Happy New Year!

Peter and I would like to wish you a wonderful 2013!

Patience

This guy must have a very steady hand, excellent eyesight and a lot of patience... Dalton Ghetti creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils!

Young creatures

I like to collect photos of mothers and their young and when I have enough new ones, I put them in a post. This is the latest batch:

Rainbow ants

Mohamed Babu set up these photographs after his wife showed him some ants had turned white after drinking spilt milk.

He gave the creatures the brightly coloured sugar drops and watched as their transparent stomachs matched the food they were eating.

Scientist Dr Babu mixed the sugar drops with edible colours red, green, blue and yellow and placed them in his garden to attract the insects.

By placing them on a paraffin base the drops kept their shape when touched by the ants.

Some of the ants even wandered from one colour to another, creating new combinations in their bodies.

People build amazing things

View_From_Here sent me a collection of photos of various things and I selected the ones that showed interesting architectural features. The last two make me dizzy!

Thank you, View.

Quirky wildlife

I featured a video from this series on the old blog. Yesterday I found this lovely episode and would like to share it with you. The animals and the music never fail to make me feel good.

Enjoy.

Adorable children

It's Christmas

I'm a bit late posting today. As it was nice and sunny, we decided to go to Tulle for some window shopping.

We love pets here on What Time, so here are some pet related seasonal pictures:

The revenge:

I don't want to be left out!

We all like to indulge during the holiday season...

Peter and I wish you a very lovely Christmas!

I like this version of an old classic, so I had to add it to the post:



I need to add an extra little gift. I just saw it on Facebook and I think it's lovely!

Snow quilts

Mrsgunka, ManxMamma and Queen of Sheeba sent me these photos. I have to share them! Thank you all.

Artist Simon Beck must really love the cold weather! Along the frozen lakes of Savoie, France, he spends days plodding through the snow in raquettes (snowshoes), creating these sensational patterns of snow art.

Working for 5-9 hours a day, each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields!

The geometric forms range in mathematical patterns and shapes that create stunning, sometimes 3D, designs when viewed from higher levels.

How long these magnificent geometric forms survive is completely dependent on the weather.

Beck designs and redesigns the patterns as new snow falls, sometimes unable to finish a piece due to significant overnight accumulations.

Simon explains:

The main reason for making them was because I can no longer run properly due to problems with my feet, so plodding about on level snow is the least painful way of getting exercise.

Gradually, the reason has become photographing them, and I am considering buying a better camera.

Uh-ho...

Look closely

View_From_Here sent me this spectacular collection of photos. They're not what they seem... (Please click on the images to enlarge).

Thank you, View.