Eerily descriptive plant names and a new nature find!

Hey everyone! I feel like it's been some time since I've been blogging. The weather finally warmed up, so I find I'm not on the computer so much lately. That and I've been working on a lot of craft/decorating projects. But the other day I saw some plants that motivated me to get blogging again. These plants were for sale at a local garden shop called Plant Land.

I thought you guys would be interested in some of the plants' names. Several of them had spooky, intriguing names that made me look twice. The names are pretty self-explanatory, if you use a little imagination. This first one is called "Dragon's Blood".

In my eyes, it is named that because the little succulent's pedals/leaves look like scales. And the red rims could be seen as the "blood". Or you could see these long, curving vines as the dragon's neck.

I had taken pics of these plant labels for my own reference, but I decided to include them in case any of you were looking for more information. Like, if they're perennials or how much sun they'd like, basic stuff.

In keeping with the blood theme, this next one is called "Blood Leaf". Again, you can see why. There are tinges of red around the corners of the leaves. These leaves reminded me of Brussels sprouts.

The stems are also a beautiful magenta-type red.

Which creature does this plant remind you of?

This is the "Escargot" Rex Begonia. Its leaves do look like a snail's shell, don't they?

Here's one for the Goths! This is the "Fishnet Stockings" coleus. I love coleus plants and am growing some myself. Although, mine are the pink polkadot ones. I fall in love with pretty much every new coleus I see!

Part of what I like about this one is the color variation. You can see that depending on each leaf, the colors are slightly different. And that's all on the same plant! Some of the leaves are an almost neon green, while others are more of a light yellow. And there are these neat magenta splatters like paint on the leaves.

The stems are a beautiful reddish purple color.

This petunia had to be included based on its name: "Black Magic".

The Black Magic petunias look and feel a little like velvet, and the comparisons don't end there. They also photograph like black velvet, meaning they pick up every speck of dust and fuzz in the atmosphere. Trust me, these look cooler in person.

Another petunia with a cool name is the "Night Sky". I liked this a lot in person but I love it in photos. Somehow, the "stars" in the petal sky show up a lot more in photos. I was actually calling this the "Cow Petunia" on first sight.

And I love how each of these flowers is unique. Some are much more "star-filled" than others.

I didn't even notice these fluffy little yellow flowers until looking at the photos later. They look neat with the purple and I have no idea what they are. Little photo bombers. 😀

Plant Land has a pretty extensive selection. This is just one area.

You might see in the distance of that last photo, some old train crossing signs. There are some neat old repurposed decorations like this around the shop.

So, in the title of this blog post, I mentioned "a new nature find". My mom and I were at a local park for Mother's Day and saw some pinecones we couldn't believe. I'll start out with an exotic one here. It's almost like a tropical flower.

But this is the big shocker! Look at these beautiful red pinecones. I have not doctored this photo whatsoever.

They're so beautiful, like candles on a birthday cake! Or like the vintage candles that are clipped onto a Christmas tree's branches.

This branch reminded me of a hand waving its bright red fingernails at us. On its, um... eight fingers.

To give you an idea of how standard this pine tree was, here's a view looking up.

Seriously, have you seen anything like this ever? We've walked through this park for years and this is the first time we've seen bright red pinecones. We could see some in progress, and they seemed to be partially changed from a light purple to bright red. I can only think this is a spring thing. And we must have happened upon this during the brief change time. It reminds me of those bright red mushrooms we found in the park about a year ago:

A Surprise Forest Find.

Remember those? It's probably a find like that, where you have to be in the right place at just the right time in the season to see it.

I know many of you are nature people, so I bet someone can tell me why we saw what we saw. Are these baby pinecones, that start out red in the spring? Some people online are calling these "pollen cones". And come to think of it, when my mom touched one, a bunch of what looked like pollen swooshed out. Actually, it swooshed right onto the lenses of the sunglasses I was (luckily) wearing.

OK! I did a little research and I think I might know what's up. It looks like what we saw were the male pinecones, while the female pinecones are the ones we're more familiar with. You know, the large, woody, brown traditional pinecones. I just learned that from this mind-blowing video, which shows a lady harvesting the pollen from male pinecones:

Who knew it was edible? I know I say this pretty much every time I blog about nature, but there's something new to discover all the time! It's amazing how if you're quiet and observing nature, you can see pinecones, mushrooms, or insects you've never seen before. I'm starting to think that I'll be saying this for the rest of my life, and I'm definitely OK with that! 

My Pictures of the Super Blood Moon Eclipse

Last Sunday, September 27th, there was something amazing in the sky. Many of you were probably aware that there was a full moon that night. It was also a super moon, a blood moon, and featured a lunar eclipse! This was a pretty big deal because these events have not occurred since 1982. We won't see this moon action in the sky again until 2033!

I was fortunate enough to witness the eclipse. The weather was good and the skies were clear. The eclipse happened a lot faster than I expected. Not to say that the shadow whooshed across the moon, but there was steady movement over the course of an hour. If you took, say a five minute break from looking up, you'd see a definite difference in the moon.

Something cool and almost eerie was the red cast to the shadow once it had nearly covered the moon. At times it looked purple too. I had to laugh at one point because I heard a dog howl. I swear, in the darkness someone's dog howled! How perfect is that?

So of course I had to take a ton of photos through the moon's process of eclipsing. Here they are now, from the bright beginning to the dark end.

And then it started getting red... Funny enough, this is how it looked to my eye, but I could only capture the red from far away. When I closed in, it looked more like a fade from yellow to purple to red.

I cropped in to show you better.

After the eclipse, the shadow across the moon faded back the other way. It was sort of bright from the bottom too. Then it was its normal self again. I had some fun with my fisheye lens for the next two shots. Quite a dramatic sky.

Pretty amazing, hey? I was sure glad to have the opportunity to see this full/super/blood moon with an eclipse! Did any of you see this?

Happy Hearts Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! To celebrate this year's Valentine's Day, I decided to make a craft I'd seen done in a variety of ways online. I made a garland out of the heart cards in a regular deck of playing cards.

It was a pretty inexpensive and quick project, but I really like how it turned out! I bought some playing cards at Dollar Tree (two decks for one dollar!) and separated out the hearts. Then I punched two holes in the top of each card and ran some ribbon through the holes. After I tied a few loops at each end of the garland, it was ready to hang!

I added some rhinestone heart stickers to a few random cards as a finishing touch. I like the way it looks on this wrought iron tray. I think there's something classic about the combination of red, white, and black.

Now I just need to figure out a way to use those leftover cards in the deck. Any ideas? Maybe some of the spades could work well for a Halloween craft project.

After finishing my garland, I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland. Remember those marching cards?

You might enjoy this trip down memory lane:

I should have that song in my head for the rest of the day!

I also have to share this Queen of Hearts makeup tutorial! I've watched many different videos of women who showed how to look like this character, but I've never seen a look like this. This one looks like she's straight off the card!

Her end result actually freaks me out a little because it's like watching a giant playing card talk. Wouldn't it be a neat group costume if several people all dressed as different court cards?

I hope you all have a fun day, however you plan to celebrate!