What Is This?

Spotted along the roadside as we toured British Columbia in 2012.

Anyone ever seen it before and know what it's supposed to be?

It was huge.

Spires of Cumberland

Church spires in Cumberland, MD

Photo taken as we headed west to St. Louis, MO.

Linked to Inspired Sunday

A Visit to the Human Origins Exhibit

I recently read "The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack" by Ian Tattersall a wonderful description of how the study of our origins as human beings developed as discoveries of ancient remains were made.  With the scientific advances of carbon dating and DNA testing we know so much more about how we evolved.

A visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and the Human Origins exhibit was necessary for me to see for myself what Tattersall was describing.

As you walk into the exhibit through a tunnel you are met with these depictions of our ancestor species and a timeline of when they lived and what skills they developed: walking upright, tool making, social groups, use of fire, etc.

There are displays like this one that allow you to compare your footprints to earliest known footprints.

 There are skeletons.

There are sculptures.

There's a booth that takes your photo and transforms it to your choice of an early human.

Then there are the heads in glass cases at the height they would be.  You can face them one by one and wonder what life was like for them.

No need to have our species represented as a head because we are all around at this exhibit.

We lived on Earth initially with three other species: Erectus, Neanderthal, and Flora all of which are now extinct.

I've only shared a bit of the exhibit.  It's worth the trip if you are visiting Washington, DC.

Finally!

I know these lilies have bloomed at least once before but I can find no photos of them.  They are a favorite snack of the deer when they first grow so any chance of having blooms is lost when the deer take a good munch on them.  This year I've been religious about spraying Liquid Fence in the areas where there is no other protection from the deer.  It has paid off because finally I have tiger lily blooms.  These are very different from the other lilies I have because they hang their bloom heads down.  They are lovely, don't you think?

The grow along the bank of the pond.  You can see the Joe Pye weed there to the back right getting ready to open large blooms too.

I'm surprised by how the petals curl up and back.

There are many more to open in the week ahead.

Caught sight of this frog in the pond watching me from a water lily.  After I took its picture he croaked loudly and jump across the lily pads.