.
Post by Portia
.
Another of these fun and informative mini films from the Atlas Obscuracrew. Today we learn of a lake in the Himilayas with and extraordinary amount of skeletons there. Is it a burial ground, war grave, diseased lake? We find some wonderful theories and perhaps even the truth in this short film brought to us by the most excited person ever, he’s so cute in his enthusiasm.
I hope you enjoy,
Portia xxx
.
Post by Portia
.
So my mate Ainslie Walker sent me this and through it I was smiling like a fool. It’s SO FREAKING CUTE! Nearly 5 minutes of CuttleFish Facts done in such an entertaining way that you will definitely want to pass on the link. Who knew that CuttleFish were such quiet little creatures of such excellent factoids? Certainly not me.
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
I hope you enjoy True Facts About The CuttleFish as much as I did.
Thanks Ainslie,
Portia xxx
Hey Hey APJ,
Recently Azar sent me this. It’s filled with so many things I love.
When we were kids we went for a holiday to Lord Howe Island with the family. It has long lived in my memory as my favourite family holiday and one on which I caught a stripy tuna which in my memory was bigger than I was at the time at around seven or eight years old. On this holiday we went of a fabulous journey by boat to see Balls Pyramid and it was breathtaking.
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
The island was the perfect place to take children. We were given bikes and told to come home at sunset each day. It was also the first time we had ever been into a Kids Club, where the parents drop off the kids in the morning and you are doing nature walks, riding bikes to beaches where you can hand feed the fish, painting pictures of your adventures and learning so much about the wonderful place we were in. We had the most wonderful young woman for Kids Club, she was soft, dark haired and smelled so good, she smiled a lot and was lavish in her hugs. I was so smitten that when we left I cried and cried. Mum and Dad spent most of their holiday time swimming and reading, eating and chatting with the very few other guests. Back then we stayed at Pine Trees, the only hotel on the island, and I think there were only about 20 rooms. In my memory it was a wonderful, sunlit, blissful adventure. It was also the place that I first discovered Gerald Durrell, the author, and his books have been a constant source of wonder, laughter and delight ever since.
Anyway, here is an incredible story of a creature brought back from the jaws of extinction. FABULOUS!
Portia xx
Hi Crew,
This video has nothing to do with fragrance and everything to do with humanity. I don’t know why it came up in my YouTube feed but it was so unexpected that I watched it. What a fabulous thing it is, yet also very sad when you think how few get saved and how many die.
Photo Stolen WikiCommons
I got so emotionally involved that by the end I had a big cheesy smile on my face.
You may like to go on this journey with 5 people in a metal runabout boat and a humpback whale.
Enjoy,
Portia xxx
.
Post by Azar
.
Hello,
Issaquah promotes itself as a “Tree City USA” and posts that information on its website. I would like to know what it means to be a “Tree City” and wonder how Issaquah can consider itself to be tree friendly.
Over the past three days the acre of old cedars and fir trees adjacent to our property was permitted by the city to be basically “logged off” by a developer. I’m sure a few of these felled trees were growing here well before our house was built in 1969. I spoke with the city several times before this happened hoping that, in line with the tree cutting permit process, some of these large, old trees could be preserved. All that the city was able to manage was the preservation of one large fir, several small acer macrophyllum and a small cedar.
Yesterday the air outside was thick with the odor of cedar and fir sap. Huge piles of logs and limbs were everywhere. A large female bobcat and two almost fully grown kits were running around our yard in fear and climbing our trees, while the backhoe on the adjacent lot ripped the cedar roots from the slope. The day before a large buck wandered through our property looking frightened and puzzled. The whole scene reminded me of the destruction depicted in Hayao Miyazaki’s animated movie Princess Mononoke. How can the city of Issaquah consider itself to be environmentally friendly when it allows this kind of habitat destruction?
According to Issaquah’s website it looks like, with the loss of this acre of trees, we will now have 13 more tons of dust and gas in the atmosphere. I know it is too late, that the damage has been done and cannot be repaired, but I think someone on the city staff should come out here and take a look at this mess before the developer hauls it away! I would like someone on staff to see what the permitting process allows to happen in “Tree City USA”.
Sincerely,
Azar
.
