Beautiful blossoms & bees!
I was going to write about my very BUSY but UNIQUE weekend, which included being the subject of a cool psychological experiment at Stanford University and getting PAID for it, and also seeing the long-awaited new Cirque du Soleil show, Kooza, but I seem to have run out of time tonight. What else is new? *chuckle* And since tomorrow's a work day, I'm trying to discipline myself (haha) and actually go to bed at a halfway decent hour! (famous last words!)
I'll save the cool weekend stuff for another day SOON. In the meantime I'll share two seasonal photos I took in early February 2006. I know it's now mid-February, but the photos are still timely because these trees/shrubs are still blooming in my area. :) For those of you in colder climates, where such things are NOT yet blooming -- I hope this brightens your day and gives you something to look forward to. (Some of you might remember these two photos from 2006. *blush*)
This is a close-up of an almond blossom. Well, I'm almost sure the tree is an almond. It might be a white peach, but due to the earliness of the bloom, I think it's an almond. Amazingly, I did NOT plan on catching a bee in the act! :D The curious/friendly bee simply FLEW into the flower right as I took the picture! How lucky is that??
A pair of quince blossoms. And YES, they really are this brilliantly coloured! :) This particular cultivar of quince, which seems to prefer growing as a tall shrub, also produces quince fruit, which looks like a yellowish cross between a pear and an apple. I don't know if these quinces are tasty; they are starchy and not the kind grown commercially for quince jam, etc., but they are certainly edible. I'm not sure why this photo is so small -- I need to fix that!
Both of these photos were taken at the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple on McLaughlin Avenue in San Jose. There's always something in bloom on the beautifully landscaped grounds of that temple!! (Too bad their website isn't as well-maintained as their landscaping).
I'll save the cool weekend stuff for another day SOON. In the meantime I'll share two seasonal photos I took in early February 2006. I know it's now mid-February, but the photos are still timely because these trees/shrubs are still blooming in my area. :) For those of you in colder climates, where such things are NOT yet blooming -- I hope this brightens your day and gives you something to look forward to. (Some of you might remember these two photos from 2006. *blush*)
This is a close-up of an almond blossom. Well, I'm almost sure the tree is an almond. It might be a white peach, but due to the earliness of the bloom, I think it's an almond. Amazingly, I did NOT plan on catching a bee in the act! :D The curious/friendly bee simply FLEW into the flower right as I took the picture! How lucky is that??
A pair of quince blossoms. And YES, they really are this brilliantly coloured! :) This particular cultivar of quince, which seems to prefer growing as a tall shrub, also produces quince fruit, which looks like a yellowish cross between a pear and an apple. I don't know if these quinces are tasty; they are starchy and not the kind grown commercially for quince jam, etc., but they are certainly edible. I'm not sure why this photo is so small -- I need to fix that!
Both of these photos were taken at the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple on McLaughlin Avenue in San Jose. There's always something in bloom on the beautifully landscaped grounds of that temple!! (Too bad their website isn't as well-maintained as their landscaping).