Happy Valentine's Day!

I am sorry to say that I do not have a new animal-sex entry for today, but if you long for some information about, and photos of, animals engaged in courtship rituals or all-out mating, you can look at some of my previous posts on the subject (click on each to read about: tragopan mating displays; peacock sex; tortoise sex; barnacles’ endowments; snail sex; damselfly encounters).

Valentine’s Day is, admittedly, mainly an event designed to give money to the card, candy, and jewelry industries (as eloquently discussed by Noël Rozny on her blog), and a way for single people or others unlucky in love to feel especially miserable and alone. But if it’s done right, Valentine’s Day can be fun for anyone—all you have to do is decide that the day is an opportunity to express your affection for all those you love and care for. With that in mind, I offer you just a few photos to illustrate the day:

There’s the tender love between parents and children (at least in the moments when neither one is chewing on the other):



There’s the pleasure of combining the joy of eating with the joy of being together:



And then there’s the bond we enjoy when being with someone, cheek to cheek:


…Or cheek to cheek:


…Or cheek to cheek:



I hope that you, Readers, will be able to enjoy the day and appreciate at least some form of love, for all that matters of the heart can be a thorny affair.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

My Vegetable Love Will Grow

Annie and I visited the National Botanic Gardens today. It was the first time we’d gone, and we had a lovely time, although I wish that not quite so many other people had had the same good idea. The Conservatory—the indoor part, and the only part we visited on this cold winter day—has a number of themed rooms whose leafy denizens either share a habitat (The Jungle, World Deserts) or are a focus of specific human interest (Medicinal Plants, Rare and Endangered Plants). There’s also a Garden Court with all kinds of fascinating and pretty photosynthesizers, including—this was the big one for me—a kumquat tree, the sight of which instantly inspired in me a desperate desire to own one myself. (Annie seemed amenable, though not enthused.)

The largest area, the Jungle room, reminded me of the Amazonia exhibit at the zoo, although the Jungle has a much more extensive botanical collection and Amazonia has more monkeys (two; as opposed to zero). The exhibits are similar in that they’re both pleasantly warm and humid and positively filled with oxygen from all those respiring plants, and both are equipped with water systems that emit sudden, startling showers of mist, causing the many people wielding cameras to curl up, shrimplike, around their digital equipment as they shield it from the spray.

[notice the condensation on the window
behind the orchids]

I’m no plant expert (in fact, I managed to get through college and graduate school without ever taking a single botany course), but I can appreciate them, in an amateur fashion, and it’s impressive to see the vast diversity of approaches they’ve taken in order to survive in various climates and deal with the problems of reproduction and/or pollination. The variety of flower types alone is mind-boggling.

[a bromeliad, maybe]

[a giant orchid]

[maybe a bougainvillea?]

And, of course, the great thing about visiting a zoo or a botanic garden is that you don’t have to be an expert to have a good time—to appreciate behaviors and colors and forms.



And, while my heart still belongs to the zoo, I have to say: you hear a lot fewer people giving misinformation at the botanic garden. Maybe there’s just no plant equivalent for calling an orangutan a monkey—or maybe, since the plants stay still, nobody gets as excited about pointing things out and, in doing so, naming them incorrectly. Either way, it’s a very peaceful place to visit.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}