Cherry Blossoms

My heart that was rapt away by the wild cherry blossoms - will it return to my body when they scatter?

-- Kotomichi

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Tulips

"Dutch tulips from their beds
Flaunted their stately heads."

-- James Montgomery

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Gossip

"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me. "

-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth

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Explore

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

-- Mark Twain

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Luck

"Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.”

-- Euripides

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Greece

"Fair Greece! and relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen great!"

-- George Gordon, Lord Byron

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The Door

"Every wall is a door."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Candlelight

"We must view young people not as empty bottles to be filled but as candles to be lit.”

-- Robert Shaffer

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Sunflower

“Bring me then the plant that points to those bright Lucidites swirling up from the earth, And life itself exhaling that central breath! Bring me the sunflower crazed with the love of light."

-- Eugenio Montale

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Jumping Dog

"The dog was created specially for children. He is the god of frolic."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

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London

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

-- Samuel Johnson

Illustration: London: Northumberland House, by Canaletto, 1752, public domain

Fishing

"The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad."

-- A. K. Best

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The Grand Canal

"White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sk..."

- H. W. Longfellow, Venice

Illustration: The Grand Canal, J. M. W. Turner, c. 1835, public domain

Spring Crocus

"Now every field is clothed with grass, and every tree with leaves; now the woods put forth their blossoms, and the year assumes its gay attire."
-- Virgil

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Timepiece

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that the stuff life is made of."
-- Benjamin Franklin

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The Dragonfly

"Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky."
-- Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Silent Noon

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The Cat

"Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat."
-- Mark Twain

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Ferris Wheel

"I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel."
-- E. B. White

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Tigh Mor

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

--Robert Burns



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the Wearin' o' the Green

"Saint Patrick was a gentleman, who through strategy and stealth,
Drove all the snakes from Ireland -- here's a drink to his health!
But not too many drinks, lest we lose ourselves and then
Forget the good Saint Patrick, and see them snakes again!"
-- Author Unknown

Photo by Jon Sullivan, PDPhoto.org, Public Domain

The Pied Piper

And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

--Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Illustration is by Kate Greenaway, from the 1888 edition of Robert Browning's The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Public Domain

The Bridge

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”
-- Winnie the Pooh

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Irish Countryside

"O Ireland isn't it grand you look--
Like a bride in her rich adornin?
And with all the pent-up love of my heart
I bid you the top o' the mornin!"
--John Locke

Photo by Jon Sullivan, PDPhoto.org

The Tower of London

Among the ghosts said to haunt the Tower of London are Anne Boleyn, Henry VI, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Pole, and the Princes in the Tower.

Photograph: Public Domain, from PDPhoto.com

Fuchsia

There are over 100 varieties of fuchsia, the majority of them native to South America.

Photo: Public Domain, pdphoto.org

The Mighty Karatoa

The Karatoa River in Bangladesh, now not much than a small stream, was once a mighty river. It was said that a visit to the Karatoa, after a three-day fast, granted as much spiritual power as the sacrifice of a horse.

Illustration: the Korotoa River at Mahasthangarh, Bogra, Bangladesh, public domain

The Four Horsemen

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."

-- Revelations 6:8

Illustration: Albrecht Durer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498, Public Domain

Amber

Amber is the fossilized remains of tree resin, and has been known since very early times. Amber ornaments have been found in Bronze Age excavations, in the Mycenaean tombs, and among the remains of the Lake People in Switzerland.

Photograph: Insect remains in amber pendants, Public Domain

Parrot

Of the (approximately) 350 species of parrots now existing, 130 are listed as threatened or worse by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Photo: Public Domain, pdphoto.org

Toll House Cookie

Toll House Cookies were invented by Ruth Wakefield in 1930, while baking a batch of chocolate sugar cookies for her Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. She had run out of baking chocolate, and substituted pieces of broken up semi-sweet chocolate, thinking it would melt into the batter. When it didn't, she found she had invented a delicious new recipe.

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The Cloister

"Solitude is independence."

