike - strenuous!

One of the things that I had great difficulty accepting was that somehow (unwittingly) I had hiked the “Mission Peak” trail in Fremont with a plugged artery. That hike has 2400 feet of elevation and I spent about 4 hours roundtrip, yet only got blisters. No chest pain (or in my case, back pain)..

Hindsight can be just as confusing as the present!

This confusion evolved steadily into an obsession to try the hike again post surgery, to see how I would do with all my arteries cleared (and a little for confidence that I could still do these sorts of things).

Then, without nearly enough forethought, I also decided to try a “new” trail, and substituted Black Mountain Trail for Mission Peak. “It’s been 4 weeks, I am ready!”

As I discovered, they are very different hikes.

Make sure that the Mission Peak hike is EASY for you before hiking Black Mountain.

First - the trail is much more narrow than Mission Peak, and there is lots of Poison Oak and rattlesnakes. I ran across 4 rattlesnakes without leaving the trail.

The first quarter and final third of the hike are as steep as anything on Mission Peak (but there are switchbacks in the middle section)

I had to park at Foothill College which adds .7 miles to the peak. With this, it took me app 3.5 hours to make the peak, only 2 hours at Mission Peak.

Besides the often narrow path at Black Mountain, it is densely wooded vs. the wide open scenery at Mission Peak.

Would I do it again? Yes, it is a beautiful hike; but, this is a once a year type hike for me..

  

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to everyone who celebrates this special day today!

 

What a mess Flickr was last night! I had difficulty adding titles to my uploaded images, comments didn't save and, after I had added a description to each of the 20 photos, the descriptions all disappeared. When I opened Flickr this morning, there was still no sign of them. Then, suddenly, they re-appeared.

 

My photos taken at the National Butterfly Centre, Mission, South Texas, have now come to an end, so you can sigh a huge sigh of relief : ) After that, I have just a few photos taken at another place that we called in at later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there before closing time, but how glad we were that we found this place. The highlight there was watching 25 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons coming in to roost for the night in the trees, right where we were standing! What a great sight this was, and we were lucky enough to have a good, close view of these gorgeous birds. We also saw some Purple Martins and their circular, hanging nest "gourds".

 

On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.

 

We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!

 

nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...

 

"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.

 

The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.

 

www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...

 

"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."

 

"What the Border Wall will do here:

1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.

 

2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.

 

3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.

 

IN ADDITION:

 

4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.

 

5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.

 

6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.

A banana is an edible fruit, botanically a berry, produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. (In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called plantains.) The fruit is variable in size, color and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant. Almost all modern edible parthenocarpic (seedless) bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, and Musa × paradisiaca for the hybrid Musa acuminata × M. balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific name Musa sapientum is no longer used.

 

Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. They are grown in at least 107 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make fiber, banana wine and banana beer and as ornamental plants.

 

Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between "bananas" and "plantains". Especially in the Americas and Europe, "banana" usually refers to soft, sweet, dessert bananas, particularly those of the Cavendish group, which are the main exports from banana-growing countries. By contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called "plantains". In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many more kinds of banana are grown and eaten, so the simple two-fold distinction is not useful and is not made in local languages.

 

The term "banana" is also used as the common name for the plants which produce the fruit. This can extend to other members of the genus Musa like the scarlet banana (Musa coccinea), pink banana (Musa velutina) and the Fe'i bananas. It can also refer to members of the genus Ensete, like the snow banana (Ensete glaucum) and the economically important false banana (Ensete ventricosum). Both genera are classified under the banana family, Musaceae.

 

DESCRIPTION

The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure usually called a "corm". Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy, and are often mistaken for trees, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a "false stem" or pseudostem. Bananas grow in a wide variety of soils, as long as the soil is at least 60 cm deep, has good drainage and is not compacted. The leaves of banana plants are composed of a "stalk" (petiole) and a blade (lamina). The base of the petiole widens to form a sheath; the tightly packed sheaths make up the pseudostem, which is all that supports the plant. The edges of the sheath meet when it is first produced, making it tubular. As new growth occurs in the centre of the pseudostem the edges are forced apart. Cultivated banana plants vary in height depending on the variety and growing conditions. Most are around 5 m tall, with a range from 'Dwarf Cavendish' plants at around 3 m to 'Gros Michel' at 7 m or more. Leaves are spirally arranged and may grow 2.7 metres long and 60 cm wide. They are easily torn by the wind, resulting in the familiar frond look.

 

When a banana plant is mature, the corm stops producing new leaves and begins to form a flower spike or inflorescence. A stem develops which grows up inside the pseudostem, carrying the immature inflorescence until eventually it emerges at the top. Each pseudostem normally produces a single inflorescence, also known as the "banana heart". (More are sometimes produced; an exceptional plant in the Philippines produced five.) After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots will normally have developed from the base, so that the plant as a whole is perennial. In the plantation system of cultivation, only one of the offshoots will be allowed to develop in order to maintain spacing. The inflorescence contains many bracts (sometimes incorrectly referred to as petals) between rows of flowers. The female flowers (which can develop into fruit) appear in rows further up the stem (closer to the leaves) from the rows of male flowers. The ovary is inferior, meaning that the tiny petals and other flower parts appear at the tip of the ovary.

 

The banana fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large hanging cluster, made up of tiers (called "hands"), with up to 20 fruit to a tier. The hanging cluster is known as a bunch, comprising 3–20 tiers, or commercially as a "banana stem", and can weigh 30–50 kilograms. Individual banana fruits (commonly known as a banana or "finger") average 125 grams, of which approximately 75% is water and 25% dry matter.

 

The fruit has been described as a "leathery berry". There is a protective outer layer (a peel or skin) with numerous long, thin strings (the phloem bundles), which run lengthwise between the skin and the edible inner portion. The inner part of the common yellow dessert variety can be split lengthwise into three sections that correspond to the inner portions of the three carpels by manually deforming the unopened fruit. In cultivated varieties, the seeds are diminished nearly to non-existence; their remnants are tiny black specks in the interior of the fruit.

 

Bananas are naturally slightly radioactive, more so than most other fruits, because of their potassium content and the small amounts of the isotope potassium-40 found in naturally occurring potassium. The banana equivalent dose of radiation is sometimes used in nuclear communication to compare radiation levels and exposures.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The word banana is thought to be of West African origin, possibly from the Wolof word banaana, and passed into English via Spanish or Portuguese.

 

TAXONOMY

The genus Musa was created by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. The name may be derived from Antonius Musa, physician to the Emperor Augustus, or Linnaeus may have adapted the Arabic word for banana, mauz. Musa is in the family Musaceae. The APG III system assigns Musaceae to the order Zingiberales, part of the commelinid clade of the monocotyledonous flowering plants. Some 70 species of Musa were recognized by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families as of January 2013; several produce edible fruit, while others are cultivated as ornamentals.

 

The classification of cultivated bananas has long been a problematic issue for taxonomists. Linnaeus originally placed bananas into two species based only on their uses as food: Musa sapientum for dessert bananas and Musa paradisiaca for plantains. Subsequently further species names were added. However, this approach proved inadequate to address the sheer number of cultivars existing in the primary center of diversity of the genus, Southeast Asia. Many of these cultivars were given names which proved to be synonyms.

 

In a series of papers published in 1947 onwards, Ernest Cheesman showed that Linnaeus's Musa sapientum and Musa paradisiaca were actually cultivars and descendants of two wild seed-producing species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, both first described by Luigi Aloysius Colla. He recommended the abolition of Linnaeus's species in favor of reclassifying bananas according to three morphologically distinct groups of cultivars – those primarily exhibiting the botanical characteristics of Musa balbisiana, those primarily exhibiting the botanical characteristics of Musa acuminata, and those with characteristics that are the combination of the two. Researchers Norman Simmonds and Ken Shepherd proposed a genome-based nomenclature system in 1955. This system eliminated almost all the difficulties and inconsistencies of the earlier classification of bananas based on assigning scientific names to cultivated varieties. Despite this, the original names are still recognized by some authorities today, leading to confusion.

