Nancy and Plum - and Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
Don Woodfin was a very good friend of Betty and Donald MacDonald.
Don's son, artist and poet Perry Woodfin is Betty MacDonald fan club honor member.
More news during April!
Yours,
Greta
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Thrills of Owning a Chicken Ranch
One hundred years ago today, Vashon Island's own Betty MacDonald was born. The author of The Egg & I, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and many other books, MacDonald garnered a worldwide following and still has millions of fans today.
Why do I care? Number one, if you can't celebrate your local heroes, what the F can you do? Number two, my grandfather Don Woodfin
had a chicken farm in Lisabeula (an area on Vashon) in the 1940s and
'50s, and was a good friend of Betty and her family. He built them a
barn,
chicken coup, and caretaker house, all of which are now recognized
National Historical Landmarks. Don was immortalized as "the
unforgettable Marine" in Betty's book Onions in the Stew,
her story of life on Vashon. After 9/11, many members of the
international Betty MacDonald Fan Club e-mailed me to offer their best
wishes and let us know that they were thinking of us, all because he had
built her barn. It was really nice.
history
Don't miss this very special book, please.
Betty MacDonald forum
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )
Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
Betty MacDonald fan club items
Betty MacDonald fan club items - comments
Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I
Betty MacDonald fan club groups
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund
Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles
Who knew Wisconsin would become a battleground state in the 2016 presidential primaries? Today, Republican voters played a significant role in what comes next for frontrunner Donald Trump. And Democratic voters gave fresh momentum to Bernie Sanders in his challenge to frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Early voter turnout here was strong, much as it has been for other states historically non-factors in past presidential primaries. This could be the highest turnout since the 1980 campaign.
The polls in the Badger state were not kind to Trump, the billionaire businessman viewed by many Wisconsin voters as unkind himself. Many predicted Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who's backed by Gov. Scott Walker, would walk away with Wisconsin.
And he did.
Denying Trump most of the 42 GOP delegates will virtually assure a convention fight in Cleveland this summer for the nomination.
“It’s clear that Ted Cruz is going to win the state.
The only question is, what is his margin?” Decision Desk HQ analyst Jeff
Blehar told Patch before the primary votes were cast.Cruz needed
a commanding victory here to thwart Trump's push for delegates, which
is why so many establishment Republicans who don't necessarily like Cruz
supported him.
Cruz led in every major state poll except for one, conducted by the American Research Group. In that poll, which has a 5 percent margin of error, Trump had a 10-point lead over Cruz. The RealClearPolitics average of major state polls showed Cruz with a 4.7-point lead over Trump on primary day.
"Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura or ume tree. The custom is said to have started during the Nara Period when it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the Heian Period, cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and hanami was synonymous with sakura. From then on, in both waka and haiku, "flowers" meant "cherry blossoms". The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to samurai society and, by the Edo period, to the common people as well. Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts.
Every year the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the public track the sakura zensen as it moves northward up the archipelago with the approach of warmer weather via nightly forecasts following the weather segment of news programs. The blossoming begins in Okinawa in January and typically reaches Kyoto and Tokyo at the end of March or the beginning of April. It proceeds into areas at the higher altitudes and northward, arriving in Hokkaidō a few weeks later. Japanese pay close attention to these forecasts and turn out in large numbers at parks, shrines, and temples with family and friends to hold flower-viewing parties. Hanami festivals celebrate the beauty of the cherry blossom and for many are a chance to relax and enjoy the beautiful view. The custom of hanami dates back many centuries in Japan. The eighth-century chronicle Nihon Shoki records hanami festivals being held as early as the third century AD.
Most Japanese schools and public buildings have cherry blossom trees outside of them. Since the fiscal and school year both begin in April, in many parts of Honshū, the first day of work or school coincides with the cherry blossom season.
The Japan Cherry Blossom Association developed a list of Japan's Top 100 Cherry Blossom Spots with at least one location in every prefecture.
The Sakurakai or Cherry Blossom Society was the name chosen by young officers within the Imperial Japanese Army in September 1930 for their secret society established with the goal of reorganizing the state along totalitarian militaristic lines, via a military coup d'état if necessary.
During World War II, the cherry blossom was used to motivate the Japanese people, to stoke nationalism and militarism among the populace. Even prior to the war, they were used in propaganda to inspire "Japanese spirit," as in the "Song of Young Japan," exulting in "warriors" who were "ready like the myriad cherry blossoms to scatter." In 1932, Akiko Yosano's poetry urged Japanese soldiers to endure sufferings in China and compared the dead soldiers to cherry blossoms. Arguments that the plans for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, involving all Japanese ships, would expose Japan to serious danger if they failed, were countered with the plea that the Navy be permitted to "bloom as flowers of death." The last message of the forces on Peleliu was "Sakura, Sakura" — cherry blossoms. Japanese pilots would paint them on the sides of their planes before embarking on a suicide mission, or even take branches of the trees with them on their missions. A cherry blossom painted on the side of the bomber symbolized the intensity and ephemerality of life; in this way, the aesthetic association was altered such that falling cherry petals came to represent the sacrifice of youth in suicide missions to honor the emperor. The first kamikaze unit had a subunit called Yamazakura or wild cherry blossom. The government even encouraged the people to believe that the souls of downed warriors were reincarnated in the blossoms.
