Odd couple

Thought at first this was more exciting but it turns out the big guy is not normally an aggressive predator. Still not often you see a capybara and a kitty getting so cozy.



[photo via]

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The door to forgetfulness

I read this article in Scientific American that tells me there's a reason you forgot what you went into the kitchen for by the time you get there. Apparently the mere act of walking through a door makes you forget. Especially if you walk through a door that looks like this...



My dream house definitely needs a pool room like this. [photo via Old Moss Woman]

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Bee bop

The classic dilemma. Do you tell or let them enjoy their misplaced hopes? Heck, you never know. Nature mutates all the time. It could happen some day...



[cartoon via]

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Old forests are best

One of the things I really miss about living in New England are the old hardwood forests. I lived for many years on the edge of acres and acres of woods that looked very much like this. You can almost imagine elves and fairies around every turn in the path.



[photo via Old Moss Woman]

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Let's never mention this again

Maybe this is only funny if it happened to you. It happened to me once, so it made me laugh.



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More wonders of nature

This repulses in its construction yet awes me with its beauty at once. Have to admit it was an inspired idea.

Caddisfly larvae build protective cases using materials found in their environment. Artist Hubert Duprat supplied them with gold leaf and precious stones. This is what they created.

Assume the artist is going to sell these things for tons of money. It won't be to me though. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't want anything that hatched a bug in my house. Makes my skin crawl just to think about it.

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Wonders of nature

Not sure whether this is real since I found it on Facebook. This guy sure looks smaller than 20 inches long even you include the tail, but he does look tiny, even for a kitten. He sure is cute either way.

Mr Peebles may look like a kitten, but he is actually 2-year-old. The tiny cat got its size from a genetic defect that stunts growth. At just 6.1-inch (15.5 cm) high and 19.2-inch (49 cm) long, he currently holds certification from The Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s smallest cat.

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The Enchanted Forest

This happened a while ago, around the time of the storm but it's a timeless story. Like a fairy tale. Rescue guys on Fire Island find a nearly frozen fawn in the water. They get it to shore and it looks dead. It's just lying there on the ground...

That’s when the Enchanted Forest-like miracle happened: Three deer — an adult and two young babies that appeared to be members of the fawn’s family — came out of the woods and began to lick the little guy.

Little guy lives. Like magic. [Read the rest here]

And while we're talking about little miracles, can't embed the video on this, but here's a heartwarming story about a starving mother dog and her babies.

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Tunnel of fun

So when I finally build my dream house, it will have gardens. And instead of a grape arbor, it will have this:



[photo via]

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Crabby

I can't follow Where's Andrew because Andrew Evans gets to travel around the world on National Geographic's dime and tweet photos all day. I'd never leave the twitter just waiting for the next shot. At the moment, he's at the Galapagos Islands for the first time in his life. This was my favorite photo of the hour's worth of timeline I checked on his profile page.



So colorful. He says they dance.

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Fall down funny

Twelve seconds of too cute for words. Admit I played it more than once.

Is that an avocado in your pocket...

This is very clever. Can see why it won an award.

Big chicken

Hard to get away from the snow sculptures when I keep finding new ones. Seen a lot of great snow animals in my day. Don't think I've ever seen a snow chicken.



[photo via]

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Happy Valentine's Day.

Happy valentine's day my friends. I don't have a sweetheart so you all will have to be my sweeties this year. So just for you, here's a love bird. Red bird of paradise comes with its own heart feathers.


[photo via Cornell Birds]

And since it's my tradition to post a vintage card, this is the best one I found on the social nets today.



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Delta Blues

Commander Hadfield tweets my new favorite photo taken from the International Space Station. The mighty Mississippi as it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.



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Castles made of sand, slip into the sea...

Thinking we've had enough of snow. I'm certainly dreaming of blue water and warm sand. So check out this whole gallery of amazing sandcastles by Flickr user Box Builder. This is one of my favorites.

Hoping he won't sue me for posting this since it's listed as "all rights reserved" but these are too good not to share. Please don't use this photo commercially by stealing it from here.