 

The currently accepted scientific names for most groups of cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata Colla and Musa balbisiana Colla for the ancestral species, and Musa × paradisiaca L. for the hybrid M. acuminata × M. balbisiana.

 

Synonyms of M. × paradisica include:

A large number of subspecific and varietial names of M. × paradisiaca, including M. p. subsp. sapientum (L.) Kuntze

Musa × dacca Horan.

Musa × sapidisiaca K.C.Jacob, nom. superfl.

Musa × sapientum L., and a large number of its varietal names, including M. × sapientum var. paradisiaca (L.) Baker, nom. illeg.

 

Generally, modern classifications of banana cultivars follow Simmonds and Shepherd's system. Cultivars are placed in groups based on the number of chromosomes they have and which species they are derived from. Thus the Latundan banana is placed in the AAB Group, showing that it is a triploid derived from both M. acuminata (A) and M. balbisiana (B). For a list of the cultivars classified under this system see List of banana cultivars.

 

In 2012, a team of scientists announced they had achieved a draft sequence of the genome of Musa acuminata.

 

BANANAS & PLANTAINS

In regions such as North America and Europe, Musa fruits offered for sale can be divided into "bananas" and "plantains", based on their intended use as food. Thus the banana producer and distributor Chiquita produces publicity material for the American market which says that "a plantain is not a banana". The stated differences are that plantains are more starchy and less sweet; they are eaten cooked rather than raw; they have thicker skin, which may be green, yellow or black; and they can be used at any stage of ripeness. Linnaeus made the same distinction between plantains and bananas when first naming two "species" of Musa. Members of the "plantain subgroup" of banana cultivars, most important as food in West Africa and Latin America, correspond to the Chiquita description, having long pointed fruit. They are described by Ploetz et al. as "true" plantains, distinct from other cooking bananas. The cooking bananas of East Africa belong to a different group, the East African Highland bananas, so would not qualify as "true" plantains on this definition.

 

An alternative approach divides bananas into dessert bananas and cooking bananas, with plantains being one of the subgroups of cooking bananas. Triploid cultivars derived solely from M. acuminata are examples of "dessert bananas", whereas triploid cultivars derived from the hybrid between M. acuminata and M. balbinosa (in particular the plantain subgroup of the AAB Group) are "plantains". Small farmers in Colombia grow a much wider range of cultivars than large commercial plantations. A study of these cultivars showed that they could be placed into at least three groups based on their characteristics: dessert bananas, non-plantain cooking bananas, and plantains, although there were overlaps between dessert and cooking bananas.

 

In Southeast Asia – the center of diversity for bananas, both wild and cultivated – the distinction between "bananas" and "plantains" does not work, according to Valmayor et al. Many bananas are used both raw and cooked. There are starchy cooking bananas which are smaller than those eaten raw. The range of colors, sizes and shapes is far wider than in those grown or sold in Africa, Europe or the Americas.[35] Southeast Asian languages do not make the distinction between "bananas" and "plantains" that is made in English (and Spanish). Thus both Cavendish cultivars, the classic yellow dessert bananas, and Saba cultivars, used mainly for cooking, are called pisang in Malaysia and Indonesia, kluai in Thailand and chuoi in Vietnam. Fe'i bananas, grown and eaten in the islands of the Pacific, are derived from entirely different wild species than traditional bananas and plantains. Most Fe'i bananas are cooked, but Karat bananas, which are short and squat with bright red skins, very different from the usual yellow dessert bananas, are eaten raw.

 

In summary, in commerce in Europe and the Americas (although not in small-scale cultivation), it is possible to distinguish between "bananas", which are eaten raw, and "plantains", which are cooked. In other regions of the world, particularly India, Southeast Asia and the islands of the Pacific, there are many more kinds of banana and the two-fold distinction is not useful and not made in local languages. Plantains are one of many kinds of cooking bananas, which are not always distinct from dessert bananas.

 

HISTORICAL CULTIVATION

Farmers in Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea first domesticated bananas. Recent archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence at Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea suggests that banana cultivation there goes back to at least 5000 BCE, and possibly to 8000 BCE. It is likely that other species were later and independently domesticated elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is the region of primary diversity of the banana. Areas of secondary diversity are found in Africa, indicating a long history of banana cultivation in the region.

 

Phytolith discoveries in Cameroon dating to the first millennium BCE triggered an as yet unresolved debate about the date of first cultivation in Africa. There is linguistic evidence that bananas were known in Madagascar around that time. The earliest prior evidence indicates that cultivation dates to no earlier than late 6th century CE. It is likely, however, that bananas were brought at least to Madagascar if not to the East African coast during the phase of Malagasy colonization of the island from South East Asia c. 400 CE.

 

The banana may also have been present in isolated locations elsewhere in the Middle East on the eve of Islam. The spread of Islam was followed by far-reaching diffusion. There are numerous references to it in Islamic texts (such as poems and hadiths) beginning in the 9th century. By the 10th century the banana appears in texts from Palestine and Egypt. From there it diffused into North Africa and Muslim Iberia. During the medieval ages, bananas from Granada were considered among the best in the Arab world. In 650, Islamic conquerors brought the banana to Palestine. Today, banana consumption increases significantly in Islamic countries during Ramadan, the month of daylight fasting.

 

Bananas were certainly grown in the Christian Kingdom of Cyprus by the late medieval period. Writing in 1458, the Italian traveller and writer Gabriele Capodilista wrote favourably of the extensive farm produce of the estates at Episkopi, near modern day Limassol, including the region's banana plantations.

 

Bananas were introduced to the Americas by Portuguese sailors who brought the fruits from West Africa in the 16th century.

 

Many wild banana species as well as cultivars exist in extraordinary diversity in New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, and the Philippines.

 

There are fuzzy bananas whose skins are bubblegum pink; green-and-white striped bananas with pulp the color of orange sherbet; bananas that, when cooked, taste like strawberries. The Double Mahoi plant can produce two bunches at once. The Chinese name of the aromatic Go San Heong banana means 'You can smell it from the next mountain.' The fingers on one banana plant grow fused; another produces bunches of a thousand fingers, each only an inch long.

—Mike Peed, The New Yorker

 

In 1999 archaeologists in London discovered what they believed to be the oldest banana in the UK, in a Tudor rubbish tip.

 

PLANTATION CULTIVATION IN THE CARIBBEAN,

CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese colonists started banana plantations in the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, and western Africa. North Americans began consuming bananas on a small scale at very high prices shortly after the Civil War, though it was only in the 1880s that it became more widespread. As late as the Victorian Era, bananas were not widely known in Europe, although they were available. Jules Verne introduces bananas to his readers with detailed descriptions in Around the World in Eighty Days (1872).

 

The earliest modern plantations originated in Jamaica and the related Western Caribbean Zone, including most of Central America. It involved the combination of modern transportation networks of steamships and railroads with the development of refrigeration that allowed bananas to have more time between harvesting and ripening. North America shippers like Lorenzo Dow Baker and Andrew Preston, the founders of the Boston Fruit Company started this process in the 1870s, but railroad builders like Minor C Keith also participated, eventually culminating in the multi-national giant corporations like today's Chiquita Brands International and Dole. These companies were monopolistic, vertically integrated (meaning they controlled growing, processing, shipping and marketing) and usually used political manipulation to build enclave economies (economies that were internally self-sufficient, virtually tax exempt, and export oriented that contribute very little to the host economy). Their political maneuvers, which gave rise to the term Banana republic for states like Honduras and Guatemala, included working with local elites and their rivalries to influence politics or playing the international interests of the United States, especially during the Cold War, to keep the political climate favorable to their interests.

