The Machine Age...

"The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of 

nature but plunges him more deeply into them."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Linking to...

Shhhhh...Listen...You'll Hear the Trees Speak!!!

"There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. 

Most of the time we are simply not patient enough,

quiet enough to pay attention to the story."

Linda Hogan

Linking to...

Big Puppy and the Pink Flamingo!!!

Our baby granddaughter has re-named Kelly...

she's now "Big Puppy"!!!

In an attempt to ferret out something pink for CDP's theme day on the first...

I caught Kelly with her favorite...pink flamingo!!!

He's a bit bedraggled...

but well loved...

Linking to...

Joined at the Hip...

Twin trees...

Conjoined trees...

I'm curious...

I'm old enough to remember when conjoined twins were called Siamese twins...

how did that reference ever come about???  

If ever there was a politically incorrect term...this one would have to be it...

Sooo...of course I had to google it!

"The most famous pair of conjoined twins was Chan and Enk Bunker...(1811-1874),
Thai brothers born in Siam, now Thailand.  They travelled with P.T. Barnum's circus for many
years and were billed as the Siamese Twins.  Chang and Eng were joined by a band of flesh,
cartilage, and their fused livers at the torso.  In modern times, they could have been easily separated.
Due to the brothers' fame and the rarity of the condition, the term "Siamese twins" came to be used as
a synonym for conjoined twins."
Wikepedia...Conjoined Twins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins

While looking this up, I read more about Chang and Eng...

for instance...did you know that Chang had 10 children and Eng had 12???

They were married to sisters...

Chang to Adelaide Yates and Eng to Sallie Yates.
An interesting side note to my side note is that the sister's father
objected to the marriages, but not because Chang and Eng were conjoined...
but because they were Asian.

Regardless of their happy unions...throughout the 1900's 

it was thought to be morally reprehensible for conjoined twins to marry

let alone have sex.

When it became possible to separate some conjoined twins, 

some of the reasoning for separation stemmed from thoughts 

about sex...

For a fascinating read on this unusual subject...

check out..

The Sex Lives of Conjoined Twins

The Atlantic 

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/the-sex-lives-of-conjoined-twins/264095/

Our Little Corner of the World...

I think I've mentioned before that we live in a volcanic region...

to be specific...

we live in a volcanic caldera.

But did you know...

...we have a couple of bona fide volcano craters???

Click here to hear Damien Rice singing...

what else?

Volcano!!!

Linking to...

Your World...For the Moment...

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, 

it's your world for the moment.

I want to give that world to someone else."

Georgia O'Keefe

Looking back in my archives...I decided to tweak this one a bit...

a little extra shading...a little darker blacks...

a moderate amount of grain

and just a touch of vignette...

so what do you think???

the original!!!

Linking to...

Recycling...Nature's way...

"Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines.

And everything can be reused."

Hephaestus

Hephaestus is the ancient Greek god of smithing...

I don't know about you...but I'm pretty impressed by his wisdom...

A Walk in the Woods...

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,

to front only the essential facts of life,

and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, 

and not, when I came to die, 

discover that I had not lived."

Henry David Thoreau

Linking to...

Consequences Aren't All Bad...

Check out the consequences of lot's of rain, thunder and lightning...

"In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences."

Robert Green Ingersoll

After a day of intermittent rain, thunder and lightning...

this was our reward!!!

Linking to...

It's All in the Perspective...

When granddaughter Kasey was up visiting a few weeks ago...

we took the gondola to the top of the mountain.

You could say that this is the apex of the Mammoth Skiing area...

Dave's Run and the Cornice being two of the more well known runs...

The mountain top clocks in at 11,000+  feet in altitude...

Of course...you might remember this shot from this last winter...

Kind of a different perspective, eh???

Linking to...

Shhhhhh!!!! It's Wordless Wednesday Again!!!

Linking to...

Our Little Corner of the World...

"The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass

it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."

Henry Miller

We needed a little diversion to watching the trees grow here in Mammoth...

so we went to the other side of the Sierras and watched the trees grow there!!!

Now we've been going to Mineral King with friends and family

 every year since I've been with TheChief...

and he and his family have been going there since the 60's...

but in all that time, we never took the route from Exeter to Pearsonville...

through the southern tip of the Sequoia National Forest.

GORGEOUS terrain!!!

As we headed out of Exeter the rolling hills were covered with long brown grass

spotted with trees here and there.  

As we headed into the range, the forest got thicker and thicker...

the roads narrower and windier and steeper...

and rainier...

and thunder...

and lightning...

lot's of it....

Beautiful and well worth the extra two hours of travel time...

but I could have done without the white knuckle effects!!!

Linking to...

Sunshine Came Softly...

"...through my a-window today."

Donovan

Click on the link!!!

Donovan was one of my all-time favorites back in college...

who was yours???

(I'm way out of internet territory this weekend...pre-posting for the weekend...but won’t be commenting...

be back on Tuesday

Have a great weekend!!!)

Celebrity Romance...

"Being married means I can break wind and eat ice cream in bed."

Brad Pitt

Now there's a romantic guy...

(I'm way out of internet territory this weekend...pre-posting for the weekend...but won’t be commenting...

be back on Tuesday

Have a great weekend!!!)

Silhouette in Black and White...

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,

we must carry it with us or we find it not."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(I'm way out of internet territory this weekend...pre-posting for the weekend...but won’t be commenting...

be back on Tuesday

Have a great weekend!!!)

Linking to...