The Art of …

… blades. These photos are from the 2019 Knife Awards, a yearly competition held in Atlanta by Blade, the world’s’ #1 knife publication. The event wasn’t held in 2020 due to Covid, but they are planning a June 2021 show, for those of you interested aficionados. Today, I’m sharing just the best custom knives from the show, but if you want to see the full cadre of winners the link is here. I’ve saved the best of show for last. All photos are from Blade Magazine.

Best Art Knife, by Veronique Laurent

Photo from Blade Magazine

[Read more…]

More Muskrats

This time I took the proper camera and was rewarded with some cute.

©Giliell, all rights reserved Look at those whiskers

©Giliell, all rights reserved Paddlefootses

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Sadly, what it’s swimming in is white bread. No matter how many signs you put up, telling people that feeding bread to the ducks and fish and muskrats is bad for them, some people always know better, or think that when they do it it’s different. Which explains a lot about the current shit we’re in.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Water in the ear. Happens to the best of us.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Hallowe’en Photo Festival of Fun and Fundraising – The Grand Finale

I’ve saved a few spooky photos to celebrate that it’s finally Halloween! Be sure to check out all the things happening at the Freethought Blogs Halloween Fundraiser today. There are readings, a story chain and a quiz show that’s planned for later today that I’m going to be a part of. Most of the photos are below the fold – beware there are spiders there.

 

The First is this skeleton leaf from Giliell.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

[Read more…]

Hallowe’en Photo Festival of Fun and Fundraising

Today’s beautiful fall photos come from Freethought Blog’s very own Iris Vander Pluym, whose blog Death to Squirrels is much beloved by all. The photos were taken last weekend during Iris’ outing to her local market.

(FYI – There is an alternate version of the first photo that I’ll be posting on Halloween Day. You’ll want to check in for that. I promise it will be worth it.)

Halloween Greetings! Abingdon Square Park, New York City, October 2020. © Iris Vander Pluym 2020. All rights reserved

[Read more…]

Degupdate Getting Snuggly.

It’s rare for me to like pics of myself. There are hardly any anyway, because I’m usually the camera person, but Candy has gotten me to take selfies. Also, the light in the degu run is pretty flattering, I think, and the degus make me happy, so who cares for the double chin when you got happiness?

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Estelle is definitely getting more trusting. She comes out almost immediately now, puts her tiny feetses on me and takes treats. Oh, and tries whether my thumb is edible… She is also clearly the clumsy one. Where Candy has added the top of the side track to her territory, Estelle just makes it on top of the box next to it, doesn’t manage to get up and then does a half climb, half jump, half fall off it again. Yes, three halves, that’s how clumsy she is.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

They still make me think of Caine and her kingdom of rats a lot. She would be absolutely delighted with the degus.

Hallowe’en Photo Festival of Fun and Fundraising

Today’s photo is a teaser. It’s a plant bedecked with webs and I’m not putting it below the fold because you have to search to see the spider. It was sent in by Avalus and it’s the teaser because he also sent 2 close-ups of the spider that I’m saving to put up on Hallowe’en day. Those are the truly terrifying photos – so arachnophobes beware! The spiders are coming soon.

©Avalus, all rights reserved

Hallowe’en Photo Festival of Fun and Fundraising

Today’s photo is of a ‘spider mat’ sent in by mrandmrsoccupant. This fabulous work of art was made in Eugene, Oregon during the mid-1960, when the artist was still in grade school. It’s been kept safe all these years by the artist’s mother, who recognized a masterpiece when she saw it.

Spider mat, mid 1960s, ©mrandmrsoccupant, all rights reserved

Mein lieber Schwan (my dear swan)

The above is a German expression to indicate surprise, often with some disapproval: “Mein lieber Schwan, did you see how fast that car was going?”. But there’s absolutely no disapproval for our new swan family. They are pretty relaxed for swans, so far.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The two youngsters. One of them keeps holding tight to their baby plumage while the other one has been wearing their adult white for a while now.