Daffodil Lane

July 19, 2008

Let's Talk Some Orchids Today!

I love orchids. I buy the "cheap" ones (Phalaenopsis), but I still love them none the less. Right now I have 3 of my orchids that are in bloom.

Let's start with the yellow first:

I've had this orchid for 4 or 5 years. This is the first time since I bought it that it has put on a bloom shoot. Maybe it's because it's in a window that gets more sun? I'm not sure, but it has dainty little blooms between the size of a quarter and a half dollar.

Next we have the purple orchid:

I've had this one for years too. This is the third time that it has bloomed. It seems to bloom every year. It had 6 blooms total, but just dropped one. Now we're down to five, but the other blooms seem to be hanging in there. These blooms are about the size of a large plum.

Now let's take a look at a white orchid:

I got this orchid at Costco (yeah I know...who would have thought?) in January and it had a very long bloom shoot covered in 11-12 blossoms. A few weeks ago the last of those blossoms fell. A few weeks before that a side shoot sprouted off and now it is blooming again. This shoot looks like it will have 7-8 blossoms.

What is odd about this new shoot is that the bloom upon it have a slight purple tinge on the back of the blooms, where the original stalk did not. Plant phenotypes at work...Fascinating! ;o) The blooms are roughly the size of a small apple.

So that's my orchids for now...You're thrilled I know! ;oP

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July 10, 2008

Sunflower From Nelson

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June 18, 2008

Doorway to Heaven

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June 4, 2008

Lady Bug

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May 24, 2008

Bloom Where You're Planted

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May 18, 2008

More Moon

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Moon Over Maryland

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May 7, 2008

Family

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April 29, 2008

Iceburg Breaking Up

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April 24, 2008

A Very Good Sign...

The garden is full of them! ;o)

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April 23, 2008

Hop...Pop...Hop on Pop

Little bun bun hopping along. He appears to be blind in his other eye so I kept the shots to his "good side", but he was hopping along rather nicely.

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Posted by: Moni at April 26, 2008 12:17 PM

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April 22, 2008

More Apple Blossoms

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April 19, 2008

Apples In The Making

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April 13, 2008

I Guess It's Too Late For Him To See His Shadow...

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April 2, 2008

Shadow

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April 1, 2008

Green Grass

You know spring is beginning when the grass starts turning green! Or maybe you know when the spring allergies begin, but we won't talk about those! ;o)

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March 28, 2008

Spring Has Sprung

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March 14, 2008

Spring is Coming

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March 12, 2008

Want to Rescue a Couple of Stranded Whales? Let the Dolphin do it!

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A dolphin swam up to two distressed whales that appeared headed for death in a beach stranding in New Zealand and guided them to safety, witnesses said Wednesday.

The actions of the bottlenose dolphin -- named Moko by residents who said it spends much of its time swimming playfully with humans at the beach -- amazed would-be rescuers and an expert who said they were evidence of the species' friendly nature.

The two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, were found stranded on Mahia Beach, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of the capital of Wellington, on Monday morning, said Conservation Department worker Malcolm Smith.

Rescuers worked for more than one hour to get the whales back into the water, only to see them strand themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea. It looked likely the whales would have to be euthanized to prevent them suffering a prolonged death, Smith said.

"They kept getting disorientated and stranding again," said Smith, who was among the rescuers. "They obviously couldn't find their way back past (the sandbar) to the sea."

Along came Moko, who approached the whales and led them 200 meters (yards) along the beach and through a channel out to the open sea

"Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales," Juanita Symes, another rescuer, told The Associated Press. "She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience. The best day of my life."

Anton van Helden, a marine mammals expert at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, said the reports of Moko's rescue were "fantastic" but believable because the dolphins have "a great capacity for altruistic activities."

Dolphins are amazing creatures. This type of action doesn't surprise me at all. What an amazing story!

Found via CNN.