In its colonial enterprises, imperial Japan often planted cherry trees as a means of "claiming occupied territory as Japanese space".
Cherry blossoms are a prevalent symbol in Irezumi, the traditional art of Japanese tattoos. In tattoo art, cherry blossoms are often combined with other classic Japanese symbols like koi fish, dragons or tigers.
Winter sakura or fuyuzakura begins to bloom in the fall and continues blooming sporadically throughout the winter. It is said to be a cross between edohiganzakura, the Tokyo Higan cherry and mamezakura.
Other categories include yamazakura, yaezakura, and shidarezakura. The yaezakura have large flowers, thick with rich pink petals. The shidarezakura, or weeping cherry, has branches that fall like those of a weeping willow, bearing cascades of pink flowers.
The garden was designed by Ken Nakajima, a world-renowned designer of Japanese gardens at the time. The first stage was opened in 1979, with a second stage opened in 1986.
The gardens were designed in the style of the Edo period and are a kaiyū-shiki or strolling garden. They are designed to show all of the landscape types of Japan. At five hectares, the Cowra Japanese Garden is the largest Japanese garden in the Southern Hemisphere. An annual cherry blossom festival is a major event in Cowra's tourism calendar and is held in the gardens during September.
In the capital city of Parana, the first seedlings were brought by Japanese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, but large quantities of them were only planted from the 1990s, with the opening of the Botanical Garden of Curitiba. Nowadays the seedlings are produced locally and used in afforestation of streets and squares – as in the Japanese Square, where there are more than 30 cherry trees around the square which were sent by the Japanese Empire to Curitiba.
High Park in Toronto, Ontario features many Somei-Yoshino cherry trees that were given to Toronto by Japan in 1959. Through the Sakura Project, the Japanese Consulate donated a further 34 cherry trees to High Park in 2001, plus cherry trees to various other locations like Exhibition Place, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto's main and Scarborough campuses. Niagara Falls also has many near the Falls itself. Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington and Hamilton was also the recipient of a number of Somei-Yoshino cherry trees that were donated by the Consulate-General of Japan in Toronto as part of the Sakura Project. The trees are located in the Arboretum and the Rock Garden and were planted to celebrate the continual strengthening of friendship between Japan and Canada. Peak bloom time at Royal Botanical Gardens is normally around the last week of April or the first week of May.
Prunus cerasoides is wild Himalayan cherry and sour cherry, known in Hindi as padma or padmakashtha, is a deciduous cherry tree found in parts of East, South and Southeast Asia. It is of the family Rosaceae and the genus Prunus.
Don't miss this very special book, please.
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald fan clubBetty MacDonald forum
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )
Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
Betty MacDonald fan club items
Betty MacDonald fan club items - comments
Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I
Betty MacDonald fan club groups
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund
Linde Lund shared Rita Knobel-Ulrich's photo.
Wisconsin Presidential Primary: Donald Trump Lost Big in Crucial Contest
"It's clear that Ted Cruz is going to win," analyst tells Patch. The only question, is how big. Check our live election results.
Waukesha, WI
Who knew Wisconsin would become a battleground state in the 2016 presidential primaries? Today, Republican voters played a significant role in what comes next for frontrunner Donald Trump. And Democratic voters gave fresh momentum to Bernie Sanders in his challenge to frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Early voter turnout here was strong, much as it has been for other states historically non-factors in past presidential primaries. This could be the highest turnout since the 1980 campaign.
The polls in the Badger state were not kind to Trump, the billionaire businessman viewed by many Wisconsin voters as unkind himself. Many predicted Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who's backed by Gov. Scott Walker, would walk away with Wisconsin.
And he did.
Denying Trump most of the 42 GOP delegates will virtually assure a convention fight in Cleveland this summer for the nomination.
Cruz led in every major state poll except for one, conducted by the American Research Group. In that poll, which has a 5 percent margin of error, Trump had a 10-point lead over Cruz. The RealClearPolitics average of major state polls showed Cruz with a 4.7-point lead over Trump on primary day.
Cherry blossom
Share it!
Cherry blossom: Flower viewing
"Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura or ume tree. The custom is said to have started during the Nara Period when it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the Heian Period, cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and hanami was synonymous with sakura. From then on, in both waka and haiku, "flowers" meant "cherry blossoms". The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to samurai society and, by the Edo period, to the common people as well. Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts.