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Winter wonderland

I'm hearing it poured rain in the Northeast on top of the snow today, but yesterday was dry for the big dig when people excavated their cars and the kids went out to play. My favorite of the snow photos was this gallery of dogs who love snow. There's 40 of them. This was my very favorite of the lot. Reminds me of my old dog Casey, may she rest in peace.

New winner of best in snowmen is this ambitious production. It reminds me of my favorite cartoon strip, now also sadly gone, Calvin and Hobbes.

[photo via NBC instagram page]

Apparently forgot to save the photo from this Massachusetts snow gallery but I'm sure there's something great in there. And surely CNN (now under new management)got the biggest scoop of the storm.

[photo via Dave Pell]

Meanwhile I'm told in the Happy Valley the fog is quietly rolling in. I used to love when that happened. If memory serves it mysteriously melts the snow.

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Year of the Snake

It's now the Chinese year. I'm told snake years are exciting, but not always in a good way. Which is actually how I feel about seeing snakes in the wild generally. Unless they look like this.

By the way, if you are a snake person under the Chinese astrological calendar, it's probably going to be an exciting year in a good way. So there's that...

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After the storm

Well, it was an impressive storm but doesn't look as big as the one in 78. Of course, I'm not there. Big excitement in my yard is the first dandelion just popped up in the lawn. And I haven't forgotten how tiring it is to deal with this much snow. Anyway, here's the best pix from my social nets.

Somewhere in Boston. Don't often see the snow this deep there.

[photo via Jen Royle]

And you remember the snowman from yesterday afternoon? If you look closely (click to embiggen)you can still see his head sticking up through the snow down there in the foreground.

Winner of best use of a snowdrift blocking the door...

And this one was from yesterday and is probably buried by now, but it has my vote for best snow sculpture of the storm.

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Wicked nor’easter Nemo

Yesterday I was having a hard time believing a storm named after a cute little fish was going to become a monster.

May have to eat those words. It surely looks serious from space.

[photo via]

So far though, on the ground it's not looking all that impressive yet. Not even close to the big one of 1978. On the bright side, it appears to be great snowman snow.

That's my friend's kid from somewhere near Boston. Not anywhere near two feet deep yet but they say it's going to get big overnight. Looking forward to the morning photos.

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Removable graffiti

Love spontaneous art. Imagine some high school kid doing this at school. You have to love that they made it so easily removable. Wonder how long it stayed up?

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Eyes on you

This is has been kicking around for so long I've lost the photo credit. And since I've saved this one, I've seen several others, but this is still the best mural above a urinal I've seen on the internets.

No idea if this is a problem for guys standing there, but from here, it's pretty funny.

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An elephant for Annie

My sister is in South Africa fulfilling a life long dream to hang out with elephants. She's living with real ones for a couple of weeks but this guy captures the joy I hope she finds in this trip.

[photo via GreatestPics]

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Wonders of nature

I pretty much hate bugs but I do have a slight fondness for praying mantis. Still find them creepy but somehow fascinating. They're so unusual and so rarely seen. I had no idea they come in so many colors and forms. Found this purple guy on facebook today.

And while I was checking to make sure this a real thing and not just a photoshop, I discovered the orchid mantis. Now these are really amazing.

[photo via]

Lots more orchid mantis at this link. They come in so many colors. Like little miracles of nature.

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SuperBowl Sunday

I've seen at least part of every Superbowl since the third one and how about that Joe Namath. To this day he's the only football player I might recognize on the street. Never have liked the game. Football is too violent for taste but I've been to many Superbowl parties and always watched the commercials.

Of course, these days you can see them ahead of time on the internet. This is only I've seen so far but I'm pretty sure, this is going to be my favorite this year. Swear, even though it's totally derivative, I've watched it three times now and got teary every time.



Beats the hell out of those stupid frogs that everybody else loved so much that one year.

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Photos from outer space

As long as I live I will never get over the wonder that Commander Chris Hadfield tweets these photos to us from a space station orbiting the earth. How magic is that?

This ghost face above is on an island around New Zealand. The smoke monster below is somewhere in Australia. That's apparently a very big fire.

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