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March 9, 2008

Scientists spot white killer whale off Alaska

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The white killer whale spotted in Alaska's Aleutian Islands sent researchers and the ship's crew scrambling for their cameras.

The nearly mythic creature was real after all.

"I had heard about this whale, but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it."

The whale was spotted last month while scientists aboard the Oscar Dyson, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship, were conducting an acoustic survey of pollock near Steller sea lion haulout sites.

It had been spotted once in the Aleutians years ago but had eluded researchers since, even though they had seen many of the more classic black and white whales over the years.

Fearnbach said the white whale stood out.

"When you first looked at it, it was very white," she said Thursday.

Further observation showed that while the whale's saddle area was white, other parts of its body had a subtle yellowish or brownish color.

It likely is not a true albino given the coloration, said John Durban, a research biologist at NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. That's probably a good thing -- true albinos usually don't live long and can have health problems.

A very rare, yet interesting find. I wish there were some better photos of this whale, but it's fascinating none the less!

Found via CNN.

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February 20, 2008

Eclipse...Almost There!

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Partial Eclipse

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Pre-Eclipse

We've had snow all day, but it appears that we will be able to see some, if not all of the eclipse tonight. There are still some clouds floating around here and there, but over all the moon is gorgeous.

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December 13, 2007

Northern Lights Energy Source Discovered

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Scientists think they have discovered the energy source of auroras borealis, the spectacular color displays seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth's upper atmosphere to the sun.

The energy is then abruptly released in the form of a shimmering display of lights, said principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California at Los Angeles.

Results were presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting.

In March, the satellites detected a burst of Northern Lights over Alaska and Canada. During the two-hour light show, the satellites measured particle flow and magnetic fields from space.

To scientists' surprise, the geomagnetic storm powering the auroras raced 400 miles in a minute across the sky. Angelopoulos estimated the storm's power was equal to the energy released by a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.

Wow! I really want to see this phenomena first hand one day. This is an interesting study to say the least! Ain't science grand? ;o)

Found via CNN.

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Scientist: 'Arctic is screaming'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.

Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.

"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colorado.

Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.

This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

Not surprising sadly, but heartbreaking none the less. There are some interesting aspects they are discovering as this proceeds and sadly it may be to late to turn the cycle around. Take the link below to read the entire article.

Found via CNN.

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December 5, 2007

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

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November 28, 2007

Harvest Moon

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November 13, 2007

Solitary

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November 12, 2007

Hope

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July 23, 2007

How Cute Is This Guy??

Seriously how cute is this guy??

The 5-month-old, 9-pound North American River Otter isn't ready yet to swim with the big boys.

"He's used to being around people," said Debbie Prevratil, curator of marine mammals and birds at the Texas State Aquarium.

Odie was found in February by a family in Tyler as he nestled against his dead mother. But they knew they couldn't keep an otter for long.

"This tough circumstance for Odie allowed us to be immediately approved to take him in," said Kristin Ralls...

How sad, but such is nature. I just can't get over how adorable he is playing with that ice! Yes...I'm amused easily! ;o)

You can read more about this little guy here.

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June 21, 2007

How Does And Entire Lake Disappear Virtually Overnight?

100-foot deep Andes lake disappears

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A five-acre glacial lake in Chile's southern Andes has disappeared -- and scientists want to know why.

Park rangers at Bernardo O'Higgins National Park said they found a 100-feet-deep crater in late May were the lake had been in March. Several large pieces of ice that used to float atop the water also were spotted.

"The lake had simply disappeared," Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service in the southernmost region of Magallanes, said Wednesday. "No one knows what happened."

A group of geologists and other experts will be sent to the area 1,250 miles southeast of Santiago in the next few days to investigate, Romero said.

One theory is the water disappeared through cracks in the lake bottom into underground fissures. But experts do not know why the cracks would have appeared because there have been no earthquakes reported in the area recently, Romero said.

Given that there was no seismic activity leading up to the disapperance this is just more than a bit odd. It will be interesting to see what/if they discover the true cause. Most definitely something to keep an eye on.

