Category: Nature

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Thursday/ hello, little face 😘

I found this pansy flower in the Thomas Street Gardens today.
In South Africa they are called gesiggies in Afrikaans (‘little faces’).

The garden pansy (genus Viola) is a type of large-flowered hybrid plant cultivated as a garden flower. It is a hybrid derived of several species in the section Melanium of the genus Viola, particularly V. tricolor, a wildflower of Europe and western Asia known as heartsease.
[Source: Wikipedia]
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Monday/ it’s a jungle out there 🐛

My lawn is the shaggiest it has been— maybe ever (gasp)— since I have moved into my house.
Our street block’s lawn services guy was off to a late start this spring, and he was scheduled to swing by last Friday, but it rained all day on Friday. He then left word with my neighbor that he would come by today, but it turned out his mower was in need of a quick repair and that he hopes to come out on Tuesday.
I think it’s time for me to dust off the electric mower in my garage and get out there tomorrow.

‘Your Perfect Lawn Is A Buzz Kill’ is the title of a recent article that I read, that advocates for eco-friendly front yards. And there is a ‘No-Mow May’ movement that encourages lawn owners to just leave the greens to their own devices for the month of May .. but then comes June and July and it’s back to mowing again, I guess.
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Tuesday/ a poem for a dinosaur 🦕

I found a poem in one of my books that came yesterday— one that is apt for the dinosaur from German toymaker Scheich that I had brought home in my suitcase.

Fossiel
Versteende geheime skuil
in jou primordiale hart.
Hier waar die jakkals nou huil
het oerdier vir oermens getart.

Fossil
Petrified secrets hide away
in your primordial heart.
Here where the jackal howls today,
primeval beast gave caveman a start.

Original Afrikaans poem by Isaac David du Plessis, published 1965.
The rough translation into English is my own.

Once this dinosaur had its teeth in you and shut its movable jaws, there was no escape. Monolophosaurus was a genus of tetanuran (stiff-tailed) theropod (hollow bones, three toes & a claw on each limb) dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Shishugou Formation in what is now Xinjiang, China.
It was named for the single crest on top of its skull. They lived about 165 million years ago. Weight about 1,000 pounds (425 kg) and length about 18 ft (5 m).
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Sunday/ what sharp teeth you have 😱

The Tristan Otto* T-Rex fossil is on loan to the Museum für Naturkunde (Museum of Natural History) in Berlin for research and presentation over the next few years.

It is one of a handful of original Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons in Europe, and is one of the best preserved T. rex specimens in the world.
The deep black skeleton from the Upper Cretaceous period (100 million to 66 million years ago) was found only in 2010— in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, USA.

*The names of the sons of the two private owners of the fossil.

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Sunday/ here comes the sun ☀️

It’s a short drive from my hotel up with Kloof Nek Road, to reach the turnout onto Signal Hill Road that runs to the viewpoint at the top of Signal Hill.

Sunrise is at 7 am, and I was in position and ready to take a few pictures of Table Mountain catching the first light of the day.

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Saturday/ a walk in the Gardens 🌺

It was quiet early on Saturday morning in the Gardens (also called ‘The Company’s Garden).
The garden was originally created in the 1650s by the region’s first European settlers and provided fertile ground to grow fresh produce to replenish ships rounding the Cape.

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Wednesday/ hello daffodils 🟡

The daffodils are out here in my neighborhood.

Narcissus is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae.
Various common names including daffodil, narcissus, and jonquil are used to describe all or some members of the genus.
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Tuesday/ around the Sound ⛴

I tagged along with Bryan and Gary to Hansville on Kitsap Peninsula today.
We did the usual drive-around south of Puget Sound across the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge by Gig Harbor, and then came back across the Sound on the Kingston ferry.
The Space Needle picture was a telephoto lens shot (on my big camera, not the phone) from I-5 South, looking across Lake Union.

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Monday/ not too late for a worm 🪱

‘Early bird catches the worm’
– Proverbial saying first recorded in English in 1605

Mr Robin* found an earthworm on my front lawn this afternoon, and promptly made a meal of it.
Robins can actually eat as many as a dozen earthworms in a single day.

*American robin (Turdus migratorius)

 

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Friday/ the Big Five 🦏🐃 🦁 🐆 🐘

It was dark by the time the mailman came today, but he dropped an envelope with a bunch of stamps I had ordered from a seller in California.
So it was all worth the wait.

The Big Five* (Rhinoceros, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard and Elephant) is a very popular and recurring theme on South African stamps and barely a year or two goes by, before yet another set of stamps with The Big Five on them is issued. The strip of Big Five animal stamps at the top of the picture is from 1996, and the ones in the foreground are from 1998.
*Must-see animals to spot when going on safari in southern Africa
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Saturday/ a tiny stamp from Canada 🍁

Here is a high-resolution scan of a little stamp, only 1 in. x 0.8 in.
It was on the envelope that had stamps in that I had bought from a seller in Canada.

The micro-printed text running along the mountain ridge says Kootenay National Park— and I believe this is Mount Fay there, on the border of Alberta and British Columbia on the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies.
The stamp was designed by Stéphane Huot from a photo by Roger Hostin. It is one of the stamps in a series called ‘Far and Wide’ issued in 2020.
Set in the Rocky Mountains of southeastern British Columbia, Kootenay National Park is a 1,406 square km (543 sq mi) area straddling the Kootenay River.
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Monday/ what’s going on up there? 🛸

So after the big white spy balloon from China, three more mysterious unidentified flying objects over Alaska, Canada and Michigan were shot down by U.S. military jets with missiles— on Friday, on Saturday and on Sunday.

Our government assures us there are no aliens involved.
Are they sure? 😉

Posted by Pacific NW Seasons on Twitter @NWSeasons, with the caption
‘Perhaps another UFO, masquerading as a cloud, nearing Mt. Rainier/Tahoma this morning? 😁’.
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Sunday/ hello there 🌷

The little harbingers of spring have started to appear here on Capitol Hill in Seattle.

Crocus is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae (iris family) comprising about 100 species of perennials growing from corms.