#benitz

National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day 

Although it has been rumored that Clean Your Refrigerator Day was started by the Whirlpool Corporation, the origin of this event is lost in the mists of time. The day is a great reminder though, that, to function effectively, our kitchen appliances should be cleaned out once in a while.

Refrigerators can be one of those kitchen appliances that are taken for granted. They keep food cool and prevent it from spoiling. We only notice them when they fail to work or if a foul smell starts emanating from the interior every time we open the door. Food we bought weeks ago can be lurking in the back, uneaten.

So, don your rubber gloves, fill that bucket with warm water and get cleaning. It won’t take long. In fact, a couple of hours will probably do it. The ‘fridge doesn’t even have to be turned off. You’ll thank yourself later.

Look for Circles Day 

A holiday geared towards young children who are learning to recognize shapes, Look for Circles Day is for looking up, down, and every which way in order to identify and point out objects shaped like circles. The day isn't limited to children, however; anyone can look for and point out circles. Circles can be found inside homes, at places of employment, on the street, in nature, and elsewhere.

As the day is directed towards young children who are learning about shapes, one way to celebrate is to encourage them to point out all of the circles they see, and to give them prizes for identifying them. If they are limited in their options for looking for circles, you could give them a worksheet to practice on. As an adult, you could look for circles, and make a list of, or take pictures of, all of the ones you find. Look in your home, look in nature, look while walking down the street, and look wherever you go. You could challenge a friend or a group of friends to a contest to see who can find the most circles. You could look for circles in math: learn some basic circle facts, or dig deeper and do some higher-level geometry or trigonometry and find circles there. You could learn about and look for crop circles. You could look for songs that have "circle" in their title. (Give up?  Here are some.) Finally, you could look for other holidays that are about circles and circular objects. (Can't think of any?  Here is one and here is another.)

National Make Your Bed Day

National Make Your Bed Day is celebrated every year on 11th September. Many people, indeed the most of us don’t make up our beds every morning. So, on this day start practising this good and healthy habit of making your bed every morning once you wake up. Once you start doing this, It will make you feel better and also it is good for your sleep. Start every day with a good habit of doing the first task of the day right after waking up.

“A great night’s sleep can depend on the comfort you feel in your bedroom environment” – National Sleep Foundation.

History of National Make Your Bed Day

The origin and history of National Make Your Bed Day are still unknown. The National Sleep Foundation stated that making your bed can help you to sleep better as it minimizes the number of turning, rolling, and restlessness and improves your sleep which can be good for your health. As stated by the behavioural sleep medicine program the sleep environment that is your bed is the primary element of a good night’s sleep. In a survey organized by the National Sleep Foundation, people who make their bed every morning or often have a better night’s sleep. Fresh bedspreads, dark and neat rooms, and comfortable beds and pillows also play an important factor for a good sleep. So, if you are not making your bed as a routine, start doing it from National Make Your Bed Day for your good night’s sleep.

How to Celebrate National Make Your Bed Day

Celebrate National Make Your Bed Day by practicing the proper habit of making your bed every morning. If you have never made your bed before, take Make Your Bed Day as an opportunity to follow this good practice.

National Garden Meditation Day

National Garden Meditation Day is an annual celebration observed on May 3rd.  In the fast-pacing world, almost everyone has no time to relax. But  relaxation is indeed vital for any human to perform and meditation is  the best of all relaxation therapy. More than any other  place, a garden can be used for meditating as it is the most silent  atmosphere filled with the fresh air and the right amount of sunlight.  So garden meditation is the perfect spot to seek for the inner spiritual  peace. With an aim to encourage people to take time to relax and  meditate in the garden, National Garden Meditation Day has been created.

“Half an hour’s meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.” – Saint Francis de Sales

History of National Garden Meditation Day

The National Garden Meditation Day‘s  history and origin are unclear. But there is a mention that this Day  has been created by the C.L. Fornari aka as the Garden Lady at the  gardenlady.com. Fornari believes that gardens help us connect to  ourselves and with others and to the natural world. Meditation is a  practice where a person focuses on his or her mind on a  particular thought, object, or activity in a way to achieve a mentally  clear and emotionally calm state. It may be done while in the state of  sitting, repeating a mantra, and closing the eyes in a quiet environment  like the garden. It is easy to reduce stress,  depression, anxiety, and pain on doing the meditation. Gardens have a  long history, and they have been seen in every other country. It is a  planned space usually outdoors which people use it cultivate small food  crops, plant flowers and more. For many years, gardens have been used  for other useful purposes including mediation and so is the Day.

How to Celebrate National Garden Meditation Day

Celebrating the National Garden Meditation Day is  quite simple. Anyone can go to the garden in your house to sit and relax  by meditating. Focus on things and relax your heart and soul. You can  even get into spiritual thoughts by chanting mantras.  There are many public garden meditations held all around, and you can  get involved in it. Organize a garden meditation in your home if you  have a large spacious area by inviting your family and friends to take  part in it.