--Hermann Hesse

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St. George and the Dragon

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

-- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Illustration: St. George Fighting the Dragon, Raphael, 1505, Public Domain

Carlsbad Caverns

The bat population of Carlsbad Caverns has declined drastically over the years -- from an estimated 8.7 million in 1936 to about 200,00 in 1973. No one knows exactly why, but it is assumed that chemical pesticides are primarily to blame.

Photo: Carlsbad Caversn, National Park Service Photo, Public Domain

Forest Fern

According to Finnish tradition, if you find seed of a bloooming fern on midsummer night, you will be able to travel under the cloak of invisibility until you reach a region rich in hidden treasure caches.

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The Brook

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

-- Wm. Shakespeare, As You Like It

Photograph: Rocky Mountain National Park, National Park Service Archives, Public Domain

Bruegel's Peasant Wedding

Pieter Bruegel the Elder is best known for his depictions of the life of village peasants.

Image: The Peasant Wedding, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568, oil on canvas, public domain.

Bumper Cars

The largest bumper car floor is the Rue Le Dodge, located at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. It measures 51 feet, 9 inches by 124 feet 9 inches.

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Antarctica

"I am hopeful that Antarctica in its symbolic robe of white will shine forth as a continent of peace as nations working together there in the cause of science set an example of international cooperation. "

-- Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Quotation is inscribed on the Byrd Memorial at McMurdo Station, Antartica.

Photograph: Ben Holt Sr., NASA/GRACE team, public domain

Paris, 1493

This woodcut of Paris is from the Nuremberg Chronicle, one of the first printed books, published about 1493.

Oranges

"Orange is the color of the sun. It is vital, and a good color generally, indicating thoughtfulness and consideration of others."
-- Edgar Cayce

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Ross Island, Antarctica

This photo of the full moon over Observation Hill at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica was taken by the National Science Foundation, and is in the public domain. The cross on the horizon is a tribute to members of the Sir Robert Falcon Scott Expedition, 1911-1912.

Fair Rosamund

Ma dame ye ben of Al Beaute ſhryne
As fer As cercled is the mapamonde
For As the cristall glorious ye ſhyne
And lyke Ruby ben your chekys rounde

[Madame, you are a shrine of all beauty,
As far encircling as the map of the world.
For you shine as the glorious crystal,
And your round cheeks are like Ruby.]

-- Geoffrey Chaucer, Balade to Rosemound

Illustration: Fair Rosamund, John William Waterhouse, 1905, public domain

Eruption of Etna

This photograph of Mt. Etna was taken from the International Space Station on October 30, 2002. The lighter-colored plumes are the smoke of forest fires started by the lava.

NASA photograph, public domain.

Winter on the Farm

"What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun, — it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature: Addresses and Lectures

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Locomotive Roundhouse

Roundhouses are circular buildings containing a railroad turntable. Originally, they were important for providing a place for a locomotive engine to turn around, as well as providing a shelter for storage and repairs.

Photograph: Locomotive Roundhouse, from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division. Public Domain

Fremont Bridge

"Bridges are America’s cathedrals."

-- Author unknown

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Hummingbird

The hummingbird has the highest metabolism of all living things, with the exception of insects. A hummingbird's heart rate can reach as high as 1,260 beats per minute.

Photo: a male Costa's Hummingbird, photo released into the public domain by photographer Jon Sullivan.

Still Life with Fruit

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy.”

-- Albert Einstein

Illustration: Compotier, Pitcher, and Fruit, Paul Cezanne, ca. 1892-1894, public domain

Spinning Wheel

"What do you do there, good woman?" asked the princess.

"I spin, my beautiful child," answered the old woman.

"Ah! how pretty it looks!" said the princess. "How do you make it work? Give me a try, so I can see whether I could do it as well."

-- Charles Perrault, The Sleeping Beauty

Photo image: Photograph of elderly Irish woman, spinning, ca. 1890-1900. Library of Congress, public domain

Chinese Butterfly

"Am I a man who dreamt he was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly, dreaming I am a man?"

-- Zhuangzi, Chinese philosopher, 4th century B.C.

