First, there was one.

Then there were two.

Then there were three!

These photos of the wild rabbits who came into our yard remind me of my seestor. Why is that?

Well, first there was one (Texas Seestor).

Then there were two (Texas Seesor and Trainwreck).

And sooooooooooooon there will be three! (Texas Seestor and Trainwreck and ?)

Yep! They are expecting! I'm going to get to be an auntie! Exciting, huh? Well, we think so. She is due near Christmas. I am really thrilled for them.

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Well, another week has gone by and we've now been at this for 5 months.

How did you do this week?

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These are another type of weed/wildflower that I have been seeing on my exercise walks. They only grow in the shade in one very isolated spot as far as I can tell.

The first time I saw them, I stopped and stared at them, because I liked their appearance so much. After all, they are 1) purple and 2) grow like a string of little bells and 3) some of the greenery has curly stems coming off of it. The flowers are so tiny, it was hard to get a decent photograph of them. I really needed my zoom lens and probably should've laid down on the ground, but I didn't feel like getting down on the ground or walking my zoom lens all of the way out there. These flowers are located 1/3 of the way into my (45 min) walk. So, this photo will have to suffice to remind me of them.

I'd never seen a weed/wildflower like this before. I've been noticing that there are different flowers growing here in MN than I've seen before in Indiana or other places we've lived. Neat, huh?

Happy Friday everyone!

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Well, I managed to do better this week than last week. How did you do comparatively?

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(and in large)

I've been seeing this crazy-looking flower whenver I go for my exercise walks.

It is quite thorny and prickly looking.

And as I discovered as I was trying to take photos, not only is it thorny-Looking but it really is thorny! It was windy and I was trying to find a spot to hold onto it to hold it still and it was worse than trying to get ahold of a rose bush.

Last weekend, Amber came over and we went for our exercise walk together. When we saw the weed/flower, it had not yet reached the blooming stage in the photo directly above this. Instead, it still looked like the first photo.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I saw it in full bloom yesterday.

It reminded me of a thistle.

Interestingly, I ran into a couple who were also out walking who spotted my camera and asked if I'd captured anything good. I told them about the crazy plant and the woman told me it is indeed a thistle and is actually a globe thistle.

Sounded reasonable to me. So now we have an I.D. on the crazy plant. A globe thistle.

Oh and one last photo. This plant is really quite large. I know that without a person or something for reference it is hard to tell from the photo, but I went ahead and took one anyway. At least it will remind me how big it was, if nothing else.

I took all photos with Dee-Dee yesterday.

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Well, I just got back from a hard exercise walk and am sweating copiously and am bright red in my face.

How did you do this week?

Posted by danielle at 08:03 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

While we were vacationing in Boston, we made a trip up to Cambridge to go to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The exhibit that lured us there was that they have the Ware collection of glass flowers. Yes, those flowers in the above photo are made out of glass.

We walked around, somewhat stunned that the flowers in front of us were really made out of glass.

It was difficult to fathom the amount of work and patience it would take to make these models.

Evidently, it took 50 years for Leopold Blaschka and his son to make the collection of 3000 models (830 flower species).

How many failed attempts until they got a petal or a leaf right?

And then we saw the tools that they'd used!

They seemed so bulky and large compared to the kinds of tools you'd imagine would be used today for such delicate work.

Just amazing.

Tea anyone? That plant is Camillia sinensis, the tea plant.

It is really quite a collection. And the rest of the museum is really very nice too.

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The phrase "sweating like a pig" comes to mind this week. But do pigs really sweat all that much? Heck if I know.

How did you do this week?

Posted by danielle at 07:20 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

I had the nicest surprise on Wednesday night; the neighbor boy brought over a freshly-cut bouquet of lilacs!

It turns out that they have a few bushes on the other side of their house, but cannot cut them and have them in the house because the neighbor lady is allergic to them. Instead of letting them go to waste, the neighbor guy was cutting them into bouquets and sending them with his son over to the various neighbors. Wasn't that sweet?!

I was inspired to pull out my Vivitar lens and the extension tubes for these shots in order to capture the tiny star-like blossoms.

And to capture the fireworks burst of buds.

I hope you get the chance (or got the chance, for those of you living in warmer regions) to smell some lilacs this spring.

All pictures were taken with my Vivitar 70-210 mm lens and Kenko extension tubes (all 3 stacked together).

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