Y'all! Someone made me a meme! And I couldn't be more pleased. Thank you, this did indeed cheer me up. 
The background painting is Alessandro de' Medici and Luisa Strozzi, by Alessandro Focosi, (1862, 19th Century, oil on canvas), a better copy of which can be seen in this article: Hell Hath No Fury: An Exploration Of Female Rage which is itself delightful.
https://graziamagazine.com/articles/hell-hath-no-fury-an-exploration-of-female-rage/
Sometimes we need something magical in our lives.
Origami Phoenix, designed by Satoshi Kamiya, folded by me from a 62 cm square of banana tissue paper.
Today in the garden. A zucchini, 1 San Marzano tomato, 2 cucumbers, and the last of the beets.
#gardening #harvest #GrowYourOwn #July16 #zucchini #tomatoes #cucumbers #garden #SanMarzanoTomatoes #GrownFromSeed #today
Yes indeed, It's possible for me to grow carrots and onions, in a pot, in my hot dry climate in SoCal.
I harvested a sample to check on progress. Grown from seed sown in late spring. Large pot, draped netting over seedlings to protect from birds, basic potting soil, watered gently & throughly, spoke to them a lot to encourage
Also, as carrots gained more leaf, I harvested some of those greens for house rabbit
Cycles and seasons, right?
My friend Dan is raffling off one of his Sitca Spruce prints (worth £80! handprinted by him on 175 gsm BFK Rives Velin paper).
100% of the money raised will go towards Medical Aid for Palestinians: https://www.map.org.uk/
Entry is only £3. Head here to enter: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdDY8UypQntw09dCbIE-Qdzeps1yLZWJx4gq8cFlThtG-BAug/viewform
Winner TBA 2 August.
Delivery by his fair hand in person, or via post if you're outside of south east Wales, and he'll throw in the hanging frame shown in the picture!
Pob lwc! 
(Feel free to share widely!)
Morning on Bear Island, a barrier island with no roads connecting it to the mainland.
📷 Open for full horizontal view.
#BearIsland #HammocksBeachSP #Meermittwoch #SeaWednesday #Nature
Equisetum arvense
#MakroMittwoch #Fotografie
#BloomScrolling #Outdoors #Florespondence #Gardening #NaturePhotography #Nature
#FleurisTonFil #Photography
#Macro #Photo #Pixelfed #Horsetail Ackerschachtelhalm
Knowing how to tie a useful knot is a skill that doesn't get much attention outside of sailing and rock climbing, but although I do neither of those things, I like learning new knots. They come in handy in the garden, the kitchen, and any time I have to move something on or in a vehicle.
If you'd like to learn to be more handy with rope and string, I suggest this website, where you can learn new knots. You can easily go step by step, reverse, or even re-orient the knot to see how it looks from another angle. It's called "Animated Knots." They even have neckties!
Primus inter pares 🙂👍
My favourite butterfly of the summer so far – a common blue (Polyommatus icarus) in the garden today 🦋
The black & white fringed blue topside means it's a male – the females have a range of browns & blues, with orange edge spots. The underside is pretty as well.
Pictures aren't super-sharp – I was struggling to keep my footing in a steep location, trying to get closer 😬
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🕸️
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲
And although this picture of another carpenter bee is nothing like as crisp overall, I can't resist sharing it too.
Not only does it illustrate the wings in their full metallic violet-blue glory, but it also captures a fleeting moment of garden drama, as a small spider crawls on the bee's head & a honey bee cruises in from behind.
It just goes to show how big the carpenter bees are 🙀
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🕸️
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲
Note: as many people have kindly pointed out, the foreground bee is very unlikely to be a normal honey bee, Apis mellifera, as it’s too small & too shiny.
Not sure exactly what kind it is, perhaps a sweat bee.
While that diminishes the size comparison with the carpenter bee, the latter remain objectively huge, the largest European bees🙂
Remarkable photo. But I don't think the small bee is a honeybee (Apis mellifera)? It's tiny, adreniform... and I can't find it in the "Common Bees of Eastern North America" ... which makes sense since the large bee is Xylocopa californica I think? Meaning this is a photo from out west.
I know that Apis mellifera has many color variations, but this small bee almost has a green/blue sheen and I've never seen that. The eyes also seem too small... but this angle is hard.
Since you saw it in person do you remember how small it was? Is there another angle? This is driving me crazy. I'm not really good at bees... but this will bug me until I know.
It COULD be Apis mellifera. I can't really rule that out... they are kind of diverse in color... but still.
Dialictus is a subgenus of sweat bees belonging to the genus Lasiolossum. Most of the members of this subgenus have a metallic appearance, while some are non-metallic. There are over 630 species worldwide.They are commonly found in temporal regions and are found in abundance in North America. Members of this subgenus also have very diverse forms of social structure making them model organisms for studying the social behavior of bees. (Source: Wikipedia, '', http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialictus, CC BY-SA 3.0 . Photo: (c) Katja Schulz, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by Katja Schulz)
Way too small for a honey bee. Says an ex-beekeeper who regularly sees this carpenter bee in her garden.
Apart from size, the little bee’s body looks different, too. I found this picture for comparison
(source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM9Ccgcv3W8 )
come to think of it, maybe Max @StrepsipZerg can help with identification?
(and that’s a follow recommendation, too 🙂)
@nellie_m @futurebird Thank you.
That said, @StrepsipZerg doesn’t seem to be active here any more, & besides, he has the temerity to suggest in his bio that his cats are cuter than mine. The management dispute that claim 😻🤪
@markmccaughrean @futurebird @StrepsipZerg
oh, I’ve tagged him a few times and he’s always been so kind as to answer, so unless he left very recently I think there’s still a chance!
Would be nice to know what kind of bee it is, because apart from honey bees, I don’t know the first thing about them 🫣
Another great photo. Is that honeybee a queen? She looks rather long.
I’d be surprised if she was, because they don’t usually go out on their own to forage, but I agree, she does look a little long. I’ve been fooled a couple of times, though, until the real queen appeared and removed all doubt 😆 Mature queens only leave the hive in a swarm, and young princesses leave to find drones, not food. I don’t think they’d waste time on that.
It’s great, but not my picture, I linked to the youtube source above.
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