European White Stork, Benitz

Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family called Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes. Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, such as herons and ibises, but those families have been moved to other orders.

Storks dwell in many regions and tend to live in drier habitats than the closely related herons, spoonbills and ibises; they also lack the powder down that those groups use to clean off fish slime. Bill-clattering is an important mode of communication at the nest. Many species are migratory. Most storks eat frogs, fish, insects, earthworms, small birds and small mammals. There are nineteen living species of storks in six genera.

Various terms are used to refer to groups of storks, two frequently used ones being a muster of storks and a phalanx of storks.

Storks tend to use soaring, gliding flight, which conserves energy. Soaring requires thermal air currents. Ottomar Anschütz’s famous 1884 album of photographs of storks inspired the design of Otto Lilienthal's experimental gliders of the late nineteenth century. Storks are heavy, with wide wingspans: the marabou stork, with a wingspan of 3.2 m (10 ft) and weight up to 8 kg (18 lb), joins the Andean condor in having the widest wingspan of all living land birds.

Their nests are often very large and may be used for many years. Some nests have been known to grow to over two metres (six feet) in diameter and about three metres (ten feet) in depth. Storks were once thought to be monogamous, but this is only partially true. They may change mates after migrations, and may migrate without a mate.

Storks’ size, serial monogamy, and faithfulness to an established nesting site contribute to their prominence in mythology and culture.

Cottage Garden, Benitz (No. 2)

Cottage gardens, which emerged in Elizabethan times, appear to have originated as a local source for herbs and fruits. One theory is that they arose out of the Black Death of the 1340s, when the death of so many laborers made land available for small cottages with personal gardens. According to the late 19th-century legend of origin, these gardens were originally created by the workers that lived in the cottages of the villages, to provide them with food and herbs, with flowers planted in for decoration. Helen Leach analysed the historical origins of the romanticised cottage garden, subjecting the garden style to rigorous historical analysis, along with the ornamental potager and the herb garden. She concluded that their origins were less in workingmen's gardens in the 19th century and more in the leisured classes' discovery of simple hardy plants, in part through the writings of John Claudius Loudon. Loudon helped to design the estate at Great Tew, Oxfordshire, where farm workers were provided with cottages that had architectural quality set in a smallholding or large garden—about an acre—where they could grow food and keep pigs and chickens.

Authentic gardens of the yeoman cottager would have included a beehive and livestock, and frequently a pig and sty, along with a well. The peasant cottager of medieval times was more interested in meat than flowers, with herbs grown for medicinal use and cooking, rather than for their beauty. By Elizabethan times there was more prosperity, and thus more room to grow flowers. Even the early cottage garden flowers typically had their practical use—violets were spread on the floor (for their pleasant scent and keeping out vermin); calendulas and primroses were both attractive and used in cooking. Others, such as sweet william and hollyhocks were grown entirely for their beauty.

Cottage Garden, Benitz (No. 1)

The cottage garden is a distinct style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. Homely and functional gardens connected to working-class cottages go back centuries, but their stylized reinvention occurred in 1870s England, as a reaction to the more structured, rigorously maintained estate gardens with their formal designs and mass plantings of greenhouse annuals.

The earliest cottage gardens were more practical than today's, with emphasis on vegetables and herbs, fruit trees, perhaps a beehive, and even livestock. Flowers, used to fill spaces, gradually became more dominant. The traditional cottage garden was usually enclosed, perhaps with a rose-bowered gateway. Flowers common to early cottage gardens included traditional florists' flowers such as primroses and violets, along with flowers with household use such as calendula and various herbs. Others were the richly scented old-fashioned roses that bloomed once a year, and simple flowers like daisies. In time, cottage-garden sections were added to some large estate gardens as well.

Modern cottage gardens include countless regional and personal variations and embrace plant materials, such as ornamental grasses or native plants not seen in the rural gardens of cottagers. Traditional roses, with their full fragrance and lush foliage, continue to be a cottage-garden mainstay—along with modern disease-resistant varieties that retain traditional attributes. Informal climbing plants, whether traditional or modern hybrids, are also common, as are the self-sowing annuals and freely spreading perennials favoured in traditional cottagers' gardens.

Hasta un próximo prost!

#Apuntes BW Turismo

Cerrando la jornada de celebraciones en honor a la fiesta de la cerveza y mes de la cultura alemana, el pasado fin de semana se vivió con júbilo un sinfín de sorpresas en el Oktoberfest Colonia Tovar.

Este año, además de ver como se multiplicaron las invitaciones se superaron expectativas e incluso algunos récords de asistencia al evento que año tras año organiza la comunidad…