Hogwart? Hemlock? - Tansy Ragwort (maybe)

Seeing the shot, taking the shot, editing the shot - that's one thing! But actually trying to write something to go with it, is a completely other realm. I often spend more time trying to figure out what I shot and what I do tell about it, to make the blogpost more interesting, than in the Lightroom or on Photoshop.

With today's search engines, yes plural is correct - google is not almighty and I often find myself wondering back to the nascent of search about 6 years bg (before google). There was a thing called yahoo, well it still dabbles around, even though by now part of (tele)communications company Verizon.

Point in case - searching for "Ranch Weed Texas" on big mama didn't even bring me close. Hogwart, Hemlock, different wild carrot species showed up. All the pictures showed flowers as well, simply ignoring my quest that I took the shot in mid-winter, in January.  So long story short, after roaming a gazillion pages and photos, it was finally yahoo that suggested to me that this could be a Tansy - a Tansy Ragwort.

Yeah how the stems run to the flowers and form the little clusters is way different from Hogwart and Hemlock and it could well be Tansy Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris), So if I find it again in spring, early summer (it's somewhere in the northwestern end of the property) and I get yellow flowers on it, then I may know more. But it would also mean that I would search it with a shovel and get rid of it - as they are considered invasive and toxic to livestock. And it wouldn't matter that the decaying beauty made for quite a gorgeous photo. Don't you agree?

Sources: google, yahoo, equusmagazine.com

Don't Pick The Prickly Pear With The Paw...

Withering prickly pear fruit in Winter. As the cacti (Opuntia) are quite abundant on the ranch, this year I will try to make some PP jam, maybe a bitch even spicier with an added jalapeno to it.

Does anybody have a good recipe to share?

And yes I remember this form the Jungle Book

Don't pick your prickly pear with your paw
When you pick a pear use your claw

Love More

I love the rigid dichotomy between the broken glass and the graffiti as well as the contrast of the colors. And even though the whole picture has a sense of deterioration, there is hope. Just "Love More."

Beauty In Decay

I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth. Henry Miller

Couple of years ago, while taking care of yard, I ran across these decaying Canna leaves. The subtlety in color, texture and the state were in, blew my mind. As death is always portrayed as a heavy burden, look at the lightness of being and leaving. Nature taunting us with abstract art.

Some people may not agree with me and that's absolutely fine, but their is beauty in death and decay.

Study In Rust III

Diamond shaped detail of a manhole cover. As mentioned in other posts about Rust, there is the decaying beauty in rust, that keeps fascinating me. Part of it has to do with almost indestructible element of metal, that withers away under the weather and showing us some of the most beautiful colors doing so.

Study In Rust II

I like rust and it's decaying beauty. Often The oxidizing makes for some really beautiful discoloration and delivers an almost abstract sense of morbidity and attractiveness.

This is a detail part of an oil rig. Left and abandoned, weathering away in North Texas.

Lookin' In

Study In Rust I

I like rust and it's decaying beauty. Often the oxidizing makes for some really beautiful discoloration and delivers an almost abstract sense of morbidity and attractiveness.

This is part of a construction machine, where oil and the weather formed a sublime structure of beauty.