Nature Can Be Odd Looking © 2010 Bo Mackison
So…I know what it is. Do you have any ideas? Give a guess…
And it may be odd shaped, but even so, I think it’s quite beautiful.
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Posts tagged as:
nature
Green is Beautiful
The sun is shining, the snow is melting. I always think of mid-March as the teaser. Sunny days, almost touching the 50˚F mark. The a dip back into the teens or 20s and frosty again. There are bits of my yard where there are peeks of grass, though much of the yard is under 6 or more inches of crusty snow. But it’s melting. Yes, it truly will be Spring soon.
I still have to find my green in the Tropical Conservatory, but I’m practicing for when those first bits of green shoots pop out of the earth. Ahhhhhhh!
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A Welcoming Door
Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. ~Edith Sitwell
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Browns and Blue
Though I’m not quite ready for the snows to come, I’m wearying of brown in all its many variations. It’s nice enough with a dose of sunshine and blue skies, but already I am missing the bright colors that were in the gardens only a few weeks ago. And now snow is predicted for Wednesday, just in time to cause Thanksgiving travel woes.
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another wabi-sabi bit of nature
“Simplicity is the core of wabi-sabi. Nothingness is the ultimate. But before and after nothingness, simplicity is not so simple.” Leonard Koren
Wabi-sabi asks that the essence is pared down, but not stripped of its poetry and emotional warmth. That which binds the meaningful into a whole remains intact. Wabi-sabi does not lessen the quality that compels one to look at something, and then look again and again.
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Another Snow-Capped Day!
Red sumac seeds are an important source of bird food, precisely because they simply stay on the plant long enough to be part of the winter scenery. This makes them the perfect emergency food for all sorts of birds during the long winter months. Bluebirds, black-capped chickadees and robins will feed on sumac seeds in winter and early spring when there is little else for them to eat; it’s not their favorite food source, but there are times when it isn’t prudent to be picky.
And going in a totally different direction, I found a bit of poetry with an interesting reference to the sumac:
The sumac’s candelabrum darkly flames.
And I speak to you with the land’s voice,
It is the cold, wild land that says to you
A knowledge glimmers in the sleep of things:
The old hills hunch before the north wind blows.
~ Howard Nemerov (American poet, 1920-1991)
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Cyber
This is the newest animal on exhibit at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, and he is an awesome, handsome animal. Cyber is a 9 year old Amur Tiger, also known as a Siberian Tiger. His species of big cats is the largest in size, and one of the most critically endangered. Fully mature, he will stretch nearly 14 feet in length and weigh about 650 pounds. There are only 450 Amur Tigers left in the world – 300 in the wild and 150 in zoos. Their habitat is so fragile, there is fear that there will be no tigers–no tigers of any species–left in the wild in just a couple of years.
The Siberian tiger differs in appearance from the Bengal tiger by its thicker mane which wraps around its neck and part of its head. Considering its habitat is mostly in eastern Russia (Siberia), the tigers can probably use the extra cuff for warmth.
Cyber, on a Roll
A recently as 80 years ago, there were 8 known sub-species of tigers. However in the 20th Century, 3 of the 8 species became extinct. The Siberian tiger is considered “critically” endangered – the most serious of the endangered categories, though a breeding program in international zoos based in China, Europe and North America appears to be fairly successful.
The 5 remaining sub-species of tigers, from most common to least common/most endangered, are the Bengal (India, Bangladesh, Nepal), the Indochinese (Cambodia, China, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam), the Malayan (Malay Peninsula), the Sumatran (Indonesian island of Sumatra), the Siberian (eastern Siberia), and also the South China Tiger (South China) which will almost certainly soon be extinct. There are fewer than 60 of the South China Tigers, all in captivity, from a gene pool of only 6 tigers, which is not enough to save the species. There has only been one sighting of this tiger in the wild since 1983.
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December Fog
Madison has already had 35 inches of snowfall, and until today most of it was on the ground. Then a warm front moved in and a heavy fog settled on everything. Now there are bare patches of muddy earth peeking from the patches of snow. But it made for a fun afternoon of photography.
Until the rain began to pour.
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Sunlight Caught in a Spider's Web
The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. ~~ Pablo Picasso
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Arches National Park, Utah
While the snow flies here in Wisconsin, instantly turning my world into whites and grays, I am bringing to mind the warmth of the desert – the oranges, yellows, and pinks – and the cooling breezes that wash over the earth when the sun sets. I give thanks for the memories.
This scape was taken in mid-October at Arches National Park, Utah – a high desert region.
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