WINTRY SUNRISE

A beautiful wintry sunrise from my window.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme.

CHINESE PLUM

Prunus mume is an Asian tree species classified in the Armeniaca section of the genus Prunus subgenus Prunus. Its common names include Chinese plum and Japanese apricot. The flower is usually called plum blossom. This distinct tree species is related to both the plum and apricot trees. Although generally referred to as a plum in English, it is more closely related to the apricot.

In Chinese, Japanese and Korean cooking, the fruit of the tree is used in juices, as a flavouring for alcohol, as a pickle and in sauces. It is also used in traditional medicine. The tree's flowering in late winter and early spring is highly regarded as a seasonal symbol. It is flowering now in Melbourne, which is a little early! Our July is equivalent to the Northern Hemisphere January. Nevertheless, it does look splendid...

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

Zzzz...

Let sleeping dogs lie...
  (Idiomatic) To leave things as they are; especially, to avoid restarting or rekindling an old argument; to leave disagreements in the past.

Zzzz
An onomatopoeic term for snoring, or an implication of sleep.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

BALLARAT, AUSTRALIA

Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately 105 kilometres west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth most populated inland city in Australia. The estimated urban area population is close to 100,000 inhabitants. It was named by Scottish settler Archibald Yuille who established the sheep run called Ballaarat in 1837 with the name derived from local Wathaurong Aboriginal words for the area, balla arat, thought to mean "resting place". The present spelling was officially adopted in 1996.

It is one of the most significant Victorian era boomtowns in Australia. Just months after Victoria was granted separation from New South Wales, the Victorian gold rush transformed Ballarat from a small sheep station to a major settlement. Gold was discovered at Poverty Point on 18 August 1851 and news quickly spread of rich alluvial fields where gold could easily be extracted. Within months, approximately 20,000 migrants had rushed the district. Unlike many other gold rush boom towns, the Ballarat fields experienced sustained yields. 

Ballarat was the site of the Eureka Rebellion, the only armed civil uprising in Australian history, which took place on 3 December 1854 at the Eureka Mining Lead, and the event is controversially identified with the birth of democracy in Australia. Many significant Australian cultural icons are also a legacy of Ballarat's gold rush boom. The rebellion's symbol, the Eureka Flag has become a national symbol and is held at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Australia's oldest and largest regional gallery. Other nationally significant heritage structures include the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, established 1857, the best example of a regional botanic gardens in Australia with the greatest concentration of public statuary including the official Prime Ministers Avenue; the longest running lyric theatre building, Her Majesty's, established 1875; the first municipal observatory, established 1886; and the earliest and longest memorial avenue, the Avenue of Honour, established between 1917 and 1919.

Several Australian mining innovations were made at the Ballarat diggings including the first use of a Chilean mill in 1851 and the first use of a safety cage in 1861. Proclaimed a city in 1871, its prosperity continued until late in the 19th century, after which its importance relative to both Melbourne and Geelong rapidly faded with the slowing of gold extraction. It has endured as a major regional centre hosting the rowing and kayaking events from the 1956 Summer Olympics. It is the commercial capital of the Central Highlands and the largest city in the Goldfields region of Victoria—a significant tourist destination. Ballarat is known for its history, culture and its well preserved Victorian era heritage.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

WINTER PATCHWORK

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Macro Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

MY SUNDAY BEST MEME #73 - ROMANTIC

Welcome to the meme, "My Sunday Best", which is a photographic and creative meme that allows you to showcase your talents in imaging. Every Sunday, you can post here showing an image you have created using your camera, (and/or) image processing software, and/or painting and drawing in the conventional way and have scanned in.

The rules are simple:
1) Create your image and post it up on your blog;
2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;
3) Leave a comment here once you have posted;
4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity!

Please do not use this meme to advertise your goods or services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments shall be removed immediately!

This post is part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

TAWNY FROGMOUTH

The tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) is a species of frogmouth native to and found throughout the Australian mainland and Tasmania. Tawny frogmouths are big-headed, stocky birds often mistaken for owls due to their nocturnal habits and similar colouring. The tawny frogmouth is sometimes incorrectly referred to as "mopoke", a common name for the southern boobook, whose call is often confused with the tawny frogmouth's.

Tawny frogmouths are large, big-headed birds that can measure from 34 to 53 cm long. Weights have been recorded up to 680 g in the wild (and perhaps even more in captivity), but these are exceptionally high. Tawny frogmouths are stocky and compact with rounded wings and short legs. They have wide, heavy, olive-grey to blackish bills that are hooked at the tip and topped with distinctive tufts of bristles. Their eyes are large, yellow, and frontally placed, a trait shared by owls.

One of the best examples of cryptic plumage and mimicry in Australian birds is seen in the tawny frogmouth which perch low on tree branches during the day camouflaged as part of the tree. Their silvery-grey plumage patterned with white, black, and brown streaks and mottles allows them to freeze into the form of a broken tree branch and become practically invisible in broad daylight. The tawny frogmouth often chooses a broken part of a tree branch and perches upon it with its head thrust upwards at an acute angle using its very large, broad beak to emphasise the resemblance.

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,

and also part of the Camera Critters meme,

and also part of the I'd Rather Be Birdin' meme.

FAIRFIELD SUNRISE

Winter sunrise at the Fairfield Railway Station, close to where I live.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
Friday Photo Journal meme.

NATIVE LILAC HIBISCUS

Alyogyne huegelii is a flowering plant found in the Southwest botanical province of Western Australia, extending along its entire coastline. A large flowered shrub, the species favours the sands of coastal shrublands and heath. The large flower, highly variable in colour, is similar to that of Hibiscus. It was previously placed in that genus, and is commonly named "Lilac Hibiscus". It is widely cultivated as a flowering plant for the garden, but the varieties and cultivars previously published are no longer formally recognised.

Alyogyne is a shrub to four metres with many alternate branches, although lower ones may be sparse. Bright green leaves are divided in three to five in outline; margins are irregular, lobate to toothed; pubescent and strongly veined lobes are coarse in shape. The flowerstalk at the leaf axil is long, tilting at the single flower. The flowers have five luminous petals up to 70 mm long, these are overlapping and have slight ridges. The colour is cream or mauve, or the lilac of the name by which it is traded. The staminal tube structure contains numerous whorled anthers, these are yellow. The five styles of this are fused until the tip, which is composed of swollen and apparently divided stigma. This is supported on a five-lobed calyx, within an arrangement of up to 10 partly fused bracts.

As with all the Malvales, the flowers last around a day – becoming deeply coloured and papery when spent. They are numerous in the long flowering period in Australia being between June and January.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

YOLK VS WHITE IN EGGS

For a few decades, up till recently, eggs had a rather unwholesome reputation. Thanks to the high cholesterol of the yolk, the egg was deemed harmful to eat. Years went by while many of us avoided eggs, or perhaps ate only the whites, or used egg substitutes.

in 2000, the American Heart Association (AHA) revised its dietary guidelines and gave healthy adults the green light to enjoy eggs once again. The AHA's guidelines now allow an egg a day for healthy adults while still advising a total daily cholesterol limit of 300 mg.

The cholesterol in eggs has almost no effect on your blood cholesterol levels. Your cholesterol levels are more influenced by the saturated and trans fat you eat. This means what you eat with your eggs matters more than the eggs themselves. Choose wholegrain rather than white bread and leave out the bacon and butter. Try eating eggs with vegetables such as spinach, mushroom, tomato and avocado.

This post is part of the ABC Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.