Beautiful and Dangerous Nature

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've been blogging, because it finally thawed out around here and I have to be outside! Can you believe we had snow in late April and today we had over 80° weather? Because I haven't been checking in here much, I've ended up with a number of things to share. So this is going to be one of those Justine's favorites kind of blog posts.

Something I wanted to be sure and share with you guys was a display from last month's Art in Bloom at the Milwaukee Art Museum. You might remember Art in Bloom from past years. If not, it's a wonderful show of flower arrangements that are interpretations of the art.

This arrangement was in the Haitian gallery space. Check out that skull!

This display had a lot of exotic looking plants in it. I actually took a photo of the plant list, because some of these were new to me. I was especially interested in the spidery or octopus looking one in front. This one:

After googling pics of every plant on this list, I didn't find it. So if any of you know what that plant is, please let me know! Here's the flower list:

This is the painting that goes with the floral display, Baron Le Croix (Bawon Lakwa) by André Pierre. If you read the "Designer Statement" at the bottom of the flower list, you'll understand a little bit about the painting and the symbolism. Although, I'm pretty sure you guys had a general idea of what's going on here.

It's worth reading this brief paragraph about Baron La Croix:

Baron La Croix Wiki Page

"The ultimate suave and sophisticated spirit of death" How about that?

Speaking of new and spooky flowers, I saw these little cuties in the woods a few days ago. I was told that these are Bloodroot, and from a google search it would appear that's correct. They don't look like they'd be called Bloodroot, do they? But from what I just read, the juice from this plant is both red and poisonous. And the flowers look so innocent!

If you'd like to read more: Bloodroot Wiki Page

If you read down to the "Toxicity" section on that page, you'll learn why you shouldn't mess with this plant! What I read here is actually pretty scary. To put it simply, do not apply this to your skin because it will destroy your tissue. Don't ingest this or you might vomit or pass out. And you might want to check your mouthwash for "sanguinaria" (another name for Bloodroot) because it could lead to oral cancer down the road. Wow! Nature can be pretty powerful and not always in the best of ways.

Another find in the park was this "Tree Bracket Fungus". I would have called it Seashell Fungus. Don't these look like shells?

From what I've been reading, some of these are not super healthy for trees, but people have turned this bracket or shelf fungi into art. Evidently, it's super hard and makes a good painting surface. If you google "Tree Bracket Fungus Art" you'll see some pretty cool examples.

In other nature news, some of you may have seen this little zebra spider when I shared it on Twitter.

I blogged about these once before. Some fun trivia about zebra spiders is that they don't make webs. Instead, they sneak up and pounce on their little insect victims like a cat! By the way, these spiders are much smaller than this one appears! They're like half the size of a normal ant. Ah, the magic of cropping.

This next picture was scary for me only because I didn't see more than one deer with my eyes before taking it. Then I looked at my camera screen in surprise! There were six deer that I could see, standing out in the open. But those behind this obvious deer totally blended in to the trees. Deer aren't exactly scary, but not realizing there are extra eyes upon you is!

Now that I'm studying this photo, I don't even know if I'm seeing more eyes in the woods! I think I may have just spotted a fifth head back there. I ended up seeing a good 10 in this herd, but who knows how many were actually there.

Onto a view of the outdoors at night. These are pics of the last two full moons we've had. They appeared very differently!

March 31 ~ The Sap Moon:

April 29 ~ The Pink Moon:

It's worth reading this page: Full Moon Names if you'd like to learn why each full moon has the name it does. I hope you guys enjoyed seeing my past month or so in little pieces. I'm finding it fun to write this way, with a little of this and a little of that. Let me know if you guys are seeing any new and interesting plants or insects. Everything is popping out now!

Happy Spring!

Happy first day of spring! I'm going to call this the first robin of spring, even if I took this pic a couple days ago. Isn't this a cute robin, with those little eyebrows? I swear, sometimes it seems like birds are posing as I photograph them. I'm enjoying seeing and hearing the birds. It makes me feel like there's some life out there! Aside from the birds, it doesn't exactly feel like spring around here, but at least there's no snow on the ground.

I haven't been around the blogosphere much lately or on the internet in general. I had a nasty accident with a craft knife a few weeks ago and that made typing difficult. But now I'm back and typing nearly close to normal!

Some of you who follow me on Twitter might know that I was planning to cut some Papel Picado. I picked up a few books from the library for inspiration:

I picked up those books shortly before having that accident, so I haven't been physically or mentally in the place where I wanted to do intricate paper cutting with little knives the past two weeks! I might end up using scissors. We'll see. In any event, I picked up some colorful tissue paper from Dollar Tree today, so I'm ready to go! If this project turns out well, I'll blog about the results. The plan for now is to frame them.

