This is a strange and beautiful tree called a Dragon Blood Tree. Its shape helps it survive arid conditions and areas with limited soil. The shading helps the seedlings survive in the harsh environment.
The interesting thing about this tree, other than its shape, is that it contains a blood-red resin called Dragon’s Blood. Starting in the first century AD, Dragon’s Blood was used as a dye and medicine to treat respiratory and gastrointestinal problems. Later uses include a blood coagulant and treatments for diarrhea, fever, dysentery, ulcers in the mouth, throat, intestines and stomach, as well as an antiviral for respiratory viruses.
The Dragon’s Blood tree (Dracaena Cinnabari) is found in the Socotra archipelago, a small group of four islands in the Indian Ocean. Also known as the “Galápagos of the Indian Ocean,” the group of islands has a variety of fascinating species. Here is a video of this beautiful and unusual island:
Remember building a house of cards when you were little? I was able to build a few layers–maybe 3 or 4–not daring to breathe as I added a new level. However, it was never long before the table was accidentally jarred, or someone stirred the air as he walked by, or maybe the whole thing was structurally unsound….and down the cards fell.
So I am totally amazed by the talents of Bryan Berg,
Berg has held the Guinness World Record for the Tallest House of Freestanding Playing Cards since 1992. Guinness World Records also created a new category to recognize Berg’s work in 2004, The World’s Largest House of Freestanding Playing Cards. Commissioned to break his own records on more than a dozen occasions, Berg continues to hold both records. Touring regularly, Berg has stacked cards across North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Most amazing is that he uses no tape, no glue, no folding, and no tricks. All he does is stack one card on top of another.
I think deep sea creatures are some of the weirdest creatures ever. They look like they don’t even belong on this planet. Some are scary looking monsters with very sharp teeth. Others are delicate and beautiful, moving with beauty and grace. Others are pure magic, like something from a fairy tale. The creature in the picture has flashing rainbow lights that remind me of the UFO in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
To see this and other strange, beautiful, magical creatures from the deep sea, watch this awesome video. It’s utterly fascinating.
In the winter, for about five months (from January to May), Lake Baikal in Siberia freezes over but the water is so clear that, from the surface, you can see an astounding 130 feet below you. Wind, temperature differences, frost and sun in the ice crust cause cracks and ice hummocks to form. Transparent and shining in a turquoise color, these masses of broken ice look like shards of glass rising into the sky.
Once in a while, something happens that gives me a new perspective on life. It can be a big event or something small that only lasts a few moments, but it changes everything. I call these “defining moments.”
Years ago, when we were first married–and even before–my husband and I liked to attend what is now called the Battle Creek Air Show and Balloon Festival in Battle Creek, Michigan. During the five-day festival in early July, there is a variety of entertainment, vendors, and, of course, airs show and hot air balloon flights and competitions.
I love hot air balloons. I have a Life List of all the different modes of transportation I have been on. My list includes things like: Antique car, farm tractor, antique steam tractor, row boat, power boat, steam boat, ferry, Mississippi river boat, trains (modern and antique), helicopter, jet, small airplane, horse-drawn wagons and buggies, mule-drawn Conestoga wagon, camel, elephant, and a lot more. One thing I have always, always wanted to ride on is a hot air balloon. One day….
Anyway, I loved to go to the Battle Creek festival just to see all the hot air balloons. And also to see the fireworks. Every year, the festival has fireworks. They are stupendous. Fireworks constantly explode into the air, many at once, with no pauses between like in small towns.
I’ll never forget one year that we spent the whole day at the Festival and then stayed to watch the fireworks. A thunderstorm started moving in, lighting the sky. Thousands of people turned their backs on the beautiful firework display and “ooohed” and “ahhhhed” at each dramatic flash of lightning. I thought with amusement that God still overshadows man’s greatest efforts to “wow.”
Anyway, the defining moment came after the fireworks were over and thousands and thousands of people streamed through a couple of gates to their cars in the parking lot. In the midst of this exodus, a family began to joyfully sing old songs…like Rockin’ Robin.
