Random Strangeness

I don’t like standard beauty – there is no beauty without strangeness.  ~ Karl Lagerfeld

I like all kinds of beauty, but there is something about strange beauty that stops me in my tracks. The other day I was in the middle of the woods on a new hike… I turned the corner and this cat… a domestic cat, was just hanging out. It was so weird to see a calm cat in the middle of the forest. It kind of made my day, got me thinking about how strange and wonderful this world is.

I have way too many fall photos and can’t seem to keep up , so I got busy collaging.

I love this nut/seed ? I’m not sure what it is? Do you know? I just adore the shape, color contrast, and bursting seams.

Can you see these little gems? I named them fairy flies, it was tricky to get any of these strange floating bugs to come into focus -

This leaf is amazing, it would take me forever to paint something similar, those lines and textures and colors decaying into a masterpiece <3

I love this one too, the curls are like a roller coaster ride -

I could not stop taking photos of this color filled moss, I can’t get enough of it -

Lately I feel like a squirrel running all over the woods gathering 100′s of photos hoping to have enough nourishment.

Here are way too many photos of a fat squirrel that reminds me of me -

Auspicious

We wonder at our purpose for living. Our purpose is to perceive the fantastic. Why have a Universe if there is no audience? We are that audience. ~ Ray Bradbury

Yesterday I talked my husband into getting up early to take us to the Michigan Fungus Fest. It was fun and so informative, the festival seemed to be focused on the culinary and academic side of mushrooms. I don’t seem to have room yet in my brain to learn the Latin names and you need to put in a lot of time and research before eating many of the species to avoid the poisonous ones, maybe someday? The beauty and bizarreness of mushrooms is what gets me excited. I love hunting for them and when I find a new one to photograph I get so excited.

It was a beautiful day and I found more than mushrooms…

Today I was working on the computer putting this post together and my husband pulled up a chair to sit beside me and I was shocked to see another tree frog on the leg of the chair! The frog was a wonderful model, he/she allowed me to take many photos, even after we put him/her outside on the deck. (How he/she got inside is still a mystery)

Three frogs hopping into my life in two days feels so auspicious. In feng shui the three-legged frog is a symbol of abundance. This frog had four legs but only one eye, I wonder what that means?

Linking with

POTW

The Creative Exchange

Fairyland (part 2)

A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, said to me, that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer has passed onward: a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

When the mushrooms emerge, the forest turns into a fairyland, I love it when a new colony seems to just appear overnight. I get lost in the otherworldly atmospheres. Sometimes I’m convinced there just must be fairies, wood sprites, or pixie like creatures lurking about.

Otherworldly

Sugar Coat

Giant

Sprinkled with Salt

Mini Landscape

Broken Umbrellas

Sun Drenched

Skinny Minis

Fairy Towers ( with a bridge )

To see more mushrooms check out  (part 1)

linked with

POTW ~ thanks Hilary

They’re Back! (part 1)

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people in the whole world—I mean everybody—No matter how boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. ~ Neil Gaiman

My obsession with mushrooms began last summer and it continues! We seem to be in high season, for the past week I’ve been going on longer hikes than usual ~ I just can’t get enough of them. Each day I wonder if I’ll find a new kind or color. It just amazes me how many shapes and sizes they come in.

Calzones

Watermelon

White Ruffels

Orange Crush

Flower

Sea Scape

Sea Urchins

Micky Mushroom

Average Joe

Even finding an average joe excites me. When I search for mushrooms I feel like I’m stumbling into secret worlds. There are too many to capture all by myself. I invite you all to come visit to go treasure hunting with me. Michigan is filled with magical mushrooms!

~ christine

P.S. I linked my old blog post about my obession with mushrooms as a pdf. My old blog crashed and burned but I was able to recover posts as pdf’s. The format is a bit sloppy, but I’m happy to have a record.

To see more mushroom check out part 2