 

PEASANT CULTIVATION FOR EXPORT IN THE CARIBBEAN

The vast majority of the world's bananas today are cultivated for family consumption or for sale on local markets. India is the world leader in this sort of production, but many other Asian and African countries where climate and soil conditions allow cultivation also host large populations of banana growers who sell at least some of their crop.

 

There are peasant sector banana growers who produce for the world market in the Caribbean, however. The Windward Islands are notable for the growing, largely of Cavendish bananas, for an international market, generally in Europe but also in North America. In the Caribbean, and especially in Dominica where this sort of cultivation is widespread, holdings are in the 1–2 acre range. In many cases the farmer earns additional money from other crops, from engaging in labor outside the farm, and from a share of the earnings of relatives living overseas. This style of cultivation often was popular in the islands as bananas required little labor input and brought welcome extra income. Banana crops are vulnerable to destruction by high winds, such as tropical storms or cyclones.

 

After the signing of the NAFTA agreements in the 1990s, however, the tide turned against peasant producers. Their costs of production were relatively high and the ending of favorable tariff and other supports, especially in the European Economic Community, made it difficult for peasant producers to compete with the bananas grown on large plantations by the well capitalized firms like Chiquita and Dole. Not only did the large companies have access to cheap labor in the areas they worked, but they were better able to afford modern agronomic advances such as fertilization. The "dollar banana" produced by these concerns made the profit margins for peasant bananas unsustainable.

 

Caribbean countries have sought to redress this problem by providing government supported agronomic services and helping to organize producers' cooperatives. They have also been supporters of the Fair Trade movement which seeks to balance the inequities in the world trade in commodities.

 

EAST AFRICA

Most farms supply local consumption. Cooking bananas represent a major food source and a major income source for smallhold farmers. In east Africa, highland bananas are of greatest importance as a staple food crop. In countries such as Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda per capita consumption has been estimated at 45 kilograms per year, the highest in the world.

 

MODERN CULTIVATION

All widely cultivated bananas today descend from the two wild bananas Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. While the original wild bananas contained large seeds, diploid or polyploid cultivars (some being hybrids) with tiny seeds are preferred for human raw fruit consumption. These are propagated asexually from offshoots. The plant is allowed to produce two shoots at a time; a larger one for immediate fruiting and a smaller "sucker" or "follower" to produce fruit in 6–8 months. The life of a banana plantation is 25 years or longer, during which time the individual stools or planting sites may move slightly from their original positions as lateral rhizome formation dictates.

 

Cultivated bananas are parthenocarpic, i.e. the flesh of the fruit swells and ripens without its seeds being fertilized and developing. Lacking viable seeds, propagation typically involves farmers removing and transplanting part of the underground stem (called a corm). Usually this is done by carefully removing a sucker (a vertical shoot that develops from the base of the banana pseudostem) with some roots intact. However, small sympodial corms, representing not yet elongated suckers, are easier to transplant and can be left out of the ground for up to two weeks; they require minimal care and can be shipped in bulk.It is not necessary to include the corm or root structure to propagate bananas; severed suckers without root material can be propagated in damp sand, although this takes somewhat longer.In some countries, commercial propagation occurs by means of tissue culture. This method is preferred since it ensures disease-free planting material. When using vegetative parts such as suckers for propagation, there is a risk of transmitting diseases (especially the devastating Panama disease).As a non-seasonal crop, bananas are available fresh year-round.

 

CAVENDISH

In global commerce in 2009, by far the most important cultivars belonged to the triploid AAA group of Musa acuminata, commonly referred to as Cavendish group bananas. They accounted for the majority of banana exports, despite only coming into existence in 1836. The cultivars Dwarf Cavendish and Grand Nain (Chiquita Banana) gained popularity in the 1950s after the previous mass-produced cultivar, Gros Michel (also an AAA group cultivar), became commercially unviable due to Panama disease, caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum which attacks the roots of the banana plant. Cavendish cultivars are resistant to the Panama Disease but in 2013 there were fears that the Black Sigatoka fungus would in turn make Cavendish bananas unviable.

 

Ease of transport and shelf life rather than superior taste make the Dwarf Cavendish the main export banana.

 

Even though it is no longer viable for large scale cultivation, Gros Michel is not extinct and is still grown in areas where Panama disease is not found. Likewise, Dwarf Cavendish and Grand Nain are in no danger of extinction, but they may leave supermarket shelves if disease makes it impossible to supply the global market. It is unclear if any existing cultivar can replace Cavendish bananas, so various hybridisation and genetic engineering programs are attempting to create a disease-resistant, mass-market banana.

 

RIPENING

Export bananas are picked green, and ripen in special rooms upon arrival in the destination country. These rooms are air-tight and filled with ethylene gas to induce ripening. The vivid yellow color consumers normally associate with supermarket bananas is, in fact, caused by the artificial ripening process. Flavor and texture are also affected by ripening temperature. Bananas are refrigerated to between 13.5 and 15 °C during transport. At lower temperatures, ripening permanently stalls, and the bananas turn gray as cell walls break down. The skin of ripe bananas quickly blackens in the 4 °C environment of a domestic refrigerator, although the fruit inside remains unaffected.

 

"Tree-ripened" Cavendish bananas have a greenish-yellow appearance which changes to a brownish-yellow as they ripen further. Although both flavor and texture of tree-ripened bananas is generally regarded as superior to any type of green-picked fruit, this reduces shelf life to only 7–10 days.Bananas can be ordered by the retailer "ungassed" (i.e. not treated with ethylene), and may show up at the supermarket fully green. Guineos verdes (green bananas) that have not been gassed will never fully ripen before becoming rotten. Instead of fresh eating, these bananas are best suited to cooking, as seen in Mexican culinary dishes.A 2008 study reported that ripe bananas fluoresce when exposed to ultraviolet light. This property is attributed to the degradation of chlorophyll leading to the accumulation of a fluorescent product in the skin of the fruit. The chlorophyll breakdown product is stabilized by a propionate ester group. Banana-plant leaves also fluoresce in the same way. Green bananas do not fluoresce. The study suggested that this allows animals which can see light in the ultraviolet spectrum (tetrachromats and pentachromats) to more easily detect ripened bananas.

 

STORAGE & TRANSPORT

Bananas must be transported over long distances from the tropics to world markets. To obtain maximum shelf life, harvest comes before the fruit is mature. The fruit requires careful handling, rapid transport to ports, cooling, and refrigerated shipping. The goal is to prevent the bananas from producing their natural ripening agent, ethylene. This technology allows storage and transport for 3–4 weeks at 13 °C. On arrival, bananas are held at about 17 °C and treated with a low concentration of ethylene. After a few days, the fruit begins to ripen and is distributed for final sale. Unripe bananas can not be held in home refrigerators because they suffer from the cold. Ripe bananas can be held for a few days at home. If bananas are too green, they can be put in a brown paper bag with an apple or tomato overnight to speed up the ripening process.

 

Carbon dioxide (which bananas produce) and ethylene absorbents extend fruit life even at high temperatures. This effect can be exploited by packing banana in a polyethylene bag and including an ethylene absorbent, e.g., potassium permanganate, on an inert carrier. The bag is then sealed with a band or string. This treatment has been shown to more than double lifespans up to 3–4 weeks without the need for refrigeration.

