on the farm

 

a Dutch cow with earrings 

a helpful cat

stepping out of the barn                             in winter

and in summer

 

time

 

In November, I posted another postcard of this Gastown Steam Clock for when the time fell back. Yesterday, the time sprang forward, and for most of British Columbians it will be the last time.  They will stay on daylight saving time forever.  This fills me with hope for the rest of us.

though there has been some pushback, with claims that staying on Standard Time would be a better choice, and now, I'm tending to agree with that.

flora and fauna fun

 

from the Czech Republic

flora 

 
 

 

and fauna

Certain that there must be a story behind this wine guzzling goose, I discovered it is a stamp for St Martin's Day which has a Czech tradition of eating a roast goose with a young vintage of a "svatomartinski vino" - the first wines of a new vintage of fresh, fruity wines that are meant to be drunk within a few months.

street cat

CATURDAY

in the wild

 I hadn't realized just how many of these 'Fauna of Belarus' cards I had. These are some I haven't already posted

not from Belarus, but this poor guy is having a bad feather day and I couldn't resist

apollo moon

There will be a total lunar eclipse today at noon CET ... which will be completely invisible to everyone in Europe.  

this full moon is otherwise known as a blood moon

(and, yes, I did get up to watch it) 

time

I was reading that some U.S. schools are removing analogue clocks because the kids nowadays can't read the time on them.

So, sure, instead of teaching them, some believe they should simply ignore it all in favour of digital clocks.

My thoughts are that we should have more clocks. Clock towers in every town. 

Halifax

      Skegness

       Toronto

Daytona Beach, which conveniently has twelve letters, just to confuse the analogue time learners even more

elephants

an elephant wishing he'd been born a giraffe 

 

 

 

 

and another wishing he'd been born anything else to get out of the circus

pancake week

received from Belarus

sender Olga explained "that this card shows Maslenitsa, a week in February when we bake blini (crepes) and burn a straw effigy to welcome spring"

CATURDAY 

north america cities

Montreal, in winter, may not the wonderland getaway experience you might be looking for

but, at the moment, neither is Havana

 so, how about sunny Santo Domingo?

snow and ice

 it's still winter

four years...

received from Taras, Ukraine

not a dinosaur

This stamp was included in a 2013 series of stamps on dinosaurs and illustrated by John Sibbick.   But, as a pterosaur, the dimorpodon are  related to dinosaurs

but are, in fact, one of the earliest reptiles (and invertebrates) to fly. The first British one was discovered by Mary Anning in Dorset in 1828.

groups

CATURDAY

town squares

This Estonian Town Hall Square has been a marketplace since the middle ages.  It looks like it might just be setting up, or closing down, in this image.  The building on the far left is the town hall and on top of the spire is a weather vane that has been there since 1530.

Below is another town square, this time in Lithuania.  Kaunas is the second largest city in that country and was a temporary capital during the interwar period.  The building in the centre is the town hall. The rivers are the Nemunis and Neris.

and, to round out the Baltic states,  Riga. With another public square in the middle left.  The buildings of the Town Hall Square were all rebuilt as everything was destroyed during WWII.

Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia with northern European cities for Thursday Postcard Hunt

year of the horse

in celebration of the Lunar New Year, a trio of running horses sculpted by Joe Fafard

Gong Xi Fa Cai (Mandarin) or Gong Hei Fat Choi (Cantonese)

C

I was looking through my fishes for a carp and came across this 'csuka', which translates to pike in English.  Below, is a 'ponty' which translates to carp in English.

also known as 'Chambak', on the left is a magnolia and at bottom a thistle with the pretty name of Carline

beret

 

Life Notes of Cat

CATURDAY 

bern

a city with mountains

The taller spire, on the far right, is the Munster, and the shorter one in the middle with the green top is the Church of St Peter and Paul (I think). The bridge in the foreground may be the Kornhausbrucke.

a southern European city for Thursday Postcard Hunt 

casa loma

Possibly, in a totally unscientific poll, this is the most popular building to appear on postcards from Toronto

A 98 room mansion, considered North America's only true castle, a city owned landmark in the middle of Toronto

It is now a museum and event centre

I wrote more about it on my previous blog many years ago which you can read here (and see more postcards)

queen's park

Here is a bird's eye view of Queen's Park with the Ontario Legislative Assembly building, which is always known also as Queen's Park (as is the government)

The statue is of Sir John A MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister.  It has only recently been free of the hoarding that covered it in 2020 after it was vandalized in the wave of protests over the residential schools history.

You will have noticed that all of my parliament building postcards are vintage, some more so than others.  These next two are more recent.  It is not the most popular Toronto landmark to feature on a postcard, which is a shame.

I find it a beautiful old building (and the one I am most familiar with) and the asymmetry is pleasing to my eye. It is a Richardsonian Romanesque style (my favourite) built between 1886 and 1909.

What you can't tell from these, is that there are hundreds of gargoyles and grotesques and other faces (some, even, of the stonemasons who carved them!)

And so ends this tour of the parliament buildings since I don't have any from the three territories, and seem to be missing two provinces: Nova Scotia and Alberta. 

Tomorrow, I'll show what is the most popular building on a Toronto postcard.