Steps leading down to a fountain surrounded by gardens with azaleas and a dogwood

Duke Gardens, Durham, NC

Dogwoods at Ayr Mount, Hillsborough, NC

Path through Duke Gardens Terrace Garden with tulips and daffodils on both sides and trees in the distance.

Duke Gardens, Durham, NC

Thank you!

A photo of a hippo standing on dry grassy terrain, staring at the viewer. The animal is enormous, with a bulky round body and short legs. It has massive lower tusks which protrude out from its slightly open mouth.

Hip hip hooray, it’s World Hippo Day! Hippos are one of the largest living land animals. Full-grown adults can reach weights of up to 7,055 lbs (3,200 kg)! These large herbivores live in Africa & have one of the strongest bites in the animal kingdom!
Photo: olegrozhko, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, iNaturalist

Let's gooo, @siembranc.bsky.social! #NCpol #abolishICE #chingaLaMigra

The NC Botanical Garden's 2025 Sculpture show ends tomorrow. I've stopped by there almost weekly this year. One of my favorite exhibits is The Surreal Life of a Strawberry Chicken by Courtney Cappa from Raleigh, NC - ghastlyartstudio.com and @slipandsolder.

6 yo Pixel phone, 9 yo TV, only 3 cats right now, 15 yo DSLR, 20 yo van, and 16 yo desktop computer - although my son has replaced so many parts for my computer that we're probably in a Theseus ship situation.

Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.

A photo of the Museum's Origami Tree. It is illuminated by purple spotlights.

A close-up photo of a Stegosaurus origami model on the tree. It's surrounded by colorful origami models.

Close-up photo of the Origami Tree treehopper, which is an asteroid.

A close-up photo of a "Where's Waldo?" origami model on the tree. It's surrounded by colorful origami models.

🎄The Origami Tree is now on view! An annual NYC tradition, the 13-ft tree is adorned with thousands of origami models. Produced in partnership with OrigamiUSA, it's decorated with hand-folded paper models created by local, national, & international origami artists: bit.ly/4ppGtYP

📸: A. Keding/©AMNH

Wide shot of a flock of flamingos wading in shallow water. They are crowding close together. Their pink feathers are bright against the pale grayish water.

#DYK? A flock of flamingos is called a flamboyance! The world's largest flamingo colony can be found in Tanzania, where 2 million+ birds have been observed.
Photo: Pedro Szekely, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

“They’re Just Kind Of Grabbing People”: Fear Grips Durham As Federal Agents Arrive Federal agents detained at least three people as volunteers mobilized to track the agents through Durham.

BREAKING: Federal agents detained at least three people in Durham on Tuesday, chasing them through a shopping center parking lot as stores locked down and shoppers fled.

Opinion: The battle against river debris, especially IPEX pipes, still rages on…and will for years • Asheville Watchdog It’s a wrestling match out there, folks. Every day. And sometimes you accidentally cut a catfish in half with a battery powered saw. More about that later. This is the situation on local waterways suc...

Cleaning up river debris after Helene will last for years
avlwatchdog.org/opinion-the-...

I’ve set up a recurring donation with mine. Even $5 a month can help a lot—usually way more than we, who don’t buy in bulk, could buy in equivalent.

Challenge: post your last photo taken in DC to show what a hellhole it is.
Sunset light on the conservatory of the U.S. Botanic Garden

Very unpopular opinion but I think in a healthier world our schools would teach the so-called “useless things”: Latin, old poetry, classic cinema, how to read and enjoy challenging novels. Studying these things won’t make you a better person. But they will give you a better life.

Progress Pride Flags are flying outside the Boston Public Library.

The flag adds black and brown stripes, along with the Transgender flag colors, to honor Boston’s Black, Brown, and Trans LGBTQ+ communities.

puppet

A wonderful puppet at #nokings in Chapel Hill @paperhandpuppet.org

A photo of a perentie on a rocky landscape. It is tannish in color and dappled with darker and lighter marbled patterning. It has a long neck.

Get to know the perentie! This lizard is one of the largest in the world. It can reach lengths of 6.6 ft (2 m) or more & hails from western Australia. It prefers dry habitats & eats a range of animals, from birds to mammals to other lizards.
Photo: Christopher Watson, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

U.S.-born man held for ICE under Florida's new anti-immigration law • Florida Phoenix Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, was being held in the Leon County Jail Thursday, charged with illegally entering Florida as an “unauthorized alien” — even as a supporter waved his...

A Florida county is detaining and refusing to release a U.S. citizen born in the U.S., after ICE asked the county to detain him: floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/17/u...

A photo of a ring-tailed vontsira. It is covered in reddish fur and resembles a weasel or mongoose except for its long, bushy tail.

Have you ever seen the ring-tailed vontsira? Found in the forests of Madagascar, this carnivore weighs ~2 lbs (900 g) and feeds on insects, eggs, fish, small mammals, & more. It is an agile critter, an excellent climber, and is known to be playful.

Photo: sympiotr, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

I used to go to UNC-SA up the street, and I would go sit under a tree in the green at Old Salem to study. We brought our kids there often when they were growing up, and my husband and I still visit a few times a year. We particularly love the gardens! (photo from 10/2019)

🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

Polar plunge

Polar bear Nora loves to dive, so care staff came up with a way to safely place a camera at the bottom of her pool to watch her underwater. Beary cool!

A small pencil sketch of a tiny dragon perched on a branch with a paper clip gripped tightly in their mouth. The paper clip is about 1/4 the size of the dragon.

A dragon and their favourite paper clip.
The heart wants what the heart wants. 🤷‍♂️

Ibises in the trees and an alligator in the water in a small pond at the Fort Fisher NC Aquarium

I checked the math, and now I’m gonna just stare at the wall for awhile.