If You See Something (IRL), Post Something! (Part 1)

A painting of a bear on a statue of a bear in New Bern, NC.

The coat of arms of New Bern is a copy-paste of the City of Bern in Switzerland. The distinctive red pizzle from the Swiss version has been removed though.

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Reminds me of art by Kentaro Miura. Pasila, Helsinki

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Great Egret beside someone’s skeleton perched bird. Location, inner channels of the Toronto Islands.

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Saw this interesting vending machine selling fresh coffee beans in Astoria, OR

I wonder if they did this at the beginning of Covid-19 and they just stuck with it?

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I don’t think this is a honeybee; has a bit of a snout. It’s in the milkweed, where I haven’t yet seen any butterfly larvae this summer (just adults).

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Maybe a bee fly or hover fly. They can look like bees with a proboscis
This website has some good pics of some in the UK. I imagine the ones elsewhere look similar but not too many good pics in a quick search.

Edited to add: beautiful milkweed! We found out we only saw adults around the milkweed in the backyard bc some wasps were picking off the caterpillars as baby wasp food.

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Thx! The milkweed is taking over that portion of the yard, although in the greater scheme of things that’s not really a problem.

I suspect that it is some kind of fly, based on what you posted – I can only discern one pair of wings, although it does look like its waist narrows. I found this local resource, but it doesn’t look like this picture:

Flower Fly | University of Maryland Extension

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“Carefully insert the electrodes into those tense brain regions, and prepare to ‘relax’…”

Walgreen’s has the most interesting stuff.

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Sweet dreams! :wink:

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Burger King in Helsinki Central Railway Station. Koli fresco (1911) by Eero Järnefelt, A.W. Finchin and Ilmari Aalto

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ooh! golden orb spider! pretty!

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Pokeberry. Used to come home stained by the stuff as a kid.

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My grandfather used to love eating poke salad - cooked parts of the plant. I think of him every time I see one. :smiley:

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I see ladies in the park harvesting these by the shopping-bag-full. I had no idea they were even edible.

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As with most things found in nature caution is warranted unless you know what you are doing:

From the Foxfire book series:

"Poke (Phytolacca americana) is dangerous and can be toxic. Pokeweed’s root is poisonous. The plant must be picked in the early spring when the leaves are still yellow-green and the asparagus-like stalks are no longer than four to six inches. This plant is most often gathered for its leaves. Bernice Taylor warned, “You’ve got to gather the leaves before they get about six inches high. Don’t mess with them after that. When we was little and comin’ up on hard times, the kids, we’d all gather up some berries and mash ’em up and use ’em for ink.”

As a remedy for rheumatism, roast a poke root in ashes in the same manner as you would roast a potato. While it is still hot, apply it to the inflamed joint. This eases the pain and reduces the swelling. You may choose to drink a mixture of pokeberry wine and whiskey instead. The leaves are also said to be good blood builders. Take the young leaves of the poke plant, parboil them, season, fry, and then eat several helpings."

I guess I was lucky as youngster just running around the woods goofing off with friends and not getting sick or dying as a result from Pokeweed exposure. Whew! We just got dirty and had mothers complaining about the red stains on clothes.

We did however experiment with sassafras tea. Smells good, tastes great (kinda) but may cause cancer. The FDA has banned it as a food additive.

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Sassafras oil is also illegal in some places because it’s used to manufacture MDMA.

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I had a similar experience with sassafras bark after climbing trees. Those stains do not come out. I narrowly escaped a complete ban after ruining jeans and a new pair of sneakers… :pleading_face:

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Ercoupe on static display, with a sliver of moon behind it. (The Ercoupes were manufactured a few hundred feet from where I took these photos.)

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Is the propeller always spinning, or only with a breeze?

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It’s the breeze. I was wondering if anyone could notice from the photo! (What would be neat, is if the whole airplane turned with the direction of the wind.)

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