Greece!

Plane tickets booked for a departure to Greece in mid-May! 

We're planning on some island hopping and looking into how to go about it... find a service to help plan accommodations, ferries and excursions or do it ourselves? Maybe a combination. Hire or join a tour to hit the most touristy spots like the Acropolis, Mikonos, Santorini, Crete, Rhodes, Deo (10 days). Hop on a sailboat for 2-3? Then find a relaxed island to enjoy the sun and beaches. Although I would like to jump on a yacht for a week, Covid is probably not the time to enjoy strange company, in such close quarters.

A little bit of history, taking in lots of natural beauty, enjoying the sea and the surf.

Hydra! Definitely appeals as Leonard Cohen spent so much time there, and there are also no cars.

Poros, pictured above, is actually two islands in the Peloponnese – Kalaureia and Sphairia, with a narrow strait separating Poros from the coast of the Peloponnese. I imagine standing in the Lemon Forest of Galatas. During the month of May, the town is engulfed in the beautiful aroma of the lemon forest.

Naxos is not as popular as Mikonos and Santorini and blends ancient ruins with beach culture. Fodor recommends Plaka, Naxos, Cyclades as the most beautiful beach of all on an island of beautiful beaches. "Backed by sand dunes and bamboo groves, an exotic setting enhanced by a predictably spectacular sunset almost every evening."

The Island of Moni is a nature preserve where peacocks and wild deer roam. Moni Beach is off the beaten path, and accessible by ferry from the fishing port of Perdika. 

Mavra Volia, Chios, in the Northern Aegean islands with a "wine-dark sea" washing the black volcanic shores of a cove that is christened Black Pebbles. or Milia Beach, Skopelos, Sporades (Mama Mia Island) with brilliant white sands and clear turquoise waters. 

So much to see!

There are over 6000 islands in Greece, about 150 of those permanently inhabited. 

First snowdrops

 

Amazing!! Temperatures have been chilling.  Feb 16th there was a bit of a thaw, and I checked under the pine tree in the front garden. Incredible!!! Seeing these sprouts lifted my spirits sky high. Spring is coming. Spring is coming. Spring is coming.  A heartbeat under the snow.

Full Snow Moon February 2022

Someone on Goodreads introduced me to this beautiful children's book, Taan's Moons. Alison Gear wrote the poems. To create illustrations, the artist Kiki van der Heiden collaborated with the children of Haida Gwaii who assisted with the felt creations, which were then photographed for the book.  (Kindergarten and grades 1-2 )

13 moon cycles, 13 poems. A written record of this particular cycle can be found in Tluuwwaay 'Waadluxan Mathematical Adventures, edited by Cynthhia Nicol and Joanne Yovanovich.

 

In the Haida language, 'Taan' means bear.

Snow Moon

The forest sleeps in silence.

In darkness, white stars glow.

The moon's rhythm continues,

echoed softly on the snow.

Bear Moon

Although Taan is sleeping,

she shares with the land

that circular rhythm 

all creatures understand.

Taan's Moon

There's a moon in the sky.

It looks like a drum,

which guides the earth

where Taan comes from.

The moon is full on February 16, 2022, at 11:56 a.m. EST.

Growing Understanding

To fulfill requirements to become a Master Gardener, interns are required to complete an educational component with passing grades. So it is back to school for me. 

As my first course,  I chose Soils and Plant Growth, from the University of Guelph. One of the assignments is to observe plants over a period of weeks as they transform from seed to flower. I was looking forward to planting something in the dead of winter and headed to the East End garden centre to pick up supplies.

The shelves were bare, so I wondered how long the seeds had been on the shelf and hoped my Red Gems were viable. It would take 7-10 days for me to find out, as the seeds took their time to germinate.

I positioned the pots in my kitchen where they would get the morning sun. Through the window I could see my back garden buried in snow. Were the pots too close to the cold?

Ah! The seeds eventually worked their magic and eight days later sprouts were emerging! During the second week I took photos of each seedling as they made their first appearance.

They doubled in height within a day; and then again. 

Meanwhile, the course progressed. I haven't taken a science course since high school and to say it's not coming easy would be something of an understatement. Do I really need to know the formula for respiration? Details of cell division? 

Yet the way the stems were growing and splitting reminded me of the complex cell division and reproduction, (mitosis and meiosis), that was taking place within the plant membranes. I learned most plants have between five and 30 chromosomes. If we were to measure the length of DNA in all the chromosomes of a single cell, they could be 10-20 meters long. Wow!

Respiration and photosynthesis are essential to all life on earth. Plants would not exist without them, and we would not exist without plants.

I diligently memorized the formulae for respiration and photosynthesis, and then woke up one morning with the realization that the six carbon dioxide molecules and six drinkable water molecules (C6H1206 + 602) that resulted at the end of photosynthesis were the same string that began the process of respiration. Revelation! How did people figure this all out in the first place?

As Robin Wall Kimmerer so eloquently puts it in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, “The very facts of the world are a poem… Respiration - the source of energy that lets us farm and dance and speak. The breath of plants gives life to animals and the breath of animals gives life to plants.”

While it’s true you don’t need in-depth knowledge of biology to plant a seed and watch as it pokes its way through the soil, learning more about how plants grow only increases my wonder.