Saturday 31 January 2015

Elephant No. 120: A New Elephant from Max






For their age—six—my next-door neighbours Max and Vanh are seriously talented artists. I've featured their art before, but I just saw this new art from Max and asked his parents if I could feature it.

I'm not kidding when I say that it took me months to figure out how to draw an elephant this well. Well done, Max! I look forward to seeing what you do next.


Art by Max
Photo: Samantha


Elephant Lore of the Day
I'm sure the answer to the question on Max's art is "No, this animal does not live in the city." And these days, it doesn't, at least in the West. But in the past, elephants could often be found within city limits in Europe and North America. Attached to circuses and menageries, or even working as movers and wrecking crews, urban elephants were once a far more common sight than they are today.

In Florida, long the winter quarters for many American circuses, there is still a law on the books related to elephants. If a person leaves an elephant tied to a parking meter, and the meter has expired, a parking fine must be paid, just as if the elephant were a car.


An Asian elephant stops a tram on Grays Inn Road, London, for an apple
from the driver,  December 1936.
Source: London.metblogs.com

To Support Elephant Welfare

Friday 30 January 2015

Elepant No. 119: Amigurumi Elephant





I have no idea if this is an actual amigurumi elephant, but it's little, cute, and crocheted, so I figure it's close enough.

I've decided that I don't love to crochet. I especially don't love to crochet with thread.

To make this little elephant, I began by looking for patterns online. I liked the look of some of the patterns, but I didn't like the results when I tried following the instructions. I'm not very good at following instructions at the best of times, so I decided to wing it.

I had bought these monster balls of crochet thread a few weeks ago. Why I thought I'd ever want this much crochet thread, I have no idea. I must have been attracted by the pretty colours and the price. They were very inexpensive at only five dollars apiece, but they're each about half the size of my head.




I began by making the elephant's ears.




I followed this by making a body, which I stuffed lightly. As I was finishing the crocheting of the body, I chained the end to make a short tail.





Next came the head. The trunk is just a crazy mess of I don't know what, but it turned out okay in the end.




To complete the elephant, I made four tubular legs. Can I say nightmare? It took me forever to figure out an appropriate size and shape, and they were a huge pain to make. The four legs took me longer than everything else put together.




I stitched everything together, adding a curve to the trunk, and adding largish seed beads for eyes.





Finally, because he looked a bit plain, I made him a tricorne. I essentially made a hat with a brim, then turned up the brim on three sides. To complete his look, I gave him a small bandana and a feather in his hat.





Every time I crochet something this small, I vow never again. And then I forget how much of a pain it was.




In the end, however, he's pretty cute, and that's what really matters.






Elephant Lore of the Day
This is surely one of the silliest depictions of a ruler ever. To symbolize his conquest of India, Demetrios I of Bactria commissioned portraits showing him wearing an elephant scalp. Not a sort of headdress. A scalp.

An elephant's head is massively bigger than a human's. This means that its scalp would likely cover most of the Bactrian emperor's body, rather than perching delicately on his head at some sort of rakish angle.

In addition, the weight of an elephant's head is considerable. This is not due only to the skull (although it's huge, of course) but to the weight of the trunk and the tusks. An elephant's trunk can weigh up to 310 pounds (140 kilograms), and the tusks of an adult male Asian elephant weigh up to about 100 pounds (45 kilograms). An elephant's ears are also surprisingly heavy, weighing as much as 110 pounds (50 kilograms) each for an African elephant—less for an Asian elephant. Demetrios is sporting all of the above.


Demetrios I silver tetradrachm, circa 200–185 B.C.
Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Source: Wikipedia


But at least the type of elephant is correct. This is definitely an Asian elephant, and is surprisingly realistic for its time. During this period, elephants were generally depicted as canister vacuum cleaners with legs, so this is quite good.

Yes, I know it's meant to be symbolic. No doubt it was a clever bit of haberdashery or helmet-making, rather than an actual scalp. But when other figures — political, mythological or otherwise — are shown wearing bits of animals, particularly on their heads, the animals are usually to scale. Hercules wore a lion skin, his face poking out of the lion's jaws. Maya rulers wore jaguars. Native Americans sometimes wore wolf's heads. Demetrios, however, outdoes them all by plopping an elephant scalp on top of his curls.

Demetrios further celebrated his conquest of India, and his association with elephants, on some of his other coinage. My favourite is the rather pretty coin below, featuring a cheerfully disembodied elephant's head — again, surprisingly lifelike, given the period in which these were minted.


Demetrios I Copper tri-chalkon, circa 200–185 B.C.
Source: CoinIndia.com


To Support Elephant Welfare




Thursday 29 January 2015

Elephant No. 118: Amarula





I've been seeing billboards for this liqueur around town for the past couple of years, so I finally decided to buy some.

Amarula is made from the fruit of the Marula Tree (Sclerocarya birrea), which is sometimes known as the Elephant Tree. The fruit is related to the mango, and is about the size of a small plum. Native to southeastern Africa, the fruit is described as having "a citrus tang with a creamy nutty taste."

