Links to Enjoy #19

Here are just a few links (with too many words to introduce them).  I hope you'll enjoy one or more of them.

Snowflakes fascinate me and with snow swirling around the Northern Hemisphere, this seemed like the perfect time to post a brief video explaining the history and science of snowflakes.  I found Professor Brian Cox's voice, with it's British accent, delightful. 




I enjoyed 15 Lessons I've Learned in 15 Years of Diary of a Quilter posted by Amy Smart a few weeks ago.  I particularly liked #11.

When you can't take a walk in the woods, Tree might be a good substitute.  There you can (hopefully) hear the sounds of many different forests throughout the world.  I was able to hear the first few forests' sounds but then there was a disconnect on either their end or mine.  (I included the link because of the beautiful forest photographs and because it might work for you.)  I scouted around and discovered the sounds at Tree came from Sounds of the Forest where there is a world map with pinpoints where forest sounds have been recorded.  You can choose a location, click, and listen. Amazing!

Another post about trees....  Do you know about Pando?  It is an enormous forest of genetically identical aspen trees in Utah which are all connected to the same root.  It is one of the world's largest living organisms and may also be one of the oldest.  How am I just now learning about this?!

Some of the beautiful photos of rural America in Brendon Burton Captures Intimate Portraits of North America’s Metamorphosing Rural Landscapes include abandoned homes.  They brought to mind Sophie Blackall's children's book, Farmhouse.  Blackall bought property in New York State on which sat an old, falling down farmhouse.  She salvaged some things from inside, learned about the people who'd lived there, then, in loose rhyme, told and illustrated a story about the house and the family.  What a delightful book!

And back to snow again.  Snowball fights are the subject of this post.which is a collection of paintings from various locations and different centuries. 

Below is an 1885 painting by Gerhard Munthe entitled "Sneballkasting."  It caught my eye because it brought back the childhood memory of making snowmen by trying to roll snow into big balls.  Instead, the snow seemed to roll into a shape more like toilet paper on a tube, exactly what's happening in this painting.

At the link above, scroll down about a third of the way to see the paintings.  Click any one of them and it will enlarge.  Enlarge them more by using the plus and minus signs in the upper right.  Click the arrows on either side of the paintings to see the others. 

Enjoy!
--Nancy.