Found via CNN.

Update: 1:38 PM: The BBC is saying that scientists in the area do think it may have been seismic after all. They are eyeing a large earthquake in nearby Aysen in April that may have opened up a crater that drained the lake.

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June 8, 2007

World's tigers on "catastrophic" path to extinction

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The world's wild tigers are on a "catastrophic" path to extinction as numbers continue to decline because of increased poaching, habitat destruction and poor conservation efforts by governments, a new report has said.

In less than a century, Asia's largest predator has been relegated to isolated populations residing in only 7 percent of the areas they once occupied, according to a research paper published in the June edition of BioScience journal.

The report, titled "The Fate of Wild Tigers", said the loss of their habitat and the persistent killing of the wild cats had left areas such as the Caspian region and the Indonesian islands of Bali and Java devoid of tigers.

Countries such as India -- a stronghold of the tigers -- were inadequately implementing conservation policies and mismanaging funds set aside for the survival of the big cats, it added.

"While the tiger as a wild species will most likely not go extinct within the next half-century, its current trajectory is catastrophic," said the report, authored by 16 wildlife experts.

Very sad indeed. The path to extinction is often hard to get off of. Hopefully conservation efforts will prevail. Only time will tell.

Found via Reuters.

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June 7, 2007

Two and a Half

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June 5, 2007

Peas In A Pod

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June 4, 2007

Tomatoes!

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May 31, 2007

Zoo: Rare rhino death leaves only 13 worldwide

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- A rare northern white rhinoceros died Wednesday at the San Diego Zoo, dwindling the critically endangered species' population to as few as 13 worldwide, zoo officials said.

Nadi was one of three northern white rhinos at the zoo's Wild Animal Park. No cause of death was given, but the female rhino had shown signs of old age, the zoo said in a statement.

Nadi, believed to be more than 40 years old, was brought from Africa in 1972 and was part of a group maintained at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic.

She and another female rhino named Nola came to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego in 1989 as part of an effort to breed the species.

How sad. 13 left world wide. It appears we will have another complete extinction soon. For all intensive purposes it's funtionally extinct now. Very sad indeed.

Via CNN.

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Everyday Beauty

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New Loch Ness Monster video

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) -- Like tartan, bagpipes, and shortbread Scotland's Loch Ness Monster is as much an emblem as a tourist draw.

And now Nessie's back.

An amateur scientist has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45-feet (15 meters) long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video this past Saturday.

He said it moved at about 6 mph (10 kph) and kept a fairly straight course.

"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."

Loch Ness is surrounded by myth and mystery, as it is the largest and deepest inland expanse of water in Britain. About 750 feet (230 meters) to the bottom, it's even deeper than the North Sea.

Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake, viewed the video and hopes to properly analyze it in the coming months.

"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," Shine said.

He said the video is particularly useful because Holmes panned back to get the background shore into the shot. That means it was less likely to be a fake and provided geographical bearings allowing one to calculate how big the creature was and how fast it was traveling.

While many sightings can be attributed to a drop of the local whisky, legends of Scottish monsters date back to one of the founders of the Christian church in Scotland, St. Columba, who wrote of them in about 565 A.D.

More recently, there have been more than 4,000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on vacation in the 1930s.

Since then, the faithful have speculated whether it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon -- even though they have not been native to Scotland's waters for many years -- or even a last surviving dinosaur.

Shine doubts that last explanation.

"There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could be some psychological phenomenon in as much as we see what we want to see," he said.

Unfortunately they don't have the actual video itself, but perhaps it will surface in the next few days/weeks. The whole Loch Ness aura is intriguing. No, I don't think it's a dinosaur, but it is possible that there may be some unknown and/or undocumented species lying in the depths. New species are found often.

Via CNN.

Update 6:02 PM: Now they have video!

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Lilly

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May 30, 2007

Blue Moon over North America

May 30, 2007: At 9:04 pm Eastern Daylight Time on May 31st, the full moon over North America will turn blue.