Marula fruit ripens in mid-January to mid-March, when it is harvested by humans. It is also eaten by a wide range of animals, including rhinos, warthogs, baboons, monkeys, porcupine, zebra, antelopes—and of course elephants.

In addition to being a favourite fruit of African elephants, the marula has been dubbed the "fruit of kings." Some communities make a marula drink that is offered to the spirits of their ancestors. Among some peoples, the marula is known as the "marriage tree" and weddings are held in its shade. Some groups also light fires with marula twigs when babies are born, to give both baby and mother qualities such as tenderness.


Marula fruit.
Source: Amarula.com


The tree has medicinal properties, partly due to the antihistamines contained in its bark and leaves. These are used to treat rheumatism, insect bites, skin infections and stomach problems. In addition, a decoction of the fruit is sometimes used to treat tick-infested livestock.

Oil from the fruit's kernel is used as a food supplement, and the kernels are often eaten whole or ground into porridge. The oil can also be used as a candle substitute. The skin of the fruit is often boiled to make a drink or a plant food, and the wood of the fallen tree is turned into furniture, bowls, and implements such as mortar and pestle.

So, what does it taste like? I'm not much for hard liquor and mixed drinks, but in the interests of research, I poured myself a swig.




It's actually very nice. It has the tastes of both fruit and cream, and is definitely strong. It's a bit like Bailey's Irish Cream, although a little more subtle. It's not too sweet or too cloying, and has a pleasant fruity aftertaste. I could be persuaded to quite like it.

I like that the back of the bottle has a wee elephant embossed into the shoulder.






And that the cap has an elephant on it.




To read more about the marula tree and Amarula liqueur, please visit the excellent Amarula website, which includes an extensive recipe book, as well as information on elephant welfare activities supported by the Amarula Trust.





Elephant Lore of the Day
My first thought when I saw the billboards for Amarula was, "Not that old chestnut. Elephants do not get drunk on marula fruit." I was wrong about the reason for the liqueur's name, but not wrong about the fact that elephants do not get drunk on fermented windfall marula.

As late as 2014, African travel brochures, tourists, and YouTube videos were suggesting that elephants got tipsy on the rotten, fermented marula they plucked from the ground. Because it's such a catchy idea—animals get drunk like us!—it's a concept that is proving surprisingly resilient.

As early as 2005, however, a study described in National Geographic had effectively put that idea to rest. It was discovered that elephants don't actually go for the fruit that falls onto the ground. Instead, they pluck the fruit right from the tree, or shake the tree until fresh fruit falls. So, no fermented fruit for picky elephants with champagne tastes.

In addition, the fruit that the elephants do eat passes through their system too quickly to ferment even in their gut. This is, of course, assuming that an elephant could eat enough marula to produce an astonishing 7.1 gallons (27 litres) of fermented marula juice in its stomach, which is what it would take to make it drunk. Given that it takes 200 marula fruits to make one gallon, an elephant would have to ingest more than 1,400 marula fruits—all at the same time.


Elephant eating from a marula tree.
Photo: Thinkstock
Source: bbc.com


To Support Elephant Welfare






Wednesday 28 January 2015

Elephant No. 117: From the Archives—Snowball Mural




I was going to post something else today, but given the snowpocalypse that hammered the East Coast of the United States and Canada yesterday, and an epic snowball battle I saw this morning on the news, I decided to repost one of my early elephants from the original Elephant a Day blog.


It's a snowy day here today, but also warmish, so for today's elephant I thought I'd try something I've been wanting to do for weeks: a snowball mural.

When I mentioned this idea to my husband, he thought it might be difficult, because you have to have good aim when you lob the snowballs. However, this girl didn't play four years of Little League for nothing, so I was willing to give it a shot.

I started with the same side wall of our house that I used in my green wall mural and my Christmas lights mural. The camera kept trying to focus on the fat individual snowflakes—I think it was actually beginning to have a bit of a conniption fit—so this photo is a bit out of focus.




I set myself a perpendicular toeline of about eight feet, which I discovered afterwards is almost exactly the toeline or "oche" (pronounced o-kee) used by the World Darts Federation. The other rules I set were that I couldn't remove any of the snowballs, and they all had to be thrown. (I can't deny that I was very tempted to walk up and just mash a few into the wall towards the end, but I managed to restrain myself.)

Once I'd figured out the rules of this particular game, I just started making snowballs and pelting them at the wall.

It was easy at first, because it didn't really matter where the first few landed, as long as they were in the general area I was trying to hit. I was actually quite proud of my aim, and rather enjoyed the very satisfying "splat" as they hit the wall and flattened out.





As I went on, however, I began to discover a few things:

1. The size and shape of the snowball is important. If it's not fairly round and fairly even, it's going to go somewhere you weren't quite expecting. If it's too big, it's going to drop lower than you expect; too small, and it's going to lob higher. I tried to make up for this by churning out fastballs, but without Major League velocity, precision tended to elude me.

2. The contents of the snowball are surprisingly important. Today's snow overlay an icy crust from yesterday. In snowballs where I accidentally included some ice, the snowballs had a mind of their own. Throwing them fast made very little difference, so I quickly learned not to include ice.