 

FRUIT

Bananas are a staple starch for many tropical populations. Depending upon cultivar and ripeness, the flesh can vary in taste from starchy to sweet, and texture from firm to mushy. Both the skin and inner part can be eaten raw or cooked. The primary component of the aroma of fresh bananas is isoamyl acetate (also known as banana oil), which, along with several other compounds such as butyl acetate and isobutyl acetate, is a significant contributor to banana flavor.

 

During the ripening process, bananas produce the gas ethylene, which acts as a plant hormone and indirectly affects the flavor. Among other things, ethylene stimulates the formation of amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch into sugar, influencing the taste of bananas. The greener, less ripe bananas contain higher levels of starch and, consequently, have a "starchier" taste. On the other hand, yellow bananas taste sweeter due to higher sugar concentrations. Furthermore, ethylene signals the production of pectinase, an enzyme which breaks down the pectin between the cells of the banana, causing the banana to soften as it ripens.

 

Bananas are eaten deep fried, baked in their skin in a split bamboo, or steamed in glutinous rice wrapped in a banana leaf. Bananas can be made into jam. Banana pancakes are popular amongst backpackers and other travelers in South Asia and Southeast Asia. This has elicited the expression Banana Pancake Trail for those places in Asia that cater to this group of travelers. Banana chips are a snack produced from sliced dehydrated or fried banana or plantain, which have a dark brown color and an intense banana taste. Dried bananas are also ground to make banana flour. Extracting juice is difficult, because when a banana is compressed, it simply turns to pulp. Bananas feature prominently in Philippine cuisine, being part of traditional dishes and desserts like maruya, turrón, and halo-halo or saba con yelo. Most of these dishes use the Saba or Cardaba banana cultivar. Bananas are also commonly used in cuisine in the South-Indian state of Kerala, where they are steamed (puzhungiyathu), made into curries, fried into chips (upperi) or fried in batter (pazhampori). Pisang goreng, bananas fried with batter similar to the Filipino maruya or Kerala pazhampori, is a popular dessert in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. A similar dish is known in the United Kingdom and United States as banana fritters.

 

Plantains are used in various stews and curries or cooked, baked or mashed in much the same way as potatoes, such as the Pazham Pachadi prepared in Kerala.

 

Seeded bananas (Musa balbisiana), one of the forerunners of the common domesticated banana, are sold in markets in Indonesia.

 

FLOWER

Banana hearts are used as a vegetable in South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine, either raw or steamed with dips or cooked in soups, curries and fried foods. The flavor resembles that of artichoke. As with artichokes, both the fleshy part of the bracts and the heart are edible.

 

LEAVES

Banana leaves are large, flexible, and waterproof. They are often used as ecologically friendly disposable food containers or as "plates" in South Asia and several Southeast Asian countries. In Indonesian cuisine, banana leaf is employed in cooking method called pepes and botok; the banana leaf packages containing food ingredients and spices are cooked on steam, in boiled water or grilled on charcoal. In the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in every occasion the food must be served in a banana leaf and as a part of the food a banana is served. Steamed with dishes they impart a subtle sweet flavor. They often serve as a wrapping for grilling food. The leaves contain the juices, protect food from burning and add a subtle flavor. In Tamil Nadu (India) leaves are fully dried and used as packing material for food stuffs and also making cups to hold liquid foods. In Central American countries, banana leaves are often used as wrappers for tamales.

 

TRUNK

The tender core of the banana plant's trunk is also used in South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine, and notably in the Burmese dish mohinga.

 

FIBER

TEXTILES

The banana plant has long been a source of fiber for high quality textiles. In Japan, banana cultivation for clothing and household use dates back to at least the 13th century. In the Japanese system, leaves and shoots are cut from the plant periodically to ensure softness. Harvested shoots are first boiled in lye to prepare fibers for yarn-making. These banana shoots produce fibers of varying degrees of softness, yielding yarns and textiles with differing qualities for specific uses. For example, the outermost fibers of the shoots are the coarsest, and are suitable for tablecloths, while the softest innermost fibers are desirable for kimono and kamishimo. This traditional Japanese cloth-making process requires many steps, all performed by hand.

 

In a Nepalese system the trunk is harvested instead, and small pieces are subjected to a softening process, mechanical fiber extraction, bleaching and drying. After that, the fibers are sent to the Kathmandu Valley for use in rugs with a silk-like texture. These banana fiber rugs are woven by traditional Nepalese hand-knotting methods, and are sold RugMark certified.

 

In South Indian state of Tamil Nadu after harvesting for fruit the trunk (outer layer of the shoot) is made into fine thread used in making of flower garlands instead of thread.

 

PAPER

Banana fiber is used in the production of banana paper. Banana paper is made from two different parts: the bark of the banana plant, mainly used for artistic purposes, or from the fibers of the stem and non-usable fruits. The paper is either hand-made or by industrial process.

 

WIKIPEDIA

I have no Diagrams, no CP, yet I was able to fold my favorite model by Alex with just one page of diagram. :D This is totally my favorite model by him! but I'm pretty sure there are some parts that aren't correct. Pretty damn sure. But it's close enough.

XD

 

Folded from: 15 cm Kami.

Time to fold: 20 minutes.

Difficulty: Intermediate. Shaping's tough.

 

Hope you like it! :D

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away:...

 

...Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

I'll continue with my Route 66 journey tomorrow, but today, how about something different?

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, my new project is scanning negs and slides I never got around to before.

 

Mind you, that's a sllllowww process, especially cloning out dust spots with b&w, since I'm increasingly having difficulty seeing the clone-stamp cursor when it's the same color as a gray area I'm trying to work in. But here's one I've done so far . . . .

 

From 2006, Fort Union ruins in NE New Mexico.

 

What's kinda interesting is, in 2012 and I was on my road trip through Kansas, I'd run across Ft. Union's sister Fort, Ft. Larned. Both were instrumental protective sentinels along the Santa Fe Trail. However, because Larned was privately owned and Ft. Union was not, Ft. Larned is in remarkable shape. Ft. Union though is crumbling back into dust.

My bait Kozy girl. I am calling her Boo, which is short for Caboose...'cause she's a bit of a trainwreck LOL. Let's hope she's really a diamond in the rough!

  

NOT MY PHOTO

French postcard. Edition Pathé Frères. Photo Henri Manuel. A difficulty with this card, which is easily found online as well, is that it dates from around 1910-1914, while the actress, born in 1864, was 50 in 1914. We could not trace whether Pathé used a pre-1900 photo, a photo of a relative with the same name (a daughter?), or just a photo of somebody else.

 

Jeanne Bérangère (1864-1927) was a French stage and screen actress.

 

Jeanne Bérangère was born as Françoise Béraud, daughter of Pierre Béraud and his wife Appoline née Dumont, on June 9, 1864, in Ainay-le-Château, in the Auvergne. Her parents were wealthy landowners in La Chaume, east of this small medieval village, cradle of the oldest lords of Bourbon. Little is known about her childhood and youth, but at the end of the 19th century beautiful Françoise became a popular theatre actress in Paris under the name of Mademoiselle Bérangère. Her Parisian fame caused her to pose often for postcards, allowing her to spread her image throughout France. After an impressive stage career in Paris, Michel Carré selected her in 1909 to play her first role on screen in La peur, directed by Henri Desfontaines. Once under contract by Pathé, Jeanne Bérangère did one film after another there until the beginning of the Great War. She appeared in one of the very first versions of Cléopatra (Henri Andréani and Ferdinand Zecca, 1910), with Madeleine Roch in the title role. Among the twenty or so films of this period, she had the female lead in Affaire d'honneur (Matter of Honour, Charles Decroix, 1910), Henri IV et le bucheron (Henry IV and the Woodchopper, Georges Denola, 1911), La rivale de Richelieu (Musketeer’s Love, Gérard Bourgeois, 1911), La fille de Jephté (Jephta’s daughter, Henri Andréani, 1913), and several films directed by Albert Capellani. For Éclair, she acted e.g. in Maurice Tourneur's grand guignol comedy Mademoiselle Cent Millions (The Conspiracy, 1913) and Trompe-la-mort (The Master Criminal, 1913), an adaptation of Honoré de Balzac's novel by director Charles Krauss. The First World War removed Bérangère from the cinema, apart from the propaganda film Français !... n’oubliez jamais (Robert Boudrioz, Roger Lion, 1916), but she never ceased to act on the Parisian stage.

