We’ve moved the pineapple. Initially I was worried about moving the plants when they were so large, but they needed sun that they weren’t getting in their original location: against the North side of the house. Without sun, they will never bloom; I found this out while trying to figure out what the plants were. I also found out that though it is really easy to grow pineapple from the top of any pineapple you buy in the store, it takes the plants two to three years before they flower and fruit. That’s a crazy investment for one primary and two secondary fruit crops before the plant is kaput.
It feels really great to look out on those derelict veggie beds and see something growing that I meant to put there, even if the pineapple plants came with the house.
I have not historically been very good at thinking up and executing costumes. Lately, I feel I’ve been doing a lot better. My most recent attempt, Devil in a Blue Dress:
I have also recently been Teddy Roosevelt and Medusa.
Or barely dabble. I’m sure a philatelist would have a conniption at the state of my stamps. My collections would be much more pleasing to a numismatist, but he would probably say that mine was a very mundane assortment; probably worthless. Likewise a petrologist would yawn, I imagine, until we got to the meteorites. I could almost be a deltiologist, but every time I gather up a good batch, I only try to find reasons to send them out in the mail. I’d probably be better at it if the mail brought them to me instead.
I used to be a devoted arctophilist, and still have many stuffed friends from my childhood, but have since mostly dismantled my collection.
I was never personally drawn to phillumeny, but I did inherit a lovely collection of matchbooks whose sulfur emissions are tightly contained by a gigantic jar. Woe to those that open it, though sometimes I do just to wake my nose up. My mother was very much a gnomologist, and I briefly followed in her footsteps until I tried paroemiography instead.
Lepidoptery always kind of creeped me out, and I find oology similarly squicky. Though I can kind of understand, the homes of plangonologists put me on edge as well, all those eyes!
Hello there, lovers of the strange and unusual. There is no place better to find strange and unusual than Australia and I’ve picked out a few examples of evolutionary diversion to share with you today.
Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat CC BY 2.0 | Jason Pratt – originally posted to Flickr as Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat
Wombats captured my attention since I first saw one falling through a broken deck chair in Sirens. I find them laughably cute. They are one of many marsupials that call Australia home. In fact, 70% of the 334 marsupial species in the world are found in Australia, near by New Guinea and surrounding islands (Wikipedia).
The strangeness of marsupials (what with half developed embryos crawling around on their parents) pales in comparison to the Platypus. With a duck bill, beaver-like tail, and eyes like a hagfish or lampry, this egg laying mammal takes the prize for best animal mash-up, but that’s not all of the strangeness. The Platypus hunts by electroreception, similar to sharks, has venom, and lacks a stomach.
Though not specific to Australia, flying foxes also make there home down under. They are also known as mega bats and can have wings spans up to 2 meters or 6 feet.
Not to be outdone by warm bloods, the trees of Australia are equally strange. A stand of Huon Pine trees in Western Tasmania are an all male clone colony in excess of 10,500 years. It’s like the Dr. Who of trees, never sexually partnered and constantly living in new bodies of itself. Though not of Australia I’d be remiss if I did not mention Pando, the Trembling Giant in Utah, a clonal colony of quaking aspen.
Where clone trees are cool and all (banana lovers everywhere owe their thanks), danger is much more exciting! The Gympie Gympie tree will sting you. It will burn you like a chemical Moriarty if you so much as brush lightly past and then it will revisit you with burning sensation over the course of years, like some horrible tactile acid flashback.
We finally got the remaining furniture out of storage, and we finally got the two chairs that constituted much of the remaining storage back from the upholsterer. This beauty here was the gold pressed vinyl arm chair next to the organ in my Grandmother’s house. When it came to our apartment long ago, the cats loved it so much (that is, loved the pop their claws made in the vinyl) that we ended up calling it the sacrificial chair.
Now it’s back by the organ wearing my custom designed fabric. This scarab and lotus pattern worked out so well I have made it available for others to enjoy on Spoonflower. I think I will add some more seamless patterns after I give them another round of editing. I paired the print with a pseudo suede solid for the bits that would get the most wear, and Walt’s Upholstery did a fabulous job of putting it all together. He was a joy to work with!
Announcement: Penelope Sea and Ocean End, that’s a story I wrote, will be posting as weekly chapters here on the Bean every Tuesday. That’s ten weeks of adventure, y’all!
Back Cover: Penelope Sea is a mostly obedient, stubborn and quite child for whom life has been upended by her parents’ move. She is content to be thoroughly unhappy with the situation and, like many other children, dreams of a secret and mysterious spot in her new house to take her away. Her quest to find it lands her in a place far from home, filled with creatures and concepts long since lost, where she must learn that we often have the means to solve our own problems.
Stranded in a strange place, Penelope accepts the kindness of strangers and, along the way, she encounters mythical creatures, extinct species, a stodgy librarian, and plays checkers with a kappa to save herself from being eaten. At last she discovers that her ticket home is none other than the house key on a chain around her own neck, but the kindly strangers of Ocean End don’t want her to leave.
The Christmas witch says ‘goodbye October.’ But far be it for me to jump from Halloween to Christmas and miss reveling in my favoritist holiday of all: Thanksgiving!
I know the great turkey feast doesn’t ring too many people’s bells, but I love it. I always remember liking it as a kid, and I have liked it more and more as an adult. There’s something magical about seasonal dishes and traditions. Halloween is great and all, but Thanksgiving sets the tone for the rest of the year. I never enjoy cooking and baking so much as I do for the marathon that begins with Thanksgiving.
The Christmas witch is also the last of my Inktober celebration. Hope ya’ll liked it.
This went pretty well. I admit I interpreted inktober a little liberally, but almost all of my pictures start with ink anyway, so technically, I celebrate ink everyday. Happy Halloween!
There are many stories about 1/2 women 1/2 something else that come from the sea, and, though they may not always be called witches, their antics and magic have a similar ring to my ears. Here I have evening gown representations of a mermaid, selkie and manatee. Why manatee? Because they were once mistaken for mermaids too, don’t ya know.