December 27, 2023 a thought for today, A courtyard common to all will be swept by none. Chinese Proverb

My first upload for yesterday is “candle”.  I found this one in my collection of Christmas ornaments as I was making room in my storage container. It gave itself an appearance in the last few hours of Christmas. 

The second upload for yesterday was “on the shelf”. This is as close as I can come to an elf on the shelf. He was among the other items I found in that storage container of Christmas decorations. 

The third upload for yesterday was “Christmas: wishes”. My wish like so many others is peace all around and peace for all peoples. Its here, it just has to be found. 

Life today. This is a food pantry day. I have already gone and come. I was a very slow day. On these kinds of days there is time for us not only to get to know the clients a little better. There is also time for more bonding with other volunteers and church friends. 

There isn’t much else going on here at the house. I had to put a bit of a rush on the bulletin because I didn’t get all the information I needed until I got home from pantry. I finished that as quickly as I could and just emailed it for proof reading and other checks from the lay reader and the person who is giving the message. 

The first upload for today is “half full”. I found a half full coffee decanter but I have used that in the past so I decided to look for another “half full”. I decided this decorative plant of frosted cookies would be interesting. 

This Christmas season celebrations for the family has been a bit on the uncertain side, all four of my great grandchildren have had fevers and two of the adults are a little under the weather so meet ups have been difficult to arrange. My first part of the family was on the up side. Everyone was well. We had a huge meal and a happy time exchanging gifts and visiting. The plan is for the rest of my family to meet on New Years Day.

There have also been memories of Bob for all of us, to be expected. The days after Thanksgiving were sad for me and I expect it will happen after Christmas. He is in my thoughts every minute.

After all of that it will be time to start putting the decorations away and getting back to “normal” and to begin a whole new and different year. 

The next upload for today is “bokeh”. (In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image, caused by circles of confusion.....a circle of confusion is an optical spot caused by a cone of light rays from a lens not coming to a perfect focus when imaging a point source.). This is my Christmas tree lights with the required bokeh as well as a filter to generate this image. 

The word today is season. Oh, the long and dreary winter! Oh, the cold and cruel winter! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been! Percy Bysshe Shelley.  Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come. Thomas Carlyle.  Spring is sooner recognized by plants than by men, Chinese Proverb.  For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land, Solomon.  Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress, Charles Dickens.  We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne. Marcus Aurelius.  Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. John Donne.  It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs. Edmund Burke.

The third and last image for today is “food”.....my specialty.... McDonalds. It is a regular stop on most of my outings. This is their delicious fish sandwich and fried. 

The story. I visit some sites where I get the “news” articles I like to share. One is called theconversation.com. This is one of the stories from that site, written by a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and a Research Fellow in Animal Welfare Science.  It is an interesting view of what would happen to dogs if people weren’t around. Dogs hold the title of the most successful domesticated species on earth. They were bred and trained to take “functional roles that benefitted us, such as herding, hunting and guarding......and companionship”.  In the beginning of this article it is mentioned that dogs have certain problems that some humans often experience. Some dogs, those with pushed up faces and shortened noses,  have “constricted nasal passages with shortened airways” which cause “air hunger” like folks with asthma can suffer from. Some dogs suffer from skin, eye and dental problems. Here’s one that surprised me, some dogs “depend on human medical intervention to reproduce”. It seems French Bulldogs and Chihuahuas may need caesarean sections to birth puppies. Some dogs seem to need to be or thrive in a human family while others can  “live highly isolated” lives. The article goes on to say that if there were no humans in their lives the “impact would be stark”. Some dogs depend on us for food, shelter and health care. Others dogs as in Europe, Africa and Asia are “free-ranging”. Some dogs in this group are dependant on “human-made resources” as garbage and handouts. These animals as with other animals in the wild must have survival instincts for hunting, be disease resistant, have instincts to raise their young and to be sociable. It went on to mention that size is also a factor in their survival along with behavioral tendencies. The article continued by pronouncing that “a different type of dog would emerge, shaped by health and behaviourial success rather than human desires”. A different looking dog would emerge due to breeding of different species with other species. It is predicted that they would be medium size, short coasts, upright ears and tails Another difference would occur in difference regions resulting in heavier costs due to climate. They would return to the wild and develop annual breeding and social hunting. My own note....that is what it would be like for dogs to live without humans, my thoughts are how would humans do without dogs.

I think I am having hot dogs and potato salad for dinner. 

Joy

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