 

After the war, Jeanne Bérangère resumed her way to the studios for Lucien Lehmann's film La chimère (1918), alongside Edmond Van Daële and Geneviève Félix. She collaborated to two films for Marcel L'Herbier, L'homme du large (Man of the Sea, 1920) with Jaque-Catelain, and Eldorado (1921) with Eve Francis. She also worked with Germaine Dulac (La mort du soleil, 1921; Âme d’artiste, 1924), Victor Tourjansky (Calvaire d’amour, 1923), Yakov Protazanov (Justice d’abord, 1920; Le sense de la mort, 1921), Raymond Bernard (Triplepatte, 1922), Andre Hugon, Gaston Ravel and Louis Mercanton. She was also noticed in four very popular serials of the 1920s: Charles Burguet's L'Essor (The Rise, 1920), Charles Maudru and Maurice de Marsan's L'Assommoir (The Drinking Den, 1921), Les mystères de Paris (Mysteries of Paris, Charles Burguet, 1922), and Belphégor (Henri Desfontaines, 1926), starring Lucien Dalsace.

 

Jeanne Bérangère died prematurely in Paris on November 19, 1928. Pascal Donald writes, “’like many actresses of the silent cinema, her name, face and films have sunk into the almost complete oblivion.” Thanks to festivals such as Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna and Le giornate del cinema muto in Pordenone, we can still see some of these films now and then.

 

Source: IMDB, www.cineartistes.com/fiche-Jeanne+B%E9rang%E8re.html.

 

Due to financial difficulties Alfa Romeo stopped racing in 1933 (Alfa’s own version of the story is that the marque had already proved itself) and sold off its racing division to Enzo Ferrari, who established his own racing team, ‘Scuderia Ferrari’.

 

The legendary racing driver Louis Chiron took part in the 1933 Le Mans race for the Scuderia in this car, which has bodywork designed by Touring. The regulations for participating touring cars specified that they had to be fitted with a windshield, mudguards, a silencer, lighting, a horn and four seats. Needless to say, everything was kept to a minimum in order to limit the weight. The rear seats, for example, aren’t really usable. The car weighs just over 1,000 kilograms. Note the fin at the rear, an important step towards the streamlining of racing cars.

 

The 2.3-litre, eight-cylinder engine introduced by Alfa Romeo in 1931 was in fact made up of two four-cylinder blocks, one behind the other, with an ingenious gear mechanism that drove the camshafts as well as the compressor. The cylinder capacity was increased to 2.6 litres for this Le Mans version.

 

2,6 Liter

8 Cylinder

180 HP

 

Louwman Museum

Den Haag - The Hague

Nederland - Netherlands

Augustus 2019

Don't forget to take the flashlight to pee

Apparently the RR guessed I was coming and raised the degree of difficulty, 4 lane road, no trespassing between tracks and road, both on sidings...improvise overcome adapt. when's the last time you saw two PRR GP9 high hoods together???? When in York, Pa. take ex PRR GP9 pix on ex PRR trackage, now East Penn trackage. Ah 1701, the starship(some will get it) and ex Conrail GP10 former PRR GP9.

Not as easy as you might think. Everyone has their own struggles and difficulties to overcome.

 

"Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." - Christ Jesus

 

Canon EOS Rebel T1i

Canon EF 50mm f1.8

 

Edit: Film/Troy

📷: Nikon Z6ii with Viltrox AF 16mm f/1.8 FE

 

💻: Lightroom

 

Explore my work at:

www.antonisdeligiannis.com

 

#photonetmagazine #igers_greece_ #neamagazine #noicemag #ignant #contemporaryphotography #somewheremagazine #subjectivelyobjective #lensculture #phroommagazine #floatmag #modernvisual #visualpoetry #createexplore #artofvisuals

 

#nikon #nikoneurope #nikongreece #nikonz #z6ii #viltrox #ultrawideangle #viltrox16 #nikonz6ii #day #oldman #handicap #czechia #man

File name: 10_03_000939a

Binder label: Laundry

Title: The difficulties of a tub wringer. The convenience of a bench wringer. [front]

Created/Published: N. Y. : Buek & Lindner, Lith.

Date issued: 1870-1900 [approximate]

Genre: Advertising cards

Subject: Women; Laundry; Appliances

Notes: Title from item.

Collection: 19th Century American Trade Cards

Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Rights: No known restrictions.

I had difficulty taking a good picture because the cat was constantly moving. I ended up taking many shots. Cats can be quite silly at times. This picture is perfect, with a clear shot that I took, and the pose is nice too😄😃😘.

(The picture has been edited)

Day two of our trip down to Wanaka Central Otago. February 20, 2018 New Zealand.

 

We didn't get accommodation in Wanaka last night and they were all booked out until the 25th. We went on to Cromwell .. some there but we did book for today. We finally found a place to stay in the camping ground in Alexandra. Now we are making our way back to Cromwell for the next two nights.

 

Mt Difficulty Wines is located in Bannockburn, well within an hour's drive of both Queenstown and Wanaka. The Cellar Door is known as much for its dramatic views of rugged rock and thyme landscapes as it is for its stylish wine.

www.newzealand.com/ie/plan/business/mt-difficulty-wines-c...

 

PM Netanyahu met on Monday, 13.2.12, at the Knesset with 14-year-old Tal Hajaj who told him about the difficulties her family has experienced since her father came to the State of Israel after having served in the South Lebanon Army. Photo: Moshe Milner, GPO

“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

 

[There are 5 images in this set on “The Feast of Esther”] This is a creative commons image, which you may freely use by linking to this page. Please respect the photographer and his work. This art masterpiece is located at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

 

Dutch painter Jan Lievens (1607-1674) during his lifetime had achieved an international (continental) reputation for his art work. Today, he is not well known at all. Versatile in technique and genre, many of his works have been attributed to other painters. More is now known of the man, and credit is now being given where it should have been. The painting, “The Feast of Esther” at the North Carolina Museum of Art once was thought to be a work by Rembrandt; Lievens and Rembrandt knew each other in their home city of Leiden and may have shared a studio in common. Even in the 1630’s their styles were similar as were their subject matter, and contemporaries had difficulty in distinguishing one from the other. Lievens was well-known for portraits as well as religious scenes and landscapes.

 

“The Feast of Esther” dates from circa 1625; it is oil on canvas (51 1/2 x 64 1/2 inches [130.8 x 163.8 cm]), depicts a scene from the Book of Esther in the Old Testament. It is the confrontation of Ahasuerus (Xerxes) with his minister, Haman, who wished to see the extermination of the Jews. Esther has both her husband, Ahasuerus) and Haman to a banquet and exposes Haman’s plot. Lievens has conveyed much drama by Esther’s pointing finger, her husband’s anger in his clenched hands, the expression of surprise and shock on the face of Haman. The museum placard mentions aspects of Leivens’ craft—“scale, bold colors, dramatic energy”.

