Thread:61Storm/@comment-29709319-20190401001525/@comment-29709319-20190414015221

National Themes For April 14th: National Gardening Day, National Reach as High as You Can Day, National Pan American Day, National Ex Spouse Day, National Dolphin Day, and National Pecan Day.

⛲️National Gardening Day! Whether you want to grow vegetables, fruit, flowers, houseplants, or anything in between, National Gardening Day is a day to start. Growing your own food also lets you provide fresh and natural nourishment for your family for a fraction of grocery store prices. National Gardening Day is a call to action to get out and grow flower or vegetable gardens regardless of whether you plant in the ground, in containers, in straw bales or a square foot gardening box. Cool Springs Press, an imprint of The Quarto Group, founded National Gardening Day to celebrate gardening and to encourage home gardeners and students to learn more about how to garden. Cool Springs Press, an Imprint of The Quarto Group, is a leading publisher of step-by-step how-to books for both DIY gardening and home improvement, including books on Many different gardening methods.

🙆🙆‍♂️National Reach as High as You Can Day! We can define “reach” many ways. Search Guinness World Records for “highest reach” and Guinness gives us 322 results. We can reach for our dreams or our goals. Reach for the stars or the sky. We can even reach for the balloon floating away from us much like the one that carried the Wizard of Oz away from Dorothy. Of course, records can be set for the oldest or the youngest to reach a particular location, age, height or status. While this day may not be about setting records, it is certainly about reaching high; higher than we think we can. We often become complacent. National Reach as High as You Can Day is just a reminder on the calendar not to let your dreams go adrift. Reach for them. Reach as high as you can!

🇺🇸National Pan American Day is recognized by Presidential proclamation and is part of Pan American Week. National Pan American Day commemorates the First International Conference of American States which concluded on April 14, 1890. Inspired by the idea of a Panamerica, United Sates Secretary of State James G. Blane first developed the concept of an International Conference for the Western Hemisphere. It took nearly a decade, but in October of 1889, the conference began. Held in Washington, D.C., the conference covered a large variety of subjects from currency and banking to military and trade. The International Conference also created the International Union of American Republics, the forerunner of the Organization of American States (OAS). In 2015, President Barack Obama proclaimed National Pan American Day.

🚫National Ex-Spouse Day! This day recognizes one’s ex-spouse. The question has been asked why would one want to celebrate their Ex? We are not sure there is an answer to that question. For a wide variety of reasons, sometimes marriages just do not work out. Recent statistics show that the divorce rate for first marriages is at 50 percent. Some people find that they get along better after a divorce than they did during the marriage. Unfortunately, all divorces do not turn out that friendly and the experience can be painful and traumatic. Regardless if it is a friendly separation or not, there needs to be a way to manage the situation when children are involved. National Ex-Spouse Day was created in 1987 by Reverend Ronald Coleman of Kansas City, Mo.

🐬National Dolphin Day! Dolphins are cetacean mammals that are related to whales and porpoises. Ranging in size from 4 ft. up to 30 feet; dolphins are among almost forty species in 17 genera. Found worldwide, they prefer the shallower seas of the continental shelves. As carnivores, their diet consists of mostly fish and squid. Male dolphins are called bulls, females are called cow's, the young dolphins are calves and a group of dolphins are called a school or pod. Dolphins are known to have acute eyesight both in and out of the water along with having a well-developed sense of touch, with free nerve endings densely packed in the skin. They can hear frequencies ten times or more above the upper limit of what adult humans can and are capable of making a broad range of sounds using nasal air sacs located just below the blowhole. Living in pods of up to a dozen dolphins, they are highly social animals. Pods do merge in areas where there is an abundance of food, forming superpods, which may exceed 1,000 dolphins. Dolphins can, and do, establish strong bonds within their pods and will stay with injured or ill individuals, even helping them to breathe by bringing them to the surface if needed. You will see the dolphins frequently leaping above the water’s surface. They do this for various reasons; when traveling, jumping saves them energy as there is less friction while in the air, this is known as porpoising. Some other explanations for leaping include orientation, social display, fighting, non-verbal communication, entertainment and attempting to dislodge parasites. The United States National Marine Mammal Foundation conducted a study that revealed that dolphins, like humans, develop a natural form of type 2 diabetes which may lead to a better understanding of the disease and new treatments for both humans and dolphins.

🥜National Pecan Day! A member of the hickory family, the pecan is native to central and southern United States. “Pecan” is an Algonquian word, meaning a nut requiring a stone to crack. They are an excellent source of copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, zinc and vitamin E. Pecans can help reduce LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol levels in the blood. They are rich in dietary fiber. Pecans make great snacks all on their own, but they also make terrific garnishes to other foods such as desserts, salads or the main meal.

Still a little chill here for gardening. I've reach about as high as I can without pulling something.😁(I do know that's not what their referring too.) I don't have an ex-spouse. But I have seen it end both ways, civil and (I'm being nice here) the other wishing the ex on another planet. Whichever it is the children should be top priority, but don't let them manipulate the situation. I've seen this first hand, it's ugly and it's hurtful to all. Sorry, I'll stop there on the subject. Oh, I love watching dolphins when I can find a video to watch while snacking on my favorite nuts, pecans.

Six of the puppies, so far have went to their furever homes. Lucky human people. More pics on Shire Lane of them.

Warm hugs!🐶💕🌤