One of my best friends lives in the Bay area and she always sees my favorite flowers a few weeks before me!

Photo of a plant stalk with a few purple flowers. The flowers look inside out and are drooping on slender stems from the top of the plant.

I love the early blooming Henderson's shooting stars (Primula hendersonii) on South Puget Sound Prairies!

#BloomScrolling #MacroMonday #NativePlants #WestCoastKin #pnw

Photo of a line drawing of a wasp, the lines are golden holographic paper showing through a black scratch art square.

The paper wasps have woken up again, and are scavenging old wood from my car port to make their hives.
European paper wasp, Polistes dominula.

#SciArt #ScratchArt #entomology #wasp #ArtSky #nature

Photo of a figure in an ancient Celtic styled folk costume with a deer skull on a stick at the top of a cone of fabric around the body. They are standing in a grassy field with a forested hill in the background

We welcome the start of spring with open arms.

#celtic #spring #WitchSky #PhotoSky #FootpathFriday #FolkyFriday
My mari lwyd inspired folk costume

Photo of a large white government building with columns decorating the bottom floors and a domed roof behind several trees covered in pale pink flowers.

Photo of rows of trees covered in pale pink flowers with sunlight dappling through onto the grass below.

Top tip for Western Washington State folks:
Seeing cherry blossoms at the capitol building in Olympia is cheaper than going to Japan and has WAY less crowds than going to UW in Seattle.

#spring #CherryBlossoms #sakura #pnw #cascadia #BloomScrolling #PhotoSky

Extinct species tarot card reading on my favorite dinosaur taxon, ankylosaurs.

Eight of coins, upright.
They had high skill and expertise, probably in using their tail club to smash! This was a result of time, practice, and attention to detail.

#tarot #paleontology #dinosaurs #WitchSky #HardWork

Line drawing of a small plant with different angles of its life being shown.

The start of spring brings us a tiny early bloomer to the corners of open habitats in the Pacific Northwest. Small-flowered blue-eyed Mary, Collinsia parviflora.

#SciArt #BloomScrolling #FridayFlowers #spring #NativePlants #pnw #botany #ScratchArt #illustration

My dream neighborhood!

💯

Photo of a tree covered in large pink flowers in front of a bright white and blue sky

Magnolias put a ridiculous amount of effort into their flower game.

#GardenSky #BloomScrolling #tree

So beautiful!

And here I am, but a peasant of mud in his kingdom.

This is my full draft lifecycle for sunflower broomrape, Orobanche cumana. Last year, Washington State had the first known infestation of this parasitic plant in North America.

#WIPwednesday #SciArt #WildflowerWednesday #BloomScrolling #ScientificIllustration

Extinct species #tarot reading on Prototaxites, as requested by @eb-greene.bsky.social. These massive organisms were probably in a mystery kingdom that wasn't plants or fungi!

Five of Cups, reversed
They accepted their grief and were moving on with what they could control
#Paleontology #witchsky

What a beautiful baby!

Photo of a large stine domed ceiling. The walls are covered in intricate tile and stone mosaics and lit up in gold and blue lights.

The Gur-e-Amir Mausoleum, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, was built in the 1400s, to be the burial spot of Timur's sons. Timur was supposed to be intombed in Shahrisabz, but his body didn't make it there, so he is in Gur-e-Amir as well.

#MosaicMonday #history #architecture #PhotoSky #timur #uzbekistan

For my first divinatory extinct species vibe reading, I focused on The Tully Monster, from around 310 mya.

The Staff of Asclepius, reversed.
The Tully Monster did not want to be saved or helped. They may have wanted to do harm to others, though perhaps unintentionally.
#tarot #witch #paleontology

I've been inspired by the "psychic" true crime tiktokers who get in trouble for doing readings about ongoing criminal cases.

I'm going to be doing divinations on extinct species.

I have never done tarot or oracle readings, but I kickstarted a beautiful deck a few years ago, and now I'm learning!

Photo of a huge old growth tree with ginormous swooping branches at unique angles

The Grandfather Tree at @wolfhavenint.bsky.social is at least 300 years old, but I reckon it is older because when I worked there a similarly aged old growth tree fell down elsewhere on the prairie, and that one had over 600 rings.

#trees #NaturePhotography #pnw #WashingtonState

But that's my emotional support gut microbiome!

Photo of a line drawing of a 3 petaled flower with 3 leaves, aiming straight at the viewer, with high symmetry. The paper is black and the lines are scratched in, showing holographic silver foil underneath.

It is trillium time babes!

Western trillium, Trillium ovatum, is one of the earliest bloomers in Puget Sound lowland forest understories. The ones in my garden and backyard forest are not blooming yet though!

#SciArt #botany #ScratchArt #nativeplants #GardenSky #BloomScrolling

Photo of very large domed ceiling with a bright crystal chandelier hanging in the center. The walls are covered in intricate tile mosaic in hues of blue and gold.

Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum complex, in Khiva, Uzbekistan, was finished in 1664. In addition to a mausoleum, it also has a mosque and madrasa, and is an important pilgrimage site.

#MosaicMonday #TravelPhotography #history #PhotoSky #Uzbekistan

Grayscale illustration of a fly that looks very moth-like due to how fluffy it is. Text says: Clogmia albipunctata, Drain Fly

Lots of people think of drain flies, Clogmia albipunctata, as pests. I like to think of them as my tiny, fuzzy, non-perverted, shower buddies. They also cheer me on when I'm doing the dishes.

#SciArt #entomology #illustration #ArtSky #BugSky #BugArt

Photo of a small, back lit, wooden, white church.

Claquato Church is the oldest standing church in Washington State, built in 1858. Claquato became a ghost town after the railroad went through nearby Centralia and Chehalis instead.

On the occupied lands of the Chehalis and Cowlitz tribes.

#SteepleSaturday #ChurchCrawling #WestCoastKin #PhotoSky

A host of daffodils at Belmont Abbey. Designed by Edward Welby Pugin 1850's.

#sundaystonework #daffodils

Scratch-art line drawing of a large flower in bloom and what the fruiting head looks like. The text says Southern Magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora

Southern Magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora, is one of only around 10 magnolias native to North America. They grow in the wild in the south eastern United States.

#NativePlants #GardenSky #SciArt #botany #illustration #ScratchArt

We are crazy for carnyx-es in this house!

A recreation of a different carnyx I got for my spouse's birthday last year

#IronAge #Celtic #instrument #OddInstruments

#Uzbekistan #TravelPhotography #Photography #agriculture #conservation #habitat #restoration #desert #ecology #fishing #boat #history

Photo of a rusted out boat in the middle of an endless sandy, sparsely shrub-covered desert

The loss of the Aral Sea is one of the most obvious ecological disasters of the last century. It was basically drained to grow cotton for the USSR.

This is the ship graveyard in Moynaq, Uzbekistan, on used to be the shore. The water is now miles away.

They are like in the photos! Plus they move so much faster than you think! I saw this go from a line to a swirl in front of my eyes!