Post by Dionne
.
Greetings, my fellow niche nerds!
This is a post of a different sort than my usual review; call it my “What I Did for Summer Holidays” assignment. Portia has mentioned to me that visiting Banff National Park is on her bucket list (just like seeing Australia is on mine), so I thought I’d let her and you in on one of Alberta’s best-kept secrets and a place very dear to my heart, Waterton Lakes National Park.
First of all, here are some maps to get you oriented:
Photo Stolen Waterton Park
Just to give you an idea of scale, Alberta’s about 1,125 km (760 miles) from top to bottom, bigger than California, smaller than Texas, and almost three times the size of the UK.
Photo Stolen pc.gc.ca
You see that liiiitle green blob in the southwest corner of the map? That’s Waterton. It’s a lot smaller in size than Banff or Jasper, the two much larger green areas on the west edge of the map.
Photo Stolen pc.gc.ca
So here we are in the southwest corner of the province, about a 3 hour drive from Calgary. Waterton shares its southern border with Glacier National Park in the United States, and the two combined are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/354
So with the technical stuff out of the way, it’s time to gush. As much as I love Jasper and Banff, Waterton is a truly special and unique place. As you’ll see from the pictures, the prairies come right to the feet of the mountains, so there is a sense of airiness and grandeur here I’ve never experienced anywhere else. Waterton has been called the “Anti-Banff” because it’s quaint and quiet, with very little development.
Both The Engineer and I had spent time here as kids, and I remember distinctly our first visit back as a young married couple. I said to him, “I feel like a dried-up sponge that’s been thrown back into water. There’s just something about this place.”
Since then, we’ve come back every year. One of the things that struck me on that first visit as an adult was how strong of a scent memory Waterton held. It’s mountain air and water and the prairies all mixed together. Portia asked me what perfumes I wore when we were camping there this year, and I told her I hadn’t worn any. I brought a passel of decants, and I typically enjoy working my way through a bunch of samples whenever I camp but….. I just couldn’t do it. Stepping out of our trailer that first morning and breathing in, I wanted nothing to get in the way of that smell. I thought to myself, “What is that? Is that sage? I wonder if there’s anything that smells like this in perfume form.” So that’s become one of my latest quests, finding a perfume that smells like sage and mountain air, something that reminds me of Waterton. Will I find it? Not sure, but it’s going to be fun trying.
So before I show you some of our family photos, here are a couple of questions for you: 1) Have you ever been somewhere so special you chose not to wear perfume? 2) Sage and mountain air, people. Any recommendations for my sampling quest?
Here’s hoping you all have places that touch your spirit and soothe your soul. Mwah!
Dionne
The Engineer and Dragongirl hiked to the top of Bear’s Hump, a short but steep trail on the edge of the townsite that gives an amazing panoramic view of the area. This is facing south, and it also shows one of the reasons why the town has stayed small. Basically, there’s no room to get bigger.
The same spot facing north. Waterton’s combination of prairie and mountain makes for an extremely diverse and unique biosphere.
Mainstreet. Most of these stores haven’t changed since I was a kid.
The Playground in town.
A plaque at the playground
Our site at Crandell, facing west.
Same spot facing north.
This fellow was in a neighbor’s site. There are deer EVERYWHERE here.
It’s typically for bears to be around the Crandell campground as it’s away from the town, and we usually see one or two every year we come. For some reason, possibly the abundance of berries, we saw three or four *every single day* this year. It got to the point where I just left the camera with the zoom lens on my lap everywhere we drove.
Because of the bears, we saw this sight all the time too, typically referred to as “Bear Jam.” This is on Red Rock Parkway on the way to our campground, there are mountains to the left and the right of this photo.
Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes have this to say about Little Stars
Imagine a hot, steamy night in the jungle. Insects chirping, unseen creatures moving in the leaves and branches, and the heavenly scent of a flower that must be the orchid queen of the night. A rich blend of citrus, neroli, ylang-ylang, clove bud and jasmine on a base of exotic woods, oud, black agar and atlas cedarwood. An unmistakable spicy floral scent that epitomizes white, night-fragrant orchids and the woody branches that they grow on.