Every year the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the public track the sakura zensen as it moves northward up the archipelago with the approach of warmer weather via nightly forecasts following the weather segment of news programs. The blossoming begins in Okinawa in January and typically reaches Kyoto and Tokyo at the end of March or the beginning of April. It proceeds into areas at the higher altitudes and northward, arriving in Hokkaidō a few weeks later. Japanese pay close attention to these forecasts and turn out in large numbers at parks, shrines, and temples with family and friends to hold flower-viewing parties. Hanami festivals celebrate the beauty of the cherry blossom and for many are a chance to relax and enjoy the beautiful view. The custom of hanami dates back many centuries in Japan. The eighth-century chronicle Nihon Shoki records hanami festivals being held as early as the third century AD.
Most Japanese schools and public buildings have cherry blossom trees outside of them. Since the fiscal and school year both begin in April, in many parts of Honshū, the first day of work or school coincides with the cherry blossom season.
The Japan Cherry Blossom Association developed a list of Japan's Top 100 Cherry Blossom Spots with at least one location in every prefecture.
Cherry blossom: Symbolism
In Japan, cherry blossoms symbolize clouds due to their nature of blooming en masse, besides being an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life, an aspect of Japanese cultural tradition that is often associated with Buddhist influence, and which is embodied in the concept of mono no aware. The association of the cherry blossom with mono no aware dates back to 18th-century scholar Motoori Norinaga. The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality; for this reason, cherry blossoms are richly symbolic, and have been utilized often in Japanese art, manga, anime, and film, as well as at musical performances for ambient effect. There is at least one popular folk song, originally meant for the shakuhachi, titled "Sakura", and several pop songs. The flower is also represented on all manner of consumer goods in Japan, including kimono, stationery, and dishware.The Sakurakai or Cherry Blossom Society was the name chosen by young officers within the Imperial Japanese Army in September 1930 for their secret society established with the goal of reorganizing the state along totalitarian militaristic lines, via a military coup d'état if necessary.
During World War II, the cherry blossom was used to motivate the Japanese people, to stoke nationalism and militarism among the populace. Even prior to the war, they were used in propaganda to inspire "Japanese spirit," as in the "Song of Young Japan," exulting in "warriors" who were "ready like the myriad cherry blossoms to scatter." In 1932, Akiko Yosano's poetry urged Japanese soldiers to endure sufferings in China and compared the dead soldiers to cherry blossoms. Arguments that the plans for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, involving all Japanese ships, would expose Japan to serious danger if they failed, were countered with the plea that the Navy be permitted to "bloom as flowers of death." The last message of the forces on Peleliu was "Sakura, Sakura" — cherry blossoms. Japanese pilots would paint them on the sides of their planes before embarking on a suicide mission, or even take branches of the trees with them on their missions. A cherry blossom painted on the side of the bomber symbolized the intensity and ephemerality of life; in this way, the aesthetic association was altered such that falling cherry petals came to represent the sacrifice of youth in suicide missions to honor the emperor. The first kamikaze unit had a subunit called Yamazakura or wild cherry blossom. The government even encouraged the people to believe that the souls of downed warriors were reincarnated in the blossoms.
In its colonial enterprises, imperial Japan often planted cherry trees as a means of "claiming occupied territory as Japanese space".
Cherry blossoms are a prevalent symbol in Irezumi, the traditional art of Japanese tattoos. In tattoo art, cherry blossoms are often combined with other classic Japanese symbols like koi fish, dragons or tigers.
Cherry blossom: Varieties and blooming
The following species, hybrids, and varieties are used for sakura:- Prunus apetala var. pilosa
- Prunus campanulata
- Prunus ×furuseana
- Prunus incisa var. incisa
- Prunus incisa var. kinkiensis
- Prunus ×introrsa
- Prunus ×kanzakura
- Prunus ×miyoshii
- Prunus ×parvifolia
- Prunus pendula
- Prunus ×sacra
- Prunus sargentii
- Prunus serrulata
- Prunus ×sieboldii
- Prunus ×subhirtella
- Prunus ×syodoi
- Prunus ×tajimensis
- Prunus ×takenakae
- Prunus verecunda
- Prunus ×yedoensis
Winter sakura or fuyuzakura begins to bloom in the fall and continues blooming sporadically throughout the winter. It is said to be a cross between edohiganzakura, the Tokyo Higan cherry and mamezakura.
Other categories include yamazakura, yaezakura, and shidarezakura. The yaezakura have large flowers, thick with rich pink petals. The shidarezakura, or weeping cherry, has branches that fall like those of a weeping willow, bearing cascades of pink flowers.