 

For additional works of art by Lievens:

Athenaeum (see under Art tab) with 68 art works

www.the-athenaeum.org/people/detail.php?ID=4733

Web Gallery of Art with 15 art works

www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/l/lievens/

 

For more complete information:

www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Out-of-Rembrandts-Sha...

artnc.org/works-of-art/feast-esther

www.kunstpedia.com/articles/a-dutch-master-rediscovered.html

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

  

Meet my Lucases! :3 it was pretty difficulty getting these 2, because I was very particular about the OE version (it had to be the oldskin one; Lucas 1st) and SwD Lucas just doesn't pop up, ever. I was also particular about the yellowing in these 2 veeeery old sculpts, and for SwD L I didn't want eyes that were already opened.. All this specifications basically made me wait years to finally be able to obtain these two! I'm so lucky to have them both in pristine condition- SwD version still has its eyes hot glued in! Also both were rarely displayed and came with minimal yellowing. Yay!!! ^__^

500px

 

Pink N' Pretty Barbie 1981

In a midsummer evening the lady had had too much alcohol at the dinner and her husband dared to mention about that. She began to shout him among other things: " . . and I´m not drunk now, not at all. How you dare to say that? And don't you smile, when I'm talking to you . . ." The husband really has difficulties not to smile.

still can't resist (although very poor lighting - difficulty with colors - will try post improved versions)

 

vicinity Deception Pass - interesting that this keeps appearing in the same small area (say 5m square)

 

The fungus (P. britannica) and the green alga (Coccomyxa) combine to form this lichen's green (particularly so when wet) lobes, which are speckled with dark "cephalodia" containing the cyanobacterium (Nostoc). In this "individual" cephalodia have escaped and formed the purplish lobes, which in turn are sprouting pure green lobes. So we have two versions (photomorphs) of the same lichen.

 

(The name Peltigera britannica refers only to the mycobiont. This fungus can be associated with a green alga (in this case a Coccomyxa) and/or a cyanobacteria (in this case a Nostoc) to form a lichen, which in this case has been given the common name "Flacky freckle pelt". (In my opinion the use of common names for lichens, most of which have been coined very recently, only makes things more difficult.) Although the lichen itself does not have a scientific name, depending upon context the name of the fungus is often used to refer to the entire lichen. This seems to work fine. There are on the order of 16,000 to 28,000 species of fungi which are obligate lichenized www.researchgate.net/publication/258485014_One_hundred_ne... They combine with 100 or so species of algal and cyanobacterial partners. It now appears that many more fungi are found within lichens, which might better be thought of as mini-ecosystems.)

 

of interest - www.anbg.gov.au/lichen/form-structure-sticta.html

 

wales-lichens.org.uk/species-account/sticta-canariensis

 

my lichen photos arranged by genus www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections/7215762439...

 

my photos arranged by subject www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections

Ursula has been fully deboxed, and placed sitting down with her tentacles spread out around her. I like her alot, I think more than the LE Ursula. But she is by no means a perfect Ursula. The build in stand for her is a smaller version of the one for the LE doll. It is a metal pole with a flat disk that fits into a pocket on the underside of Ursula. Unlike the LE doll stand, this one is not portable. Only her front four tentacles are articulated. The two rear ones are just stuffed, so don't really help support Ursula. However she can still free stand, with her tentacles stretched out. Her arms are fully articulated, a big improvement over the LE Ursula, but her hands don't have much freedom of movement forward or backward. Her neck is VERY stiff, so I moved her head will great difficulty, and I was afraid to damage her head or neck if I applied any more force. Perhaps it will become looser with over time. As with LE Ursula, her top is removable (although I haven't done so yet), and the lower portion of her torso is stuffed with her leather like skin permanently sewn on. With her sitting down with her tentacles spread out, she looks like a starfish, and she is very stable. With her tentacles upright, she can free stand, but isn't very stable. It would have helped greatly if her two rear tentacles were articulated, to help support her standing pose. Standing up, she comes up to about Ariel's height, so is far smaller than the animated character. While deboxing and posing her, one rhinestone and one sequin fell off, but I don't miss them since there are hundreds of those on her body and tentacles.

 

I got the Ariel and Ursula Doll Set on Tuesday October 20, 2015, at my local Disney Store's raffle. I was 17th of 18 called, so I'm very glad I was able to get her in store. There was about the same amount of people who were there for the Snow/Hag set, so about 10 people missed out today. My set is #4185 of 6000. I will show this set boxed, during deboxing, and fully deboxed. I took the set I was given. I noticed that Ariel's eyelashes were not at the same angle between her two eyes, but it didn't bother me enough to ask for another set. There were no other noticeable defects in the set.

 

I have deboxed Ariel, and found to my surprise that the pile of rocks is totally separate from the display case, and is free standing. Ariel is supposed to free sit on the rock stand, and stay in position just by the friction of her sequined tail on the uneven surface of the top rock. It also helps if the floor of is rough (like a carpet) rather than the smooth surface that I was using for the photoshoot. Next, I was pleasantly surprised is that she has the old Designer Princess body, so rubber legs and swivel waist joint. As I expected, her hair is heavily gelled to keep her curls, but not as heavily as the 17'' LE Ariel from 2013. So only the bottom third of her curls are stiff. There were a couple of stray hairs stuck in her neck joint (ouch!) and some short hairs (like trimmings) that I had to remove from her face and chest. She is pretty, but not drop dead gorgeous as were the previous two Designer Ariel dolls (from 2011 and 2013). I also don't like her see through top. It has a rough surface, so her hairs kept on getting caught in it.

 

Her sequins making up her tail are iridescent, so it appears to be different colors (various shades of green, blue and purple) depending on the angle of the light and angle of viewing. That is similar to how the scales of an actual fish appear. This was an unexpected feature of her tail that makes me like it much more than I did from the stock photos, or even from viewing her in person in the display dolls before I bought her and deboxed her. I also really like her fins, which are wired to stiffen them, and are posable.

 

I also compare Designer Ariel side by side with the OOAK Ariel made by a fellow collector, who used the 2014 Classic Ariel as the base.

 

Fourth release of the 2015 Disney Fairytale Designer Collection is Ariel in mermaid form and Ursula in sea witch form. She sold out online a few hours after the release.

 

Ariel and Ursula Doll Set - Disney Fairytale Designer Collection

US Disney Store

Released In Store 2015-10-20

Released Online 2015-10-21

Sold Out Online 2015-10-21

$129.95

Item No. 6003040901260P

 

Tail of wonder

Ariel is paired with the wicked sea witch Ursula in this limited edition The Little Mermaid set. Part of the Disney Fairytale Designer Collection's heroes and villains series, the finely detailed duo feature exquisite costumes.

 

Magic in the details...

 

Please Note: Purchase of this item is limited to 1 per Guest.

 

As part of the Disney Fairytale Designer Collection's heroes and villains series, Ariel and Ursula were carefully crafted by artists inspired by Disney's The Little Mermaid. Reimagined in exquisite detail, these limited edition dolls were brought to life with thoughtful attention, and uniquely capture the essence of the fairytale characters, creating a one-of-a-kind set that will be a treasured keepsake of collectors and Disney fans.

 

• Global Limited Edition of 6000

• Includes Certificate of Authenticity

• Ariel's diaphanous bodice is adorned with intricate embroidery and sparkling rhinestones

• Tail features iridescent sequins with translucent fins accented with glitter

• Rooted red hair

• Dramatic make-up and rooted eyelashes

• Ursula's black faux leather bodice and outer tentacles are studded with black rhinestones

• Purple underside of tentacles are accented with sequins

• Gold shell earrings and gold shell necklace

• Rooted white hair

• Rock accessory

• Dolls sold in a special keepsake display case with intricate details on the base, including a golden plate with the names of Ariel and Ursula

• Includes special Disney Fairytale Designer Collection Gift Bag

• Part of the Disney Fairytale Designer Collection

 

* Intended for adult collectors -- Not a child's toy.