They sang with joy, seemingly oblivious to the thousands of people around them. We were swept through the gate and at our cars within maybe 5 minutes, but in that five minutes, I was enchanted. And at that moment–that defining moment, that Enchanted Moment–I thought: “I want to be like them.”
The family had no idea that they were my defining moment, but from the moment I heard them sing together, I decided to strive to let my inner “goofy child” out. I had usually kept my silliness hidden because I didn’t want people to think I was being stupid. But the family that night didn’t care who heard them, and I certainly didn’t think they were being too silly. They delighted and inspired me. So why not let myself joyfully live life, not caring that a person or two might frown at my silliness?
I am a quiet, introspective person, and I will probably never have the boldness to sing in a crowd of thousands, but I do let my silliness out more and more. For example, sometimes I have approached the automatic doors at a store, and waved my hand as if I am using the FORCE to open them. I feel like a powerful Jedi when the doors WHOOSH open. And the telephone/cable company in my small town has a camera set up that is pointed outside. The feed from the camera airs on a local TV channel. For some reason, it’s kind of fun to watch people walk by the company. When my son was young, I sometimes told him to watch the TV channel, and then I walked down and acted goofy in front of the camera so he (and anyone else watching the channel) could see me on TV.
When my teenaged son rolls his eyes and says, “Mom, you are so WEIRD!” I always thank him and say, “Good! It is my goal to become an eccentric old lady.” I figure it will take until I am old for my silliness to fully emerge, but I am working on it. When I am an old lady, it is my plan to be something like the lady in this video:
Who knows, maybe someday I will someone else’s enchanting “defining moment.”
My husband and I occasionally discuss moving to someplace different. Every now and then we have looked at a map of the USA, and one by one we have eliminated states until we had one state left….and it’s always Michigan! The state we already live in! Michigan is beautiful, there are thousands of lakes and trees, there are beautiful seasons, and it’s not too hot. People always seem to think that, if given a choice, a person would choose to live in sunny tropical areas, but tropical areas are too, too hot for me. I think I must be part snowman. I melt when it’s too hot. I prefer the cool northern places. In fact, if I could, I’d move farther north.
Anyway, today we are supposed to get a little snow. Not much, just an inch or two. I am glad. I’m not quite ready to let go of winter. I love snow in winter. Snow covers and brightens a gloomy landscape into a beautiful world.
I have several friends who are artists with their cameras. They have really good cameras with filters and everything, and they have artistic talent. They take gorgeous pictures. Me? I have a small everyday camera–nothing special–that I can slip into my pocket when I go for a walk. I take pictures of stuff I see, like clouds or weeds or snow or bugs. Once in a great while I accidentally take a cool picture.
I really enjoy going outside with my camera when it is snowing at night. It’s fun because I never know what I will end up with. I can’t predict how the light of the flash will hit a falling snowflake so the results are always a surprise. I call it Snow Art. Here are some snow pictures I took in February:
This morning I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. As I was loading my groceries into the car, I heard the beautiful honking of Canadian geese. I paused to watch the geese fly over head and disappear before continuing on my way.
When I was growing up, I often paused to look at beautiful things: beautiful flowers, unusual rocks, delicate spiderwebs, the glitter in the moonlight snow, the stars. I’d stay up late in the night to watch meteorite showers and eclipses.
I was blessed to marry a man who loves to pause for beautiful things as much as I do. Together we go outside to enjoy meteorite showers, eclipses, and sunsets. If need be, we hop in the car to drive to a place where we can we have unobstructed views. We always pause to marvel over the skillful weaving of a spiderweb or an interesting bug. And we always pause to watch the geese fly overhead. If we are inside when we hear their haunting honks, we drop everything and run outside to watch them fly.
Here is a short video of Canadian geese flying. Pause for a moment and enjoy.
I don’t like bugs, insects or spiders. I really don’t. I leap up and scream whenever one gets near me. However, when my son was little, I didn’t want to pass my fear/dislike of creepycrawlies on to him, so I pretended that I liked them. We went on many bug hunts, turning over rocks to observe them, marveling over strange insects we found, and doing research about them Several times the neighbor kids also joined in our hunt for interesting bugs. The children wouldn’t have even known that I disliked creepycrawlies if one child hadn’t told me there was a spider on me, and I suddenly went into the frantic “There-is-a-Bug-on-Me-Get-It-Off-NOW!” dance as they all looked on with amusement.