Not really. But it will be the second full moon of May and, according to folklore, that makes it a Blue Moon.

A Blue Moon usually has nothing to do with the color of the moon itself, but generally refers to the fact that two full moons have fallen within the same calendar month. On rare occasions however the moon may appear blue from earth and that is also know as a Blue Moon. Confused yet? You've gotta love astronomy! ;o) So as you gaze up into the sky tomorrow night remember it's a blue moon!

Via NASA and hat tip to my dad for sending me the email. :o)

You can also read more about Blue Moons over at Wikipedia.

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Whales may have slipped into ocean before dawn

BERKELEY, California (AP) -- Two lost whales seen just before sunset nearing the ocean after a two-week sojourn through inland California waterways may have slipped back into the Pacific overnight.

Rescuers launched several boats in an effort to find the mother humpback and her calf Wednesday morning but have not spotted the whales, said Bernadette Fees, deputy director of the California Department of Fish and Game.

The pair were last seen Tuesday less than 10 miles from the Golden Gate bridge after they passed under another busy bridge and entered San Francisco Bay.

The whales passed under the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge on Tuesday afternoon, the last bridge along the pair's route before reaching the Golden Gate.

If the humpbacks were able navigate south around a Marin County peninsula and a nearby island, few obstacles were left on their route past Alcatraz to the Pacific Ocean.

Still, officials feared that the whales might continue south instead of west, passing under the Bay Bridge into the long southern half of the bay.

"There are lots of places they could get themselves into trouble before they go out of the Golden Gate," McInnis said.

Hopefully they slipped out into the Pacifc, instead of heading further south in the Bay. At some point they were also given doses of antibiotics, which should help with the infections they are dealing with. Time will tell whether they're in the ocean of further down the Bay.

Found via CNN.

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May 29, 2007

Finally Blooming

The orchid that bloomed ending up being the purple/yellow variety. It appears she will have four blooms. The blooms usually last for months at a time. I just love orchids!

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May 26, 2007

Goodnight Roses

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May 23, 2007

Yellow

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It's Almost Summer

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May 5, 2007

Twister kills 9, wipes out Kansas town

(CNN) -- A massive tornado killed at least nine people in southwestern Kansas on Friday night and destroyed nearly everything in its path.

"My town is gone," Greensburg, Kansas, City Administrator Steve Hewitt said after surveying the wreckage.

"I believe 95 percent of the homes are gone," Hewitt said. "Downtown buildings are gone, my home is gone, and we've got to find a way to make this work and get this town back on its feet."

By Saturday morning, the town was empty and structural engineers and the National Weather Service were assessing damage. Hundreds of residents were taken to shelters in schools and other facilities in nearby towns, the Red Cross said.

A town, completely gone! How utterly heartbreaking! If you've ever been through a tornado, it's something you'll never want to do again. Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Greensburg, Kansas.

Now would be a good time to donate a little money to the Red Cross if you can.

Found via CNN.

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April 5, 2007

The Reason I HATE Spring!

I'm not a big fan of spring. I know, I know, you would think with all the planning and planting in the garden (which I DO love) that Spring would be my favorite season, but it is decidedly not. My favorite seasons in order of adoration are Winter, Fall, Spring and then Summer. I like the cold weather. It's easy to add layers if you're cold, if you're hot you just suffer, because really society isn't going to let you run around sans clothing! In my eyes the only redeeming thing about Summer is that you can walk out in the back yard and get fresh veggies out of the garden. That's a good thing at least.

Anyway I digress, back to why I hate spring. My problem with spring is this...One day it's 80 degrees and the next it's SNOWING! As I type this it's snowing outside my window. Monday was shorts weather and now you need a parka! Annoying to say the least! It's not supposed to stick or anything, but it's really weird to look out and see blooming things and snow flying around. We may get some snow on Friday night/Saturday as well.

So to Spring I say either stay or go! This yo-you back and forth is annoying!