 

The bare necessities

 

• Plastic / polyester

• Ariel: 16'' H

• Ursula: 11'' H

• Imported

The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.

  

Hi my flickr friends, I am back..I sure missed all of you.. hope to get back in the circle.

I lost a wonderful sister in law to Breast cancer...and we have had some awful tornados in our part of the country..

I will try and get around to all of the photos.. God Bless everyone.. and God Bless America!

It's so hard to take good pictures of her, but I'll get the hang of it as soon as I get to know her a little better. She's even cuter in person.

Mitsubishi J8M1 Shusui

 

Chino Planes Of Fame

 

The J8M1 was intended to be a licence-built copy of the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet. Difficulties in shipping an example to Japan meant that the aircraft eventually had to be reverse-engineered from a flight operations manual and other limited documentation. A single prototype was tested before the end of World War II.

 

The Japanese were quite aware of the results of the strategic bombing of Germany, and knew that the B-29 Superfortress would be bombing Japan and the resultant problems which would arise from trying to combat this. Japanese military attachés had become aware of the Komet during a visit to the Bad Zwischenahn airfield of Erprobungskommando 16, the Luftwaffe evaluation squadron charged with service test of the revolutionary rocket-propelled interceptor. They negotiated the rights to licence-produce the aircraft and its Walter HWK 509A rocket engine. The engine license alone cost the Japanese 20 million Reichsmarks.[1]

 

The agreement was for Germany to provide the following by spring 1944:

 

Complete blueprints of the Me 163B Komet and the HWK 509A engine.

One complete Komet; two sets of sub-assemblies and components.

Three complete HWK 509A engines.

Inform Japan of any improvements and developments of the Komet.

Allow the Japanese to study the manufacturing processes for both the Komet and the engine.

Allow the Japanese to study Luftwaffe operational procedures for the Komet.

 

The broken-down aircraft and engine were sent to Kobe, Japan in early 1944. It is probable that the airframe was on the Japanese submarine RO-501 (ex-U-1224), which left Kiel, Germany on 30 March 1944 and was sunk in the mid-Atlantic on 13 May 1944 by the hunter-killer group based on the escort carrier USS Bogue. Plans and engines were on the Japanese submarine I-29, which left Lorient, France on 16 April 1944 and arrived in Singapore on 14 July 1944, later sunk by the submarine USS Sawfish on 26 July 1944, near the Philippines, after leaving Singapore.

 

The Japanese decided to attempt to copy the Me 163 using a basic instructional manual on the Komet in the hands of naval mission member Commander Eiichi Iwaya who had travelled to Singapore in the I-29 and flown on to Japan when the submarine docked.

 

From its inception, the project was a joint Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (JAAF)/Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (JNAF) venture. The JAAF wanted a new design to be drawn up. The JNAF, on the other hand, felt the design should mimic the German Komet because it had already proven to be a stable aerodynamic body. It was the JNAF which won and issued the 19-shi specification in July 1944 for the design of the rocket-powered defence fighter. The contract went to Mitsubishi Jukogyo KK, which would produce both the JNAF version the J8M1 Shu-sui and the JAAF version Ki-200.

 

The project was headed by Mijiro Takahashi. The JAAF, however decided to undertake their own design to meet the 19-shi specifications, working at their Rikugun Kokugijitsu Kenkyujo (JAAF Aerotechnical Institute) in secret.

 

At the 1st Naval Air Technical Arsenal in Yokosuka, in association with Mitsubishi and Yokosuka Arsenal, work began to adapt the Walter HWK 509A engine to Japanese manufacturing capabilities and techniques. This was also where efforts were underway to produce a glider version of the J8M to provide handling data. While working on this glider, the MXY8 Akigusa (??, "Autumn Grass"), Mitsubishi completed a mock-up of the J8M1 in September 1944.

 

Both the JAAF and JNAF approved its design and construction and a prototype was built. In December 1944, the MXY8 was completed and, on 8 December 1944, at the Hyakurigahara Airfield, Lieutenant-Commander Toyohiko Inuzuka took the controls of the MXY8. Once in the air, Inuzuka found the MXY8 almost perfectly emulated the handling characteristics of the Komet. Two additional MXY8 gliders were constructed in the naval yard at Yokosuka, one being delivered to the Rikugun Kokugijitsu Kenkyujo (JAAF Aerotechnical Institute) at Tachikawa for evaluation. The JNAF initiated the construction another prototype, production designation Ku-13. This was to use water ballast to simulate the weight of an operational J8M complete with engine and weapons. This variant was to be built by Maeda Aircraft Institute, while the JAAF version was to be constructed by Yokoi Koku KK (Yoki Aircraft Co). The JNAF also proposed a more advanced trainer, designated the MXY9 Shu-ka (??, "Autumn Fire") which would be powered by a 441 lbf (1.96 kN) thrust Tsu-11 ducted-fan engine. The war, however, ended before this model could be built.

 

Mitsubishi and partners Nissan and Fuji proceeded with development of the airframe and Yokosuka Arsenal was adapting the engine for Japanese production, designated the Ro.2. The Japanese succeeded in producing prototypes that outwardly looked very much similar to the Komet. The J8M1 had a wet weight that was 900 lb (410 kg) lighter, the aircraft having a plywood main spar and wooden vertical tail. The designers had also dispensed with the armoured glass in the cockpit and the aircraft carried less ammunition and slightly less fuel.

 

The Ki-200 and the J8M1 differed only in minor items, but the most obvious difference was the JAAF's Ki-200 was armed with two 30 mm (1.18 in) Type 5 cannon (with a rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of 2,350 ft/s (720 m/s), while the J8M1 was armed with two 30 mm (1.18 in) Ho-105 cannon (rate of fire 400 rounds per minute, muzzle velocity 2,460 ft/s (750 m/s). The Ho-105 was the lighter of the two and both offered a higher velocity than the MK 108 cannon of the Me 163 (whose muzzle velocity was 1,705 ft/s (520 m/s). The Toko Ro.2 (KR10) rocket motor did not offer the same thrust rating as the original, and Mitsubishi calculated that the lighter weight of the J8M1 would not offset this. Performance would not be as good as that of the Komet, but was still substantial.[2]

 

The engine still used the German propellants of T-Stoff oxidizer and C-Stoff fuel (hydrogen peroxide/methanol-hydrazine), known in Japan as Ko and Otsu respectively.

 

A total of 60 of the training version (Ku-13, Ki-13, MXY-8, MXY-9) were produced by Yokosuka, Yokoi[disambiguation needed] and Maeda[disambiguation needed]. Seven of the operational version (J8M1/Ki-200) were built by Mitsubishi.

Operational history

J8M-17[clarification needed]

 

In 8 January 1945, one of the two J8M1 prototypes was towed aloft, water ballast added in place of the fuel tank and rocket engine to test its aerodynamics. The test flights confirmed the design. Training courses for JAAF and JNAF pilots began on the Ku-53 glider, which shared a similar configuration to the J8M1. The 312th Naval Air Group was selected to operate the first J8M1. Mitsubishi, Fuji Hikoki, and Nissan Jidosha all had tooling for mass production well into the advanced stages, ready to produce both the J8M1 and the J8M2 variant, which differed from the J8M1 in sacrificing one of the Type 5 cannon for a small increase in fuel capacity. The first J8M1 prototype to be equipped with the Toko Ro.2 (KR10) was ready in June 1945. They were then transferred from the Nagoya plant to Yokoku for final checks before powered flight testing, after final glide tests with the engine installed.