Illustration, Butterfly and Chinese Wisteria, by Xu Xi, ca. 970, public domain.

Shwedagon Pagoda

According to legend, the Shwedagon Pagoda is 2500 years old. It contains relics of the past four Buddhas: the staff of Kakusandha, the water filter of Konagamana, a piece of fabric from the robe of Kassapa, and eight hairs from Gautama.

Illustration: The Shwedagon Pagoda, from an 1825 lithograph, public domain.

Be Mine!

Happy Valentines Day!

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Owl Eyes

"Can grave and formal pass for wise, When Men the solemn Owl despise?”

--Benjamin Franklin

Photograph: IParjan, public domain

Neuschwanstein Castle

The Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany served as the inspiration for Disney's vision of the Cinderella Castle in the animated film. This photochrom -- a colorized image made from a black and white negative -- was taken in the 1890's, not 10 years after the castle was completed.

Image: from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division, public domain

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is the most popular tourist attraction in India, attracting between two and three million visitors a year.

Photograph by Samuel Bourne, ca. 1860, public domain

The Moons of Jupiter

Montage view of the moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Jupiter visible in corner.

Photograph: NASA, in public domain

Totem

The word totem comes from an Ojibwa word indicating a kinship group. Contrary to popular belief, the totem pole does not have a religious meaning -- it is used more as an illustration of a story or legend.

Picture copyright © Jigzone.com

Marie Antoinette

"Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès."
("Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose.")
-- Last words of Marie Antoinette, who accidentally trod on the foot of the executioner as she went to the guillotine.

Illustration: painter unknown, oil paint on copper, ca. 1793, public domain

Pastoral Landscape

Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings.

Thanatopsis, William Cullen Bryant

Illustration: Pastoral Landscape, Asher Brown Durand, 1861, public domain

Honey Mushroom

Armillaria ostoyae, the "honey mushroom", is one of the most common mushrooms in the United States. A colony, much of it underground, located in the northeast area of the country is probably the world's largest: it is estimated at 2200 acres, 605 tons, and may be 2400 years old. If considered to be a single organism, it is the world's largest known living creature.

Photo: Václavka smrková, released into the public domain.

Tornado

The United States has more tornados than any other country, and about 4 times as many as all of Europe combined. This is partially due to our lack of any major east-west mountain range that would block air flow between the climate differences of the northern and southern parts of the country.

Photograph: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Public Domain

Polar Bear

The polar bear's fur is so insulating, that the bear is rendered nearly invisible under infrared light, with only the mouth and eyes showing distinctive signs of heat.

Photograph: thermogram image of polar bear, created by Arno Vlooswijk & Coen Boonen, and released into the public domain.

Buenos Aires

With 12.4 million people living in the metropolitan area, Buenos Aires is the most highly populated city in Argentina.

Photograph: Buenos Aires by Night, photographer unknown, public domain.

Dromedary

The camel has a single hump,
The dromedary two;
Or else the other way around,
I'm never sure. Are you?

-- Ogden Nash

Photograph: by Trisha M Shears, released in the Public Domain 2/27/07

Venice, Aqua Alta

Aqua Alta, a temporary flooding of some parts of the city during the high tide seasons, is usually mild, and taken in stride by the residents of Venice.

Photograph: Paolo da Reggio, released into the public domain.

El Greco

Doménicos Theotokópoulos, better known as El Greco, is considered a precursor of Expressionism and Cubism. Remarkably, his apparently modern work was created in the 16th century.

View of Toledo, El Greco, c. 1596

Princess and the Pea

"Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. None but a real Princess could have had such a delicate sense of feeling."

Hans Christian Andersen, The Princess and the Pea

Puzzle Illustration: The Princess and the Pea, Edmund Dulac, from The Snow Queen and Other Stores by Hans Andersen, 1911, Public Domain

Autumn Woods

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden


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Mountain

"The hills, rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun."

-- William Cullen Bryant


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Here Kitty, Kitty

"If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way."

-- Mark Twain


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Horse Drawn Carriage

Motorized vehicles have been prohibited since 1898 on Mackinac Island, Michigan, a popular tourist attraction. Exceptions are made for snowmobiles, service vehicles, and emergency vehicles.