Fragrantica goes on to say
The nose behind the fragrance is Ellen Covey. Little Stars is available as a parfum extrait or EdP, and is a rich blend of citrus, orange blossom, ylang-ylang, clove bud and jasmine on a base of exotic woods, balsams, oud, spikenard, black agar and atlas cedarwood. A spicy, woody floral scent reminiscent of white, night-fragrant orchids and the woody branches that they grow on.
OK. Having set the scene, I read about Ellen Covey and her Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes on and around the scentbloggosphere and was intrigued by her story of scientist, orchid grower, life liver and finally perfumer, while still encompassing all previous facets of her life. I love a multi-tasker and am especially impressed when they are able to reach high levels of competence and recognition in more than one field. Inspiring stuff.
If I’m reading correctly, and that is not always a given, Little Stars was the first offering from this perfume house, based on one of Doc Elly’s own night flowering orchids, and it was only through the twisting, turning, persistence and learning curving that it ever came to light for all of us to wonder at.
If you leave me a message in the comments section, one random lucky commenter will win a sample of Little Stars and Osafume (see below), I will draw the winner Sunday March 25 around Midnight Sydney, Australia time. Winner announced in Sunday nights blog, winner will need to get in touch with postal details by Wednesday March 28 or I’ll use the samples myself.
Photo stolen from Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes site
A squeaky opening high and tense opens for about 3 minutes, then a sparkling, glorious, miasma of delicious spicy floral notes all the way to its balmy, balsamic dry down, I don’t get the “hot steamy night in the jungle” at all. This to me reads like the heady getting ready for a party, the arriving, drinking, dancing, a blowsy young romance on a garden seat or in parkland. There is a sexy, animal note beneath the glory of the flowers, spring or autumn, not summer. Actually, thinking about it, as Little Stars warms up it smells like the fragrances of 2 people involved in a tryst melding as they do, along with some of the lighter and pre erotic smells that we give off before the big finish and final act of coupling in the grass. Yes, mind firmly in the gutter with this one, which is funny because it is a beautiful and pretty scent too. Now it’s like the first sniff and bite of a Granny Smith apple, the tangy, tart super-sweetness that makes you pause before chomping away to the core. Over the last 2 hours or so I’ve had it change colours on me a dozen times and I keep coming back to update.
This is for everyone. Men and women can wear this with gay abandon. I think there is something for everyone here. If you’ve not yet met Ellen Covey’s fragrances, please hit one of the links and at least troll through the offerings to acquaint yourself with something new and delicious.
Photo stolen from FragranticaFinding myself at the Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes site for the first time I was so overwhelmed by the breadth of choice that I bought the Standard Sample Pack so I could try everything, I know, absolute fragrance whore here. When they arrived but before I’d got to the perfumes I’d ordered there were 2 extras in the pack, Salamanca and Bay Rum. Well, the Bay Rum is the most ENORMOUS fragrance and I was instantly enamoured. The Significant Other (TSO) Jin could follow my vapour trails around the house to find me, even down to the yard. It’s the ultimate BAM BAM BAM fragrance and I loved it so much it was the first Full Bottle I ordered from the collection (even though technically it was not yet part of the collection; though I see it is now. YAY!!), sometimes I’ll put it on and go and have my afternoon nap bathed in it radiance, delicious.
Beauty on the Outside covered Little Stars in Jan 2011 (read the comments after too, they are just as interesting) Hortus Conclusus August 2010 , an undated Indieperfumes offering gives different insights, Doc Elly (Ellen Covey) the perfumes creator talks about Little Stars July 2010 at her blog The Perfume Project
I gave a sample of another Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfume, Osafume, to my next door neighbour to test with her girlfriends over dinner and they each had to give a different word for it. I thought it would be a fun way to give a short sharp description, so…….
the girls said; Candied, luscious, sweetened, bouquet, fragrance, trail, essence, dainty
Here is what the blurb on the Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes site says.
Photo stolen from Olympic Orchids Artisan Perfumes site
Osafume
A delicate, summery scent inspired by a dainty miniature Japanese orchid, Dendrobium moniliforme. Anise and magnolia combine with heliotrope, vanilla, and white musk to make this light, airy fragrance.
Australian Perfume Junkies 