 

The J8M took to the air for its first powered flight on 7 July 1945,[3] with Lieutenant Commander Toyohiko Inuzuka at the controls; after his "sharp start" rocket-powered takeoff, Inuzuka successfully jettisoned the dolly upon becoming airborne and began to gain speed, climbing skywards at a 45° angle. At an altitude of 396 m (1,300 ft), the engine stopped abruptly and the J8M1 stalled. Inuzuka managed to glide the aircraft back, but clipped a small building at the edge of the airfield while trying to land, causing the aircraft to burst into flames. Inuzuka died the next day.[4] While Mitsubishi and naval technicians sought to find the cause of the accident, all future flights were grounded. The engine cutout had occurred because the angle of climb, coupled with the fuel tanks being half-filled for this first flight, caused a shifting of the fuel, which in turn caused an auto cutout device to activate because of an air lock in the fuel line. Requests to continue flight testing were denied pending the modification of the fuel pumps in the aircraft. The sixth and seventh prototypes were to be fitted with the modified Ro.2 engine.

 

Full scale production readiness was almost at hand and in fact, component construction was already underway. Flight testing was to resume, despite another explosion of the fuel mixture during a ground test days after the crash, in late August 1945 and the J8M2 design was finalized. But on 15 August 1945, the war ended for the Japanese and all work on the J8M ceased. The end of the war also spelled the end of the JAAF's Ki-202 Shu-sui-Kai (Modified Shusui), whose design had begun in secret months before. The Ki-202 was to offer improved flight endurance over the Ki-200 and was slated to be the priority fighter for the JAAF in 1946, but no metal was cut before Japan's surrender.

 

Germany tried to send another Komet in U-864, but the submarine was sunk near Bergen by British submarine HMS Venturer in February 1945.

Variants

 

J8M1

J8M2 Shu-sui Model 21(?)

Long-range version for Navy, identical to J8M1, but armament reduced to a single 30 mm (1.18 in) cannon.

J8M3 Shu-sui Model 22 (Rikugun Ki-202 Shu-sui-kai)

Long-range version for Army and Navy, with fuselage and wingspan lengthened to 7.10 m (23 ft 3 in) and 9.75 m (32 ft 0 in) respectively. Powered by 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) Tokuro-3, projected maximum speed 900 km/h (560 mph).

Yokosuka MXY-8 "Akigusa" (Yokoi Ku-13)

Training glider using J8M airframe for Navy and Army.

Yokosuka MXY-9 "Shuka"

Training version using J8M airframe, powered by Tsu-11 thermojet engine.

 

Operators

 

Japan

 

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service

Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service

 

Survivors

The J8M1 at the Planes of Fame Museum.

 

In November 1945, two aircraft were taken from Yokosuka to the United States for evaluation aboard USS Barnes. FE-300/T2-300 (USA ident) (Japanese ident 403) is now exhibited at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. The other was at NAS Glenview in October 1946 (identity unknown), but was scrapped.

 

In the 1960s, a nearly complete (but badly damaged) fuselage was discovered in a cave in Japan. This was on display at a Japanese Air Self Defense Forces base near Gifu until 1999, when it was restored and completed by Mitsubishi for display in the company's internal Komaki Plant Museum.[5]

Specifications (J8M1/Ki-200)

 

Data from [6]

 

General characteristics

 

Crew: 1

Length: 6.03 m (19 ft 9 in) ;;;Ki 200

 

5.88 m (19 ft)

 

Wingspan: 9.47 m (31 ft 1 in)

Height: 2.68 m (8 ft 10 in)

Wing area: 17.72 m2 (190.7 sq ft) ;;;Ki 200

 

17.69 m2 (190.41 sq ft)

 

Empty weight: 1,445 kg (3,186 lb) ;;;Ki 200

 

1,505 kg (3,318 lb)

J8M2

1,510 kg (3,329 lb)

 

Gross weight: 3,000 kg (6,614 lb) ;;;J8M2

 

3,650 kg (8,047 lb)

 

Max takeoff weight: 3,870 kg (8,532 lb) ;;;J8M2

 

3,900 kg (8,598 lb)

 

Fuel capacity: ;;;Ko

 

1,181 l (260 imp gal) (T-Stoff = 80% Hydrogen Peroxide + 20% Oxyquinoline and Pyrophosphates)

O-tsu

522 l (115 imp gal) (C-Stoff = 30% Hydrazine Hydrate + 70% Methanol, Water and Potassium-Copper Cyanides)

 

Powerplant: 1 × Toku Ro.2 a.k.a. KR10 liquid-fuelled rocket engine, 14.71 kN (3,307 lbf) thrust

 

Performance

 

Maximum speed: 900 km/h (559 mph; 486 kn) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft)

Cruising speed: 699 km/h (434 mph; 377 kn) ;;;Ki 200

 

351 km/h (218 mph)

 

Stall speed: 150 km/h (93 mph; 81 kn)

Endurance: ;;;J8M1

 

5 minutes 30 seconds of powered flight

Ki 200

max - 7 minutes, full throttle - 2 minutes 30 seconds of powered flight,

 

Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)

Rate of climb: 50 m/s (9,800 ft/min)

Time to altitude: ;;;J8M1

 

2,000 m (6,562 ft) in 40 seconds

4,000 m (13,123 ft) in 2 minutes 8 seconds

8,000 m (26,247 ft) in 3 minutes 8 seconds

10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 3 minutes 50 seconds

Ki 200

10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 3 minutes 40 seconds

 

Wing loading: 219.22 kg/m² (44.90 lb/sq ft) ;;;J8M2

 

219.7kg/m² (44.998 lb/ft²)

 

Thrust/weight: 0.388

 

Armament

 

Guns: ;;;J8M1

 

2x Type 5 30mm cannon with 53 rounds per gun

J8M2

1x Type 5 30mm cannon with 53 rounds

Ki 200

2x Ho-155 30mm cannon or 2x Type 5 30mm cannon

 

Source Wikipedia

With equal amounts of difficulty as Uneven Bars, Balance Beam also requires competitors have full concentration as they go about their respective Routines. Here we see a competitor attempting an exceedingly difficult element on Balance Beam Routine during a Women's Gymnastics Competition at National Level in the USA.

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EXPLORE : August 1, 2008 # 413

(Highest position)

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Make your dream comes true...

Determining to reach your goal...

Never give up when facing hardship..

Devoting your whole self to fight...

The difficulties would turn aside...

By the power of strong mind...

 

If you fear that your sun is dying...

And you need the strength to keep trying...

I will reach out and take your hand :-)..

 

Like the sun that keep on shining...

My best wishes and love for you will always be remaining :-)..

 

Have a great Sunday and sweet dream tonight! :-)..

I will always send you nice sunshine, sweet smile and warm love from Thailand, my Dearest :-)..

 

Ich liebe dich..I LOVE YOU now and forever...

J-A-S-M-I-N-E..

A little pretty girl in Thailand..

 

Chonburi Province, Thailand

 

Had some difficulties with diverticulitis (damn awful pain.OUCH!) earlier in the week, so it was a broth diet for a few days... but I'm all better now (thanks Dr. Hartenstein!) so I fixed this for dinner last night, yay!

What it is:

4 ounces of cheap ass steak (forget the cut)

Delicious fried Brussel sprouts

Delectable mashed cauliflower (you've got to try it to believe it, Flickr mail me if you want the how-to)

Some low carb bread 1-minute bread and a spinach salad.

Soooo good!

 

Have a great week ahead my friends!

difficulty: very easy!