Month: January 2019

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Top facts about Polination.

MrsDTB here! The following is a short journal entry from MasterKAF. Over to you sir…

I read a thing on Q-files, so here are my top 3 facts I learned.

The smallest flower in the world is called Wolffia, but you might know it as duckweed, yes, that annoying stuff that covers your pond is a flower.

Dandelions can self reproduce, but insects may carry the pollen from one flower to another. However, dandelions have both male and female organs on the same flower. The flowers can pollinate themselves. Thus it only takes one dandelion to reproduce itself and spread quickly over a lawn on a windy day. 

Some flowers are male and female and some are just one gender. This from Q-files: “The male reproductive part of a flower, consisting of an anther and filament, is called a stamen. Pollen is produced in the bag-like anthers on stalks, called filaments. Each pollen grain contains a male cell.”
“The female reproductive organ of a flower, consisting of an ovary, style and stigma, is called a carpel. The female cells or ovules (eggs) are in the ovary, a fleshy part at the flower’s base. A taller part, called the style, sticks up from this, with the stigma at its top. Some flowers have one carpel, while others have a cluster of carpels, called a pistil.”

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All About Bees

This blog is all about bees. How on earth did we decide to write about bees? We watched a documentary called Cities: Natures New Wild. There was a bit about bees and how they had to commute a long way from their nest to get to the flowers. At the end of the programme, there was a message about how we need to make our cities greener to encourage wildlife. A campaign called 10 times greener was mentioned and we decided to look it up online. It turned out that the campaign was run by Friends of the Earth, so we went to visit their website. That’s where we found out much more about bees and how we can help to save them.

We ordered a Bee Saver Kit from the website and it arrived on Friday. The kit contained seeds for the garden, a pamphlet, a bee identification poster and a garden planner. We used the planner to choose some plants for the garden. These were Hellebore, Rosemary, Chives, Raspberry, Runner Beans and Hebe. This will give us some flowers for the next few months to attract more bees into the garden.

You can find out more about the campaign here: https://friendsoftheearth.uk/bees 

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Another journal direct from MasterKAF

Today, I threw myself out of our home and into town, while my mother walked there like a sane person. Then we got a bus to Prospect Park; while on the bus nothing of interest happened, but I think I saw a cute dog at some point.

When the bus finally stopped, I became a human catapult and shot myself into the park, after that I found a platform with a holding bar on it and stupidly got on it and nearly threw up due to the fact that it spun around faster than a… really fast car I guess. When other humans showed up I found another kid (his name was Harry, I think) insert slide shenanigans here after that, we went back into town.

When the second bus threw me across town at high speed I got to a place near home, since we needed to do shopping there we decided to stop and get doughnuts at Greggs, which where the best doughnuts I have ever eaten in my entire life and I need to go back there to consume more of those doughnuts! Anyway, after that we walked into Wilko to buy something (I don’t know what at the time of writing, so don’t sue me please). After we bought the “thing” we went to Smaczek and got some food.

When our trip was finally over we went home and I wrote this thing.

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How Ragnarok is similar to the Christian Creation Story – discuss.

On our walk to the park on Tuesday, MasterKAF and MrsDTB got chatting about Norse Mythology. MasterKAF came up with a theory that Ragnarok ( the end of days story in Norse mythology) leads into the Christian Creation Story. MrsDTB asked him why and this is what he came up with.

For:
2 surviving humans after the events of Ragnarok although they don’t have the same names as in the Bible
There is a serpent in both stories, the Norse snake is called Jormungand. thankfully he gets slain dramatically by Thor. Sadly, Thor is killed by the exhaustion of the whole fight with a snake who is large enough to wrap around the whole world so MasterK says “you’d be tired too!”
Odin’s immortal warriors are known as the Einherjar. Those who survive Ragnarok may be the first group of angels along with any Valkyrie. There might also be some warriors who fought for Freya in Midgard included in the choir.

Against:
The 7 days part from the Bible does not appear in the Ragnorok tale.

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Who knew that there is a ship made from toenails and finger nails in Norse Mythology?

MrsDTB didn’t for one and thus got the shock of her life when MasterKAF announced this over breakfast this morning! MasterKAF is currently reading Magnus Chase and the Ship of The Dead by Rick Riordan.

http://rickriordan.com/book/the-ship-of-the-dead/

This made MrsDTB feel a little queasy but also inquisitive to find out more as we had watched Thor: Ragnarok the day before. It got us to thinking how accurate both the Marvel films and the Rick Riordan books are, when compared with other records of Norse Mythology.

The Magnus Chase book is called The Ship of the Dead. Here is a quick synopsis from the Penguin Randomhouse website:

” Magnus Chase, a once-homeless teen, is a resident of the Hotel Valhalla and one of Odin’s chosen warriors. As the son of Frey, the god of summer, fertility, and health, Magnus isn’t naturally inclined to fighting. But he has strong and steadfast friends, including Hearthstone the elf, Blitzen the dwarf, and Samirah the Valkyrie, and together they have achieved brave deeds, such as defeating Fenris Wolf and battling giants for Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Now Magnus faces his most dangerous trial yet. 

Loki is free from his chains. He’s readying Naglfar, the Ship of the Dead, complete with a host of giants and zombies, to sail against the Asgardian gods and begin the final battle of Ragnarok. It’s up to Magnus and his friends to stop him, but to do so they will have to sail across the oceans of Midgard, Jotunheim, and Niflheim in a desperate race to reach Naglfar before it’s ready to sail. Along the way, they will face angry sea gods, hostile giants, and an evil fire-breathing dragon. But Magnus’s biggest challenge will be facing his own inner demons. Does he have what it takes to outwit the wily trickster god?”

MasterKAF did some further research on Naglfar which is thought to mean Ship of Nails but some call it the Ship of The Damned. It turns out that the etymology of Naglfar has long been a point of discussion and certainly the fact that Riordan refers to both The Ship of Nails and The Ship of The Dead supports this.

MasterKAF also watched an episode or two from Overly Sarcastic Productions which is a really useful and funny YouTube source of information that provides “…summaries of classic and not-so-classic literature and mythology, as well as major historical events!”

Its fair to say that this is not our last post on the topic as we have barely scratched the surface, so keep checking back for more updates.