Over the years, I have developed a fascination with bugs…as long as they aren’t on me. There really are a lot of very fascinating bugs out there. Such as this one:
The common caddisfly is a moth-like insect, found near lakes, streams, ponds and rivers, and often used as a bait for trout fishermen. Caddisfly larvae are aquatic, and spin protective silk cases which incorporate bits of material from their surroundings, such as gravel, twigs or small pieces of shell.
In this remarkable work, simply entitled Caddis, French artist Hubert Duprat (b.1957) has collaborated with caddis larvae by gently placing them in an environment full of gold, pearls and semi-precious stones. The caddis then spin these materials into their casings to produce breathtaking jewel-encrusted covers.
Do you find this hard to believe? Watch this video:
This is the larva of the Hemeroplanes triptolemus moth. In its larval form it is capable of expanding its anterior body segments to give it the appearance of a snake, complete with simulated eyes. It’s mimicry extends even to the point where it will harmlessly strike at potential predators.
This is what the adult moth looks like:
There are some wondrously strange things in this world!
I’m constantly amazed at the beautiful, strange, unusual creatures there are in the world. I never could imagine such things existed. Some look like life-forms from an alien planet. Amazingly, new never-seen-before creatures are being discovered all the time.
For example, this is a Yeti Crab (Kiwa hirsuta). it was discovered in 2005 in the South Pacific Ocean. It grows to around 15cm long. Discovered at a depth of 2,200 metres (7,200 ft), it lives on hydrothermal vents.
The “hairy” claws of the yeti crab contain filamentous bacteria, which the creature may use to convert carbon molecules emitted by the hydrothermal vents into nutrients. This is a process known as chemosynthesis. It may also consume bacteria.
Brick, stone, tile, sand, grass…garden paths can be beautiful, fun, peaceful.
Today I came across this picture of a whimsical garden path.
The first thing I thought when I saw this picture was that it would be impossible to simply walk down this path. A person would have to dance down it. Or constantly spin around–spinning to look at the beautiful rose on one side of the path, and then spinning to look at the lavender on the other side of the path. I suppose a person could jump or hop from one swirl to another. Or even skip off to see a wizard.
Dancing, spinning, jumping, hopping, skipping…but, never, never, could a person just walk.
Nothing is more the child of art than a garden. Sir Walter Scott
I just learned about an interesting Jewish organization that trains kids and adults, twelve years and older, to be friendly clowns who visit people in hospitals, senior care, and assisted living facilities all over the country. They bring laughter and cheer to the sick and lonely. They are called Mitzvah Clowns.
I’ve always loved superheroes who rid the world of crime and evil villains. They appeal to my sense of justice, to my love of goodness winning over evil.
I’m glad to announce that Superheros are not merely fictional.
They are real!
Spiderman, Batman, Captain America and Superman and others have shown up at hospitals in various cities. Their alter-egos are window-washers. Their mission is to cheer up sick children, such as those at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh as they did their window cleaning rounds.
This group of window washers said they wanted to put smiles on the faces of the children battling illnesses at the hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “All the guys had tears of joy in their eyes behind the costumes – it was very touching and overwhelming how excited the children were,” he explained.
What an awesome job! If I wasn’t afraid of heights, I would become a superhero window-washer, heroically bringing smiles to the faces of sick children
Not all superheros are window-washers. I am (somewhat) proud to boast that a city in my county has its own crime-fighting superhero. His name is Captain Jackson. He has been patrolling the streets of Downtown Jackson, Michigan, since 1999, spreading his message of civic duty while keeping an eye out for crooks and super-villains. He keeps a website with a schedule of community appearances, safety tips, and even a roster of his allied costume heroes, The Crimefighter Corps. Captain Jackson has been maintaining a blog since May 2000 called The Captain’s Corner.