So back to spring, in celebration of the new season, here are some photos from Sunday's trip to the park! These pics will give you an idea of what March is like in Wisconsin. There's not a lot going on, plant-wise. But if you look closely, you'll see that those plants that went to seed or dried out over winter can form some interesting shapes. Like these thistles:

Interesting how those parts curve around where the flower was. And this, whatever it is...

If you use your imagination, you could see this as a super furry caterpillar. Those pieces at the bottom could be seen as legs. But my guess is that the "fur" has some seeds attached to it. And then there's this mysterious object:

I had been thinking it was either the one hunk of ice that was somehow left in the forest, or maybe a weird type of fungi that was new to me. I poked at it with stick and flipped it over. It was styrofoam!

This looks like a barn owl, doesn't it?

Speaking of birds, there were some seagulls and geese swimming in the pond. Just as I was taking a photo of this seagull, it dipped under to catch something, and made this cool display. This is the kind of picture I probably wouldn't get again if I tried! See what I mean about the birds posing? 😉

There's a wooded area up the hill from this pond and if you really pay attention, you can witness some interesting things there. Like that tree candling last year. This time, there were all kinds of little popping noises coming from the trees. It sounded like popcorn popping. I assumed it was bugs at first, but I couldn't see any. I stood very close to the trees and it sounded like the popping was coming from inside the branches or pinecones. Anyone know what I was hearing? It was like the trees were waking up after winter. Pinecones expanding? Sap dripping? I just don't know. These were the trees that were popping:

Another tree definitely had some sap going:

Isn't that color beautiful?

These are like tiny little tree roses:

Curling birch bark:

Looks like a nice place for a picnic, doesn't it?

Back on the road:

I'll end with some pics of what was one of the more relaxing parts of this walk.

The sun was sending these sparkles off the water, making it look like glass.

Now that I'm looking over these photos, I'm thinking it was looking a little more like spring than I thought. I'm just ready for some warmer weather and plants popping up! How's the beginning of spring where you all are? I've heard weather reports of everything from 70° to blizzards from you guys this past week!

Happy New Year!

I hope you are all having a happy new year's day, and that 2018 is off to a great start for you. It is off to a very cold start where I am! It's 5° now and according to the internet, it feels like -13° out there. I'm not going to go outside to find out how it feels!

In keeping with the cold theme, and also the New Year theme, I'm going to share some photos I've been saving up of the fresh, clean snow. I thought fresh snow on a bright sunny day is a good symbol for a new year. And come to think of it, this bridge is a symbol in itself - a bridge from one year to the next.

So getting off to our fresh start here... I took this first set of photos on a cold day a few weeks back in the downtown village area. I was in a small park, across this bridge.

It was very peaceful, being the only person out there. I think the temperature had a lot to do with that!

Aren't blue shadows on the snow pretty?

This one is of the bridge railing. That snow doesn't even look real. It looks like some kind of fluffy dessert topping.

A creek runs under the bridge.

You can get an idea of its outline better here.

These rocks looked like a series of mushrooms or marshmallows.

A little bit of snow melting on the bridge:

This photo is my computer's wallpaper now. I really like the look of the red berries against that bright, blue sky.

It's fun to see any sign of plant life in winter. You might remember seeing these berries in one of my autumn blog posts.

This next set of photos was taken in a local park. 

This next picture was one I was hoping to get that day. The sun shining through this area of trees reminds me of The Nightmare Before Christmas, when Jack is walking through the forest, looking at different holiday doors on the trees.

What do you think?

A link for those who don't get the videos:

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Forest Scene

There was this cool situation where part of the water had turned to ice and part had not. We must have been at just the right in-between temperature for that to happen.

I thought it was so pretty when the sun came out and there was this warmth in the trees, next to that ice and snow.

I was trying to photograph the deer that was leaning over and didn't even notice the second one who was looking at me! After I took the photo and looked at my camera, I was like "Wait a second! There's another one?"

Here's something I've never seen - a waterfall that is partially frozen and partially moving.

Do you see the water falling on the right side of this picture?

This old house is near the park. As I'm looking at this photo, I'm noticing how there's very little color in it. It's nearly sepia. I feel like this same image could have been seen for the past century.

And in keeping with the snowy theme... I'm almost afraid to decorate with anything that says "Let it snow". I think it's some superstition that if I say this, a bunch of snow is going to fall. 😄 But these gel clings were too cute to pass up. I found them at Target's after Christmas sale. The after Christmas sale was at 50% off when I was there, but it's probably at least 70% off now. I'd be interested to hear about your after Christmas finds!

I'm not sure if you can tell, but I placed the clings on actual snow to take this picture.

I'll leave you guys with a little trivia gift from MeTV. It's a fun way to start 2018.

14 words and slang terms that turn 50 years old in 2018