Don't grow up, it's a trap

I'm just three cats and anxiety in a trenchcoat |29yo| Icon by danielmackeyy

[definitely-not-several-bugs]

The spell master: God damn it, where on earth is my magic crystal ball????

The suspiciously hungry and round bug:

[the-true-tusk]

What is this thing

[brappypatty]

shoutout to my fellow Ornate Amphipod enjoyers

[lleyksie]

brown bear, black bear

[caats]

[dysfunctionalroomba]

[fellweather]

some of the seals in the seal hospital zeehondencentrum (from reference)

[anarchopuppy]

sometimes being a fan of something means not wanting them to make any more of it

[herpsandbirds]

My Huernia zebrina, a succulent from Southern Africa, finally bloomed!

Like their close cousins, the carrion plants, another group of African succulents, they have a vague dead animal smell, and are pollinated by flies. One of the common names for this plant is the little owl. 

Family Apocynaceae

Photos by Paxon Kale CC

[geniusbee]

these are getting weird

[cyle]

one that drives around near where i live has a massive bumper sticker that says “I NOW DRIVE THIS IN SHAME” in big bold red text

[dog-journey]

Dog Health/Behavior Scales

Body Condition Score (VCA) (WSAVA) (AAHA)

Faecal Score (Purina) (Royal Canin) (Waltham)

Periodontal Disease Stages (AVDC) (Greencross Vets)

Canine Acute Pain Scale (CSU)

Canine Fear and Anxiety Spectrum (FearFree)

Canine Gaits (spotsvet.com) (canine fitness and care center)

Short Form Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale (WSAVA)

Kendal Shepherd’s ladder of communication (PDSA)

[neurodivergentaf]

it's so wild when your parent changes when you become an adult. my dad is very cordial and non confrontational - he regularly helps me with adult stuff like changing the oil or providing insurance tips. he's always smiling when i call him on video and providing jokes when i complain about college

when i was a kid, i would have to tiptoe around his anger issues often, sometimes running quietly past his work table until he got his own place completely separate from our family, locked away for days. every so often he would start screaming in the car and trying to hit me or my brother for talking too loud while my mom attempted to calm him down as he swerved on the road. and now he, smiling, helps me with car insurance.

like oh, this is just who you are when you have power over someone, and this is who you are when you dont have power over someone. no wonder you can have a normal life, friends, work while scaring the shit out of your kids and wife. i see it now. i see why no one would have believed me. that, i think, is one of the core fears of trauma - seeing the outside of it from the perspective of other adults that brushed you aside, and understanding. of course, that understanding gives the opposite of solace; it just gives you more grief with nowhere for it to go

[catchaspark]

  Myth of the Brown Recluse: Fact, Fear, and Loathing Rick Vetter Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA

treat yourself to a uc riverside spider researcher rapidly losing his cool over the course of this article as he desperately tries to convince his interlocutors, The Entire State of California, that there is literally no evidence that we have brown recluses

[great-and-small]

That was a really fun read I love him just flat out challenging anyone to show him proof of the species in the state then going on to pretty much say ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT HERE

[machinot]

As a kid you see seahorses in cartoons as actual underwater horses for the fish people to ride on and it makes u never really realize how fucking weird seahorses actually are. Forget the horse part and just look at this fish. It’s a serpentine type fish like an eel, with a tube shaped body, but it’s stuck in a stiff C shape and can mostly only articulate its head and tail. So it swims standing upright. With its weird tiny hummingbird fins. Is this weird to anyone else

[rainyydoves]

it's also kind of hard to get until you see it but they are literally just barely wrapped around their skeletons. there is no extra meat there.

a tiny bony as hell animal with a prehensile tail that is incapable of swimming like other fish (so they cling to seaweed and coral). they can do mpreg. some of them are ambush predators. nobody does this like them

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[vintagewildlife]

Newborn velvet worm crawling on its mother By: Raymond A. Mendez From: Natural History Magazine 1985

[bogleech]

Most velvet worms are social by the way and form multi generational packs where the largest females are in charge and share food with all the babies 🙂

[bynine]

DRAGONITE + MAGIKARP - WATER/DRAGON

if it finds someone shipwrecked out at sea, it tries to guide them back to land. however, its hopelessly poor memory and sense of direction means it's rarely successful

[muttsandmustelidae]

haha yeah man female dogs are bitchy and female horses are bitchy and female cats are bitchy and female ferrets are bitchy and female rats are bitchy and female guinea pigs are bitchy and female birds are bitchy and female rabbits are bitchy and female everything is bitchy. lol! isn’t it so funny how you think that! isn’t it so silly that this is your perception of literally every species! haha! i’m sure there’s nothing to unpack there! i’m sure you’re 100% accurate and unbiased in your conclusion that female animals are just inherently evil! i’m sure you have very normal thoughts about human women too! teehee! isn’t everyone laughing! isn’t it so goofy!

[crispysnakes]

Amaretto dropped this morning, Maxx Pink x Maxx Pink Argentines. 9 live, 1 still, and about 8 slugs. This girl is 15yrs old and this is her first litter.

There are a few circumstances I want to mention that are interesting, mostly for my own records - but on the off-chance if anyone has experienced similar, I'm curious to know.

To start, she has tried to kill both males I have over the last two seasons. This season she decided she wasn't interested in murder, and bred instead. I observed follicle building, but no obvious ovulation and she did not go through a post-ov shed.

She did fine as a gravid girl, I made sure she was well fed (usual schedule, prey item a size down). I typically feed the first 2.5 months of being gravid and fast them the last month or so. She did not bother with nest building and did not cruise for a spot to drop, but I was happy to note she picked the cool side hide to post up in.

This morning I found her sitting on the babies instead of coiled up nearby or around them like I typically see my girls do. I saw her nudge a baby, and then a switch flipped in her brain and she bit and wrapped it with her neck. Fortunately I was there, grabbed her, and she startled and dropped it. I removed her after and pulled the babies. I don't know if she ate any prior to me checking on her. It was definitely one of the stranger litter experiences I've had.

[kedreeva]

Is that temperament something you're worried might pass to the babies?

[fairycosmos]

apparently youre supposed to perform. they love it when you perform. but it has to be authentic. they hate it when it's not authentic. but you have to perform.