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back to regularly scheduled critters

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Egrets by N.C Wyeth.

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pro-tip: don't ever use the sentence "thousands of years" in your worldbuilding unless you really know what a thousand years is like

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princess stephanie's astrapia needs a better photo bc look at this BEAUT

Astrapia bird-of-paradise

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Keep scrolling, there's nothing fishy going on here

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looks at you

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@importantcatpics

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The cherry tree I planted in front of the greenhouse blossomed for the first time this spring! A round of applause!

The wind always blows from the valley so I planted this tree strategically so that in spring a delicious smell would be delivered in my living-room through the windows, and around the outdoor table where I work, and it worked :) I estimate that it improved my quality of life by 11%. A light spring breeze carrying a cherry blossom smell is the kind of thing that stops me in my tracks ten times a day and makes me close my eyes and take a deep breath and think oh, life is good.

More tree updates: I talked in this post from 2021, then this one from 2022, about how I hoped to plant a 'fruit tree path' in the woods behind my house—this project is still ongoing and, well, hasn't borne fruit yet, but has finally blossomed. My Fruit Alley now boasts 10 trees, and looks like—what it is, a small opening in the woods that I have to deploy heroic and sustained efforts to keep open, because the woods try to reclaim it year after year, patiently, like a slow green tide.

The white thing in the middle is one of the tarps I've been using to smother brambles, I move them every few weeks and it works pretty well. I also use cardboard, but in the spring it's hard to keep up with the sheer rate of growth everywhere. Of course the main enemy is the army of broom that you can see in the distance, all yellow and cheerful-looking at the moment. I mostly fight them in the winter, every year I manage to push them back a few metres...

Here's a photo where you can better see some of the trees :

In total I have planted 2 apple trees, 1 quince tree, 1 mirabelle plum, 3 red plums, 1 nectarine tree, 3 cherry trees. I'm really glad that all of them survived, as I was a bit worried about damage from deer or boars. I did lose 2 chestnut trees that were destroyed so savagely I have to assume it's wild boars, but I had planted them much farther away in the woods and I won't make this mistake again. I now have two new baby chestnuts and I planted them near the greenhouse (downhill):

I think I'd never seen nectarine flowers before, they look exotic! I also discovered this year what quince flowers look like:

The only tree that didn't bloom was the smallest apple tree, and honestly that's her fault because for some reason she decided to make tender new green leaves in the middle of winter, so she pretty much exhausted herself for nothing. And you can't blame climate change and seasons being weird for this, because it was a cold and snowy week and no other nearby fruit trees were making any leaves. The confused apple tree is a New Zealand cultivar, so I suppose you could argue she thinks she's still in New Zealand, except she's never been to New Zealand in her life, she was born and raised in France, she doesn't know New Zealand exists. The only possible explanation is, I suppose, a deep-rooted yearning for their ancestral homeland among New Zealand apple trees.

I was a bit concerned when this tree then failed to produce any leaves in the spring, I worried she might be hopelessly hemispherically-challenged, but then I went back to check two weeks later and she was finally green! In a seasonally-appropriate way!

Other trees I've planted, not in the fruit tree path: a persimmon, but it died very quickly :( I will try again; a goji berry shrub, which has been here for two years and seems to be doing well, but so far no sign of berries; and in front of my house, an amelanchier (un arbre dont ma mère n'arrive jamais à se rappeler le nom et qu'elle persiste à appeler "le mélenchon"):

Finally, my last piece of important tree-related news is that I had the hazel tree near my house removed this winter:

I asked the guy who was working on the road nearby with an excavator digging a drainage trench if he could do it, and it took all of 10 minutes, like picking a flower, it was impressive!

And the reason I wanted to remove it is that there are hundreds of hazel trees in my woods and I wanted something different in this spot by the house. Unfortunately for this deserving hazel, it just wasn't special enough.

So I planted a tiny ginkgo :) And now I just have to be extremely patient as I wait for everyone to grow.

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Nautilus expedition live streams (+ their commentary) | 2024

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Looks comfy enough to me.

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Cats getting caught doing crimes

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“I’ve stolen a garden. It isn’t mine, it isn’t anybody’s. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already, I don’t know. I don’t care, I don’t care. Nobody has any right to take it from me when I care about it and they don’t. They’re letting it die, all shut in by itsellf!”- The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

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Photos of the Day: snow leopard Mother's Day

Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use these and all photos in the repository as references, including works that will/may be sold.

The Animal Photo Reference Repository is an independent, permanently open-access project and funded entirely by donations, please consider contributing if you can!

**Patreon** -- **Ko-Fi**

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i hate viruses so fucking much. literally getting attacked by a fucking shape. a concept. consumes no energy. responds to no stimuli. its only existence is to fuck with you. like fuck offf