Spiders

Tarantula Train, Fort Worth, Texas

Most tarantulas are busy minding their own business. If you don't bother them, they won't bother you.

And Snakes

Midway, State Fair, Dallas, Texas

Rat snakes, Duncanville, Texas

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake. " W. C. Fields

Water Works

Painting by M. Bowerson
Saginaw, Michigan Water Filtration Plant. Constructed 1929

"Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium.

There is no life without water."

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Lilies

" Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?" Samuel Johnson

"Each flower is a soul blossoming out to nature."

Gerard De Nerval

Painting by Tesesa Celluci

Baby Blue Eyes

"Now day after day try to keep smiling

And a broken heart I try to disguise

Now night after night my lonely heart's calling

It's calling for you my baby blue eyes"

Flatt and Scruggs

Hibiscus

Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores
By Wallace Stevens (1921)

I say now, Fernando, that on that day
the mind roamed as a moth roams,
Among the blooms beyond the open sand; and that whatever noise the motion of the waves made on the sea-weeds and the covered stones disturbed not even the most idle ear.
Then it was that that monstered moth which had lain folded against the blue and the colored purple of the lazy sea, and which had drowsed along the bony shores, Shut to the blather that the water made,
Rose up bespent and sought the flaming red
Dabbled with yellow pollen --- red as red
As the flag above the old cafe--- And roamed there all the stupid afternoon




"Hibiscus"

Painting by B J Spurgeon

"Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature."

Gerard De Nerval

Sticky Situations

"Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky." Fran Lebowitz

"When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited." Ramakrishna

"Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities." Ralph Marston

Progreso, Playa del Carmen and "Dom Perignon"

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more." George Byron

We're All Ears

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in." George McGovern

The Long and the Short of It

"I'm back in the saddle again

Out where a friend is a friend

Where the long-horn cattle feed

On lonesome jimson weed

Back in the saddle again." Gene Autry

More Things With Wings

"Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru.

In llama land, there's a one man band

And he'll toot his flute for you

Come fly with me, we'll float down in the blue"

Frank Sinatra

Lake Michigan

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."

Henry David Thoreau

Waiting for the Countess

"I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;
I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat;
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to reside."

From "To Lucy, Countess of Bedford"
Ben Jonson

Dragonfly

"I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings." Gustave Flaubert

"He hovers just above the glittering current, iridescent green in morning sun." Patricia Traxler

Amos Oscar and Other Magical Rabbits

"Nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over afterwards it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again." Lewis Carroll

Blending In

My Lizard

By Elizabeth Tidy

A lizard sat upon my wall. He looked so happy, green, and small. “What scaly thoughts are in your head?” “I’m thinking of my bike,” he said. “Your bike?” with shock I did reply. “I did not know that you could ride a bicycle. I thought you crawled across the ground and right up walls.”“Yes, well, you are mistaken, lad,” My lizard said, a wee bit mad. And from behind my potted plant, he took a bicycle and sat upon its teeny tiny seat and pedaled off with lizard feet.

From "Pegasus in Pound"

Melete, Mneme, and Aoede (the Three Muses)

Once into a quiet village, without haste and without heed,

In the golden prime of morning, strayed the poet's winged steed.
Thus, upon the village common, by the school-boys he was found;

And the wise men, in their wisdom, put him straightway into pound.

Then the sombre village crier, ringing loud his brazen bell,

Wandered down the street proclaiming there was an estray to sell.
And the curious country people, rich and poor, and young and old,

Came in haste to see this wondrous winged steed, with mane of gold.
Patiently, and still expectant,Looked he through the wooden bars,

Saw the moon rise o'er the landscape, saw the tranquil, patient stars;
Then, with nostrils wide distended, breaking from his iron chain,

And unfolding far his pinions, to those stars he soared again.
On the morrow, when the village woke to all its toil and care,

Lo! the strange steed had departed, and they knew not when nor where.
But they found, upon the greensward where his straggling hoofs had trod,

Pure and bright, a fountain flowing from the hoof-marks in the sod.
From that hour, the fount unfailing gladdens the whole region round,

Strengthening all who drink its waters,While it soothes them with its sound.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Inspiration

I'm optimistic that the world of native plants will not only survive, but will thrive for environmental and economic reasons, and for reasons of the heart. Beauty in nature nourishes us and brings joy to the human spirit, it also is one of the deep needs of people everywhere.
Warm regards,

Life is Ducky

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me."

Emily Dickinson

"Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath." Michael Caine