Nature is cool. The forces of life and the universe converge on our little blue dot to make a unique spot that always seems to have new surprises in store. And often, all those forces at play, the cycles of life and the powers of nature, exert themselves without our realizing it at all.
But every now and then we get a glimpse of nature doing its thing and it's hard to deny that that is super cool.
That's what it looks like when gluten does its thing inside dough, getting all sticky and stringy.
Sure, it doesn't look so appetizing now but none of us will be complaining after this lump becomes pizza crust.
This little froggy has found a great hiding spot to ambush some snacks, tucked away inside a pitcher plant. That's a smart trick by the frog and some teamwork by the plant.
Well, Venus flytraps are plants, after all, so I suppose it makes sense that they might possibly flower. But have you ever seen them break out in little blossoms like this? I know I haven't.
Apparently, bees will encourage plants that aren't flowering with a poke through the leaf. The damage to the leaf stimulates flowering, which of course means that the bees will have access to more pollen.
When you have vitiligo, which causes changes in your skin's pigmentation, you can still get a tan.
In winter, as seen on the left here, the vitiligo isn't quite as apparent; in summer, with the tan, the vitiligo stands out in contrast.
As if these bushy trees didn't look enough like Seuss drawing on their own, they've gained even more volume with each needle having gained a coating of rime ice.
It's beautiful in a way and so delicate you don't want to even nudge it.
Nature got a bit of help from the railing when making these curly icicles.
Most likely, moisture inside the railing froze and got pushed out through a tiny hole, and that ice just kind of curled on its way out.
You see many, many tracks in the snow but these tracks aren't terribly common, which makes them quite recognizable. They're from an otter having a good frolic as it made its way down a hill.
Rainbows happen all the time. Rainbow clouds, on the other hand, require that clouds be cold enough for ice crystals to form, which split up the sunshine like tiny prisms.
Sometimes you'll see the leading edge of a cloud containing a tiny rainbow, but this whole cloud is lit up.
It's one thing to see rainbows high up in the sky, where we're used to seeing them. But I don't think I've ever seen one that appears to have formed along the base of a mountain like this.
That's wild.
Normally you wouldn't even know there were static fields around big plastic bins like these.
But in this case, there's enough dust around that it's clinging to the bins along those fields, revealing them like mud on the Invisible Man's shoes.
There's more to moss than just soft green stuff that shows you the north side of a tree. It's also a growth medium. Just check out all the sprouts happy to have this chunk of moss to call home.
You know, if I woke up to frost like this on my car in the morning, I'd take a picture before scraping it off, too.
The variety of hues and shapes is the sort of thing you can get lost in. What art.
At some point in its growth cycle, this tree got seriously stressed, causing it to freak out and creating this burl pattern.
And, funnily enough, it looks like such things may have inspired another stressed out artist, Vincent Van Gogh.
Falling over is usually the end of it for a tree but for this one, it was just the start of a new direction. Talk about determination, amirite?
It looks like it's not just surviving, but thriving.
Snow rollers like these form when wind is able to pick up tiny bits of snow in ball form and push it around, like tumbleweeds. They're basically nature's snowballs.
But personally, I think I'd stay inside until the weather calms down to have some fun with these.
This woman's eyes are proof positive that you can get freckles in your irises, not just on your arms and nose. And they're also proof positive that freckles aren't even remotely blemishes.
Well, I guess some folks will remember Audrey II, but probably more will see this flower's toothy grin resembling the Piranha Plants from the Super Mario games.
Sort of like that frog in the pitcher plant, a spider is using its surroundings to hunt. In this case, it grabbed a rotting tomato and worked it into its web to attract more insects.
Not bad at all.
When snow falls of my roof, it comes down in clumps, usually just waking me up in the night.
But the snow on this roof came off in one huge blanket, and it's actually quite soothing to think of curling up underneath it.