Like all superheroes, Captain Jackson has his kryptonite and arch-rival: In 2004 he was charged with “impaired driving.” The local newspaper subsequently ran an article about the incident and published the Captains real life identity. (Boo!) The media coverage took a toll on our hero, and he took a two-year hiatus. Apparently he is back on active-duty at community events and online, but I have not heard much about him lately.
I often tell my family and friends that I have a superhero power as well: It is finding lost objects. It is minor compared to cheering up sick children or being a crimefighter, but it does save people from absolute panic when they lose something important. My super-weakness is that I cannot ever find myself. I can get lost ANYWHERE, any time. Just a couple of months ago, I needed to find a restroom at a theater and almost went out the emergency exit to the outdoors instead of to the hallway where the bathrooms were located. And a couple of days after that, I turned the wrong way out of a building located two blocks from my home. It doesn’t help to say, “I think I should turn right so, since I am always wrong, I will turn left instead” because I still turn the wrong way. My super-weakness affects others: A few years ago my sister-in-law drove me to Parent’s Night at my son’s Boy Scout Summer camp. My sister-in-law has driven all over the country and rarely gets lost. With me in the car, however, an hour drive took about 3 hours of wandering. Her GPS also got messed up, and at one point led us into a cemetery. I’m glad to say that we did, eventually, make to my son’s camp.
I love cats. I love dogs too…and animals in general, but let’s focus on cats today. I think cats are funny, entertaining, loving, cuddly…and they purr.
Everyone in my family adores cats and finds it almost impossible to refuse a homeless cat. Because of this, we find ourselves with eight cats, all of which were rescued from one place or another: Our veterinarian has a cage set up in his waiting room filled with kittens that are “free to good homes.” I can’t count how many times we’ve gone to the vet with one animal and left with two or three. The kids in our neighborhood periodically knock at the door asking us to “Please, please, please!” give a home to a little abandon kitten they’ve found. They know we will take them in. Sometimes the cat comes to our door himself, pleading for a home. My husband and I even stopped at a yard sale one time and came home with a starving stray cat. One day I will tell the story of our eight cats.
However, right now I’d like to share a story of a famous cat named Nora who is incredibly unique. I love her story!
Nora is a gray tabby cat, who was adopted from a shelter in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. When a year old, Nora climbed up onto the bench in front of a Yamaha Disklavier piano in the middle of the night and began to play. Since that time, Nora has continued to play the piano on a daily basis , sometimes playing duets with her owner and her owner’s students. Nora’s talent has been featured on many talk shows, newspapers and news channels including Martha Stewart, CNN, The Daily Show,Public Radio International, The Today Show, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the syndicated television show, Wild About Animals in September 2010.
Here is a video of Nora playing the piano:
Nora has attracted the interest of both musicians and scientists, who are fascinated by her rare behavior. It appears that she likes the attention it brings her, but she also plays when alone. She does express a preference for playing with students, when they play Bach, and for playing a specific piano, a Yamaha Disklavier. In addition, she gravitates toward the D-E-F range on the keyboard and includes the black keys in her playing.
Mindaugas Piečaitis is a Lithuanian composer and conductor who has worked with several major Lithuanian musical organizations. He gained international attention as the composer and conductor of a chamber orchestra piece featuring a performance by Nora.
There are a lot of interesting and amazing creatures in this world. One of the strangest creatures I have ever learned about is called the Mimic Octopus.
The mimic octopus is a species of octopus that has a strong ability to mimic other creatures. It was not discovered officially until 1998, off the coast of Sulawesi. It grows up to 60 cm (2 feet) in length. Its normal coloring consists of brown and white stripes or spots. The octopus mimics the physical likeness and movements of more than 15 different species, including sea snakes, lionfish, flatfish, brittle stars, giant crabs, sea shells, stingrays, flounders, jellyfish, sea anemones, and mantis shrimp. It accomplishes this by contorting its body and arms, and changing color. (Wikipedia)
My friend just shared this picture with me on Facebook. I thought it was really cool:
I think this frying pan would make cooking a heroic venture. And if my family didn’t like what I cooked, I could warn them to not complain…with style. Or if enemies threatened, I could swashbucklingly fight them off, like Flynn did in this scene in the movie Tangled:
Oh, wow, I have GOT to get me one of THESE! It would be so much fun.