Cherry blossom: By country
Australia
During World War II, a prisoner of war camp near the town of Cowra in New South Wales, Australia was the site of one of the largest prison escapes of the war, on 5 August 1944. During the Cowra breakout and subsequent rounding up of POWs, four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese soldiers died and 108 prisoners were wounded. The Japanese War Cemetery holding the dead from the Breakout was tended to after WWII by members of the Cowra RSL and ceded to Japan in 1963. In 1971 the Cowra Tourism Development decided to celebrate this link to Japan, and proposed a Japanese garden for the town. The Japanese government agreed to support this development as a sign of thanks for the respectful treatment of their war dead; the development also received funding from the Australian government and private entities.The garden was designed by Ken Nakajima, a world-renowned designer of Japanese gardens at the time. The first stage was opened in 1979, with a second stage opened in 1986.
The gardens were designed in the style of the Edo period and are a kaiyū-shiki or strolling garden. They are designed to show all of the landscape types of Japan. At five hectares, the Cowra Japanese Garden is the largest Japanese garden in the Southern Hemisphere. An annual cherry blossom festival is a major event in Cowra's tourism calendar and is held in the gardens during September.
Brazil
With the Japanese diaspora to Brazil, many immigrants brought seedlings of cherry trees. In São Paulo State, home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan, it is common to find them in Japan-related facilities and in some homes, usually of the cultivars Prunus serrulata 'Yukiwari' and Prunus serrulata var. lannesiana 'Himalaya'. Some cities, as Garça and Campos do Jordão, have annual festivals to celebrate the blooming of the trees and the Japanese culture. In the Parana State, many cities received many of these immigrants, who planted the trees, as in Apucarana, Maringá, Cascavel and especially in the capital city of Curitiba.In the capital city of Parana, the first seedlings were brought by Japanese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, but large quantities of them were only planted from the 1990s, with the opening of the Botanical Garden of Curitiba. Nowadays the seedlings are produced locally and used in afforestation of streets and squares – as in the Japanese Square, where there are more than 30 cherry trees around the square which were sent by the Japanese Empire to Curitiba.
Canada
Vancouver, BC is famous for its thousands of cherry trees lining many streets and in many parks, including Queen Elizabeth Park and Stanley Park. Vancouver holds the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival every year. With multiple varieties and a temperate climate, they begin to bloom in February yearly and peak in April.High Park in Toronto, Ontario features many Somei-Yoshino cherry trees that were given to Toronto by Japan in 1959. Through the Sakura Project, the Japanese Consulate donated a further 34 cherry trees to High Park in 2001, plus cherry trees to various other locations like Exhibition Place, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto's main and Scarborough campuses. Niagara Falls also has many near the Falls itself. Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington and Hamilton was also the recipient of a number of Somei-Yoshino cherry trees that were donated by the Consulate-General of Japan in Toronto as part of the Sakura Project. The trees are located in the Arboretum and the Rock Garden and were planted to celebrate the continual strengthening of friendship between Japan and Canada. Peak bloom time at Royal Botanical Gardens is normally around the last week of April or the first week of May.
China
Cherry trees naturally grow in the middle northern or southern part of China, the area nearby the sea. However, the most famous cherry blossom parks in China reflect Japan's brief occupation of parts of China during the first half of the 20th century or the donation from Japan thereafter:- Longwangtang Cherry Blossom Park in Lushun, Dalian, Liaoning
- East Lake Cherry Blossom Park near Wuhan University, in Donghu District, Wuhan, Hubei
- Wuhan University, in Donghu District, Wuhan, Hubei
- Nanshan Botanical Garden in Nan'an District, Chongqing
France
Parc de Sceaux, located in a suburb of Paris, has two orchards of cherry trees, one for white cherry blossoms and one for pink cherry blossoms, the later with about 150 trees that attract many visitors when they bloom in early April.Germany
The cherry blossom is a major tourist attraction in Germany's Altes Land orchard region. The largest Hanami in Germany, in Hamburg, with Japanese-style fireworks, organized by the German-Japanese society, draws tens of thousands spectators every spring. Starting in 2015, Hamburg will be allowed to bestow the title of "Cherry Blossom Queen" by the Japan Cherry Blossom Association, one of only three cities worldwide to receive this privilege. The first Cherry Blossom Queen of Hamburg will be crowned by the Cherry Blossom Queen of Japan on May 23.India
In India, cherry blossom is attraction as well, most notably in Himalayan states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Sikkim & northern districts of West Bengal of Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling. Temple towns like Kalpa, Sarahan, Chitkul, Sangla and Narkanda are notable for their wild cherry blossom during spring covering Himalayan foothills. They can also be seen in various British-era botanical gardens especially in Nilgiri Hills, Garo Hills, Khasi Hills as well as in some hill stations in the Western Ghats.Prunus cerasoides is wild Himalayan cherry and sour cherry, known in Hindi as padma or padmakashtha, is a deciduous cherry tree found in parts of East, South and Southeast Asia. It is of the family Rosaceae and the genus Prunus.