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March 31, 2007

Spring In DC

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March 30, 2007

Daffodils, Daffodils, Daffodils!

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Moon And Branches

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March 27, 2007

Dandies

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Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home

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March 21, 2007

Daffodils

Or "Dandys" as Alexis calls them!

Oh how I love thee!

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March 14, 2007

NOW It's Spring!

To me it's not really spring until the daffodils start blooming. My first two opened up this afternoon:

NOW it's spring, even if the calendar doesn't say so yet! ;o)

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March 10, 2007

Spring Is Coming

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February 28, 2007

All Together Now...Awwwwwwwwwwwwww!

CISARUA, Indonesia (AP) -- Call them the odd couples.

A pair of month-old Sumatran tiger twins have become inseparable playmates with a set of young orangutans, an unthinkable match in their natural jungle habitat in Indonesia's tropical rainforests.

The friendship between 5-month-old female baby primates Nia and Irma, and cubs Dema and Manis, has blossomed at the Taman Safari zoo where they share a room in the nursery.

After being abandoned by their mothers shortly after birth, the four play fight, nipping and teasing each other, and cuddling up for a shared nap when they are worn out.

"This is unusual and would never happen in the wild," said zoo keeper Sri Suwarni, bottle-feeding a baby chimp on Wednesday. "Like human babies, they only want to play."

The four have lived side-by-side for a month without a single act of hostility, she said.

Indonesian tigers and orangutans are both endangered species, threatened by rapidly shrinking habitats.

Conservationists estimate there are fewer than 700 Sumatran tigers still alive, while fewer than 60,000 orangutans remain in the wild. Around 90 percent of the jungle has been destroyed by illegal logging, poaching and cut-and-burn farming practices on Borneo and Sumatra islands.

The exceptional friendship will likely be short-lived, said veterinarian Retno Sudarwati, because as the animals grow up their natural survival instincts will kick in.

"When the time comes, they will have to be separated. It's sad, but we can't change their natural behavior," she said. "Tigers start eating meat when they are three months old."

How cute are they?

Found via CNN.

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February 26, 2007

Death Of A Snowman

He'll be back again someday! ;o)

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February 25, 2007

Frosty Returns

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February 16, 2007

Now That's An Old Frog!

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- A miner in Chiapas discovered a tiny tree frog that has been preserved in amber for 25 million years, a researcher said.

If authenticated, the preserved frog would be the first of its kind found in Mexico, according to David Grimaldi, a biologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the find.

The chunk of amber containing the almost 0.4-inch frog was uncovered by a miner in Mexico's southern Chiapas state in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study.

Only a few other preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber -- a stone formed by ancient tree sap -- mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas appears to be of the genus Craugastor, whose descendants still inhabit the region, said biologist Gerardo Carbot of the Chiapas Natural History and Ecology Institute, who announced the discovery this week.

Carbot figures the frog lived 25 million years ago, based on the geological strata where the amber was found.

It's always interesting when they find species of any kind persevered in this manner or frozen in ice because it gives an idea of the shape and make up to the animal overall. This truly is a very interesting find. It will be exciting to see what else they find out from their research.

Found via CNN.

Posted by Dianne at 3:33 PM

Our Icy Backyard

It kind of looks like flowing water doesnt it, but it's a solid sheet of ice!

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Ice And Sun

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February 14, 2007

Treeflakes

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Posted by: Moni at February 14, 2007 8:35 PM

Posted by: Dianne at February 15, 2007 11:38 AM

Icicles

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Winter Wonderland

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February 12, 2007

Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees

I thought the varroa mite was bad news, but now it appears that there are worse things afoot in the bee world. Evidently bee hives have just started dying off randomly. Researchers have named it Colony Collapse Disorder, but I don't know that it's a good name for something that can only be considered some strange voodoo. It's already spread to 22 states and has about a 50% colony fatality rate. Here are the clues that researchers have to work with currently.

* Although the bodi