This picture is one of my favorites. I think it is absolutely enchanting.
I can imagine adults standing in front of this painting, admiring the scene, maybe discussing its color and composition, before they walk away to the next.
This little girl stops. She has been mesmerized She isn’t merely observing the painting, she has been drawn into it. She has heard the music and become one with the dancer. The painting has come alive for her.
“Shall we dance, friend of my heart?” “We shall, little one.” ~ Christopher Paolini, Eldest
“And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon.” ~ Edward Lear, The Owl And The Pussycat
In my last post I wrote about Munising Falls, located in Michigan (USA). This made me think about the beauty of Michigan, my home state.
Here are a few interesting facts about Michigan:
Standing anywhere in the state a person is within 85 miles of one of the Great Lakes. It is the only state that touches 4 of the 5 Great Lakes. (Can you name the five Great Lakes?)
Michigan has the longest freshwater shoreline in the world. It has more shoreline than any other state except Alaska. It has more than 11,000 inland lakes and more than 36,000 miles of streams. It has 116 lighthouses and navigational lights. I LOVE lighthouses.
Michigan has the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, which was voted the Most Beautiful Place in America in 2011. It has many historical places to visit, like Mackinac Island. It has many beautiful National and State Parks. It has trees! I am amazed whenever I return home from vacationing in other states at the number of trees we have. I always exclaim, “Wow! We live in the middle of a dang FOREST!” And I live in the south, not up where the forests really begin.
What I most love about Michigan is what makes us utterly unique: our shape and what we call ourselves.
Michigan is made up of two large peninsulas, the Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula. The two Peninsulas are tied together by the beautiful Mackinac Bridge. The Mackinac is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. It spans 5 miles over the Straits of Mackinac.
The Peninsulas are in the shape of mittens. Because of this, those of us from Michigan always use our hands as maps to show our location or give directions. This is a habit that others sometimes find strange, but I and other natives love having a map always at hand (pun absolutely intended).
The Upper Peninsula is usually referred to as “the UP.” Not “up” as the opposite of “down,” but the letters U and P. People who live in the U.P. are referred to as “Yoopers,” which comes from the term “U.P.ers.” Say UPers fast and you have “Yoopers.” Yoopers call residents of the Lower Peninsula “Trolls” because we live south of the Mackinac Bridge–or “under the bridge,” like the trolls in the children’s story “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.” Yoopers have their own unique dialect. They don’t much like trolls, but I’d gladly become a Yooper–even if they do have 9 months of winter and 3 months of poor sledding–because it’s beautiful in da’ UP, eh?
Here are a couple of hilarious Youtube videos about Yoopers:
This is a picture of Munising Falls in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Winter has frozen the waterfall, but a person can hear the sound of water running down inside the ice.
I think it would be wonderful to tip toe up to the falls and listen to the water in the ice. It would be like listening to it talk in its sleep. What secrets would it whisper as it dreams of Spring?
This is Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni. It is not just one of the world’s largest salt flats, but also one of the world’s largest–and most accurate–mirrors. Due to its incredible flatness and lithium levels, when the region is exposed to rain it begins to reflect the sky with a variation of only a few percent.
This is a video of a baby elephant playing in the ocean waves. I don’t know if I have ever seen such joyous abandon as this happy little elephant displays as he splashes in the water. His joy fills me with delight.
I love the microscope we got for my son several years back for school. He enjoyed it, but I was absolutely amazed by it. I thought I knew what common items looked like–such as newspaper, cloth, human hair, a mosquito, a fly. But a microscope changes everything. I never knew, until I looked through a microscope, that a mosquito’s wings are so delicate and lacy, or that a fly carries repulsive dirt on its legs. I learned that what I see with my eyes is not everything there is.
Often we call things “common” because they are familiar. We forget to pause and really look, really see, and in doing so we overlook works of art that rival anything found in art galleries and museums.
This is a strange and beautiful tree called a Dragon Blood Tree. Its shape helps it survive arid conditions and areas with limited soil. The shading helps the seedlings survive in the harsh environment.
I Love To Go A Wondering 