3. Overhand and underhand shots are very different. Overhand for me was far more precise. Underhand was next to useless, because the snowball always dropped several inches below where I wanted it.

4. Stance is important. When I stood head-on and threw like a child, the shot had a tendency to drop, although it still went more or less where I wanted. If I stood slightly sideways, however, and wound up the shot before throwing, I had much better accuracy.

5. Where you look is important. When I focused on where I wanted the snowball to go, it was far more likely to land somewhere nearby. I have no idea why.




I was rather pleased with how this turned out. Quite a few of the shots went wild until I got the hang of the properties of snowballs, and many landed directly on top of one another, but in the end, it looks more or less like I expected it to. I'm most proud of the way I was able to keep the eye area with a bit of empty space around it. I also like the way some of the vines peek through the snow, looking a bit like wrinkles.




This took me about an hour, mostly because I was mysteriously bereft of snowball-making lackeys. I can't believe I had to form all 127 snowballs on my own.

When I was almost finished, a construction worker stopped at the end of my driveway and said, "I thought before that you were only playing, but I see now that you're making art." That's just the kind of thing that makes my day.






Elephant Lore of the Day
At African Lion Safari in Ontario, Canada, it has been discovered that elephants like making snowballs—elephant-sized snowballs.


Like humans, elephants are pleased when the snow packs down well. Encouraged by park staff, they start with a small ball, then push it and roll it around like we do when making snowmen. Once the snowball is as big as they are, they lose interest and start another one.

According to park staff, the elephants' snowballs are so well made that they can easily hold a man's weight.



Elephants making large snowballs, African Lion Safari, Rockton, Ontario, Canada.
Photo: © Barcroft
Source: Daily Mail


Similarly, at the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York, a 33-year-old elephant named Romani was caught in the act of forming multiple snowballs with her trunk, which she then tossed over her shoulder. Other elephants at the Zoo made and tossed snowballs at themselves and at each other, popping a few snowballs into their mouths along the way.



To Support Elephant Welfare



Tuesday 27 January 2015

Elephant No. 116: Buttons and Pipe Cleaners





I saw this idea in Martha Stewart's Favorite Crafts for Kids. The examples in the book were Christmas-related, but the principles looked like something I could adapt to make an elephant.

I have massive jars of buttons, so I just needed to buy pipe cleaners. I wasn't sure what would inspire me, so I bought a few in various colours and thicknesses.





I began by folding a grey pipe cleaner in half, then twisted a small loop at the end, where the tail would eventually go.





Next, I added buttons in various colours to make a fat body, by feeding both stems through holes in the buttons. If your buttons have four holes (as most of mine did), use holes that are diagonal to one another.




I made a twist at the front to hold the body together.




Most of the examples in the book are sort of button cylinders, with appendages such as legs and ears and tails made using pipe cleaners. I had a lot of very small buttons, so I decided to make the trunk as an extension of the head. At the end, I made two twists, then cut off the ends, twisted them again with a small pair of pliers and flattened them a bit to push in the sharp cut ends.





I also decided that, since elephants have thick, straight legs, I'd make those out of buttons, too. For each leg, I cut a pipe cleaner in half, and pushed both halves between the third and fourth button from the tail, and the third and fourth button from the head. Note that you need two stems on each side to hold the buttons in place.




I pulled both of them up and around to lock them around the main body pipe cleaner stem, but you can skip this step if you like.




To finish the ends of the legs, I did the same thing I'd done with the tip of the trunk.




I also added a small tail by twisting one of the pipe cleaner offcuts through the loop at the back of the body. I also gave it a bit of a kink.




And because an elephant is not an elephant without big, floppy ears, I cut another pipe cleaner in half and twisted both halves together around the gap between the body and head.




I chose a couple of big buttons, and finished the ends.




All of the elephants I make tend to be a bit top-heavy because of the trunk. To counteract this, I have a few tricks:

• Make the front legs ever so slightly longer, which tips the elephant back a bit.
• Splay the back legs slightly, and push the front ones closer together.
• Raise the elephant's trunk as much as possible.
• All of the above—which is what I did here.

This was easy and fun, and the end result is eccentrically cute, which is something I generally like to see in my growing herd.






Elephant Lore of the Day
Despite an elephant's size, it can be brought down by predators other than humans. In November 2014, tourists in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park watched in horror as a young elephant was attacked near a waterhole by 14 hungry lionesses.


A young elephant is attacked by 14 lionesses.
Photo: Caters News Agency
Source: Daily Mail

For a time, it looked as though the lions had managed to bring the elephant down.


The lionesses bring the elephant to his knees.
Photo: Caters News Agency
Source: Daily Mail


Suddenly, however, he rallied and ran into the water, where the lionesses had to decide whether they wanted the elephant enough to get a soaking. Most of them decided not.


The elephant shakes the elephants off in the water
Photo: Steve Baker
Source: Daily Mail


After his quick dip in the water, the elephant emerged refreshed, and chased off the last of the lionesses. It was later discovered that the lions had killed a water buffalo instead. To read the full story, click here.


Reinvigorated, the elephant chases off the last of the lionesses.
Photo: Caters News Agency
Source: Daily Mail


To Support Elephant Welfare