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Sea Lions

Sea lions tend to be larger, but sleeker in appearance, than seals. They also can be distinguished from seals by their partial furred front flippers (seals' are entirely covered with fur) and the external flaps over their ear openings (seals have none.)

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Butterfly

"Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."

-- Chuang Chou(also transliterated as Zhuang Zi, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tzu, or Chuang Tse}, Chinese philosopher, about 4th century BCE.

Picture copyright © Jigzone.com

Parrot

"Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about."

--Saskya Pandita

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Snowy Owl

"He respects Owl, because you can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right."

-- A. A. Milne

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Faneuil Grasshopper

The grasshopper weather vane atop Faneuil Hall in Boston is the only part of the structure that has not been modified since 1742. (It was, however, repaired and replaced, following the 1755 earthquake.)

Illustration: Faneuil Grasshopper, by unknown photographer, public domain, per Wikipedia.org

Abraham Lincoln

"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

-- Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address, February 27, 1860

Photograph is by Mathew Brady, of Lincoln and George McClelland, at Antietam, October 3, 1862. It is now in the public domain.

Woodland Scene

"From sea to shining sea..."

America the Beautiful, words by Katherine Lee Bates

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Canis Lupis

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

-- Rudyard Kipling

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Capsicum

Capsicum is a member of the nightshade family, which includes such diverse plants as the potato, the tomato, tobacco, petunias, mandrake, and deadly nightshade.

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Fractal

Approximate fractals occurring in nature include snow flakes, lightning, systems of blood vessels, mountain ranges, and cauliflower florets.

Puzzle Illustration: Closeup of the Mandelbrot set, released into the public domain by its creator, Evercat, at Wikipedia

The Daffodils

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth, I Wander'd Lonely As a Cloud

Picture copyright © Jigzone.com

Poppies

In mythology, poppies were associated with sleep and death, and served as offerings to the dead in Greek and Roman culture.

Picture copyright © Jigzone.com

Lake View

Voyageurs National Park is located in norther Minnestota, and is known for its remarkable water resources.

Photo credit: National Park Service

Moonlight

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

-- Eugene Field, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Puzzle Illustration: photo and copyright by Manu M, published on www.sxc.hu

The Birch Wood

I have heard the sunset song of the birches,
A white melody in the silence,
I have seen a quarrel of the pines.
At nightfall
The little grasses have rushed by me
With the wind men.

-- Stephen Crane

Illustration: The Birch Wood, Gustav Klimt, oil on canvas, 1903

Fields of Lavender

“The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows…”

-- William Cullen Bryant

Seaside

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.

-- The Forsaken Merman, Matthew Arnold

Ballooning

The first hot air balloon ride took place on September 19, 1783 on the 'Aerostat Reveillon', and lasted 15 minutes. The passengers were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.

Benjamin Bunny and the Cat

"She sat there for five hours."

Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny

Pirates!

...in him we have a real, ranting, raging, roaring pirate per se—one who really did bury treasure, who made more than one captain walk the plank, and who committed more private murders than he could number on the fingers of both hands...

--Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, 1921

The Hare

I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it's found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

-- Two Songs of a Fool, William Butler Yeats

Illustration: A Young Hare, Albrecht Durer

Yellow Rose

You may talk about dearest May,
And sing of Rosa Lee,
But the yellow rose of Texas
Beats the belles of Tennessee.

-- The Yellow Rose of Texas, Southern American Folk Song

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is probably the most important illuminated manuscript of the 15th Century. It consists of 416 pages, about half of which are full-page miniatures, and took nearly a century to be completed. Pictured is the illustration for July, which depicts the shearing of the sheep. The castle in the background is the Château de Clain, near Poitiers.

Bridge at Langlois, Arles

Painting of the drawbridge at Langlois, near Arles. Van Gogh painted the bridge six times within a period of six weeks.

Rowan Berries

Wood from the rowan tree was thought to have magical powers, and was used for druid staffs, magical wands, and dowsing sticks.