October Blossoms

 

Today I went to the Allen Centennial Gardens at lunch, and they smelled wonderful because there are so many herbs and other aromatic plants. I was surprised to see so many flowers still blooming. I took a picture of the rose of Sharon, the yellow water lilies, and a white iris. That last one surprised me the most, because I never see irises blooming past June, never mind October.

Then Rich and I met at the Globe before my adoration hour, and I was telling him a story about a crane who thinks she's sort of a human because she was raised by humans, so she's in love with her human keeper but wants him to kind of act like a crane. I said that's the problem with raising a sophisticated, complex social creature instead of letting her be raised by her own kind. As I have said many times on this blog, it amazes me that birds, who came from such a different evolutionary lineage, have such familiar emotions like love, devotion, revenge, etc. The evidence seems to be that they were complex social creatures millions of years ago when they were dinosaurs and we mammals were just tiny ratlike things running around. I noted that birds are the only creatures besides mammals that can work cooperatively with humans, like falcons hunt with falconers, and I said the fact that they evolved so separately but seem so familiar might be a glimpse of what an intelligent race of space aliens would be like. Rich said, "I was thinking the very same thing!" After all, any race of beings that could cooperate enough to engage in interstellar travel would probably have deep bonds and complex social constructs.

Here is my Halloween fridge magnet that I made at Fired Up on Saturday.

The candy corn pieces were made by the owner, and I took a couple, put them on the black background piece, and realized that they would make excellent eyes. So then I just needed teeth, evil eyebrows, and little ears or horns or whatever. I've never been really into the spooky part of Halloween (although back in my twenties I LOVED the costume part of it), but this thing is more cute than spooky anyway. I guess it's my take on spooky, which is more kawaii than scary.

Famous Hat