Just a mildly stormy day at the Red River Valley Fair in Fargo, North Dakota.

An impressionistic view of oil on a small Autumn puddle.

At the "Funnel Cakes" stand at the Red River Valley Fair in Fargo, North Dakota. Nature obliges, sort of....

An impression of prairie roses coming to bloom.

This is a large spider in Baltic amber, approximately 50 million years old. Rarely are amber inclusions this large and well-preserved! The spider is about 1 centimeter across. Creepy enough for Halloween, interesting enough as natural historic art.

For classroom use, here is a collection of dinosaur teeth, Carcharodon megalodon giant shark tooth, and Oligocene Hesperocyon and Hyracodon teeth. Not intended as a high-quality photo product. It is, though, exciting to study. I am offering this with $1.00 royalty, so it is very affordable.

Cute and OLD!! 105 million years, while dinosaurs were still living! This carved amber is from Burma (Myanmar).

Two entwined Day Lilies, representing affection, in glorious sunlight.

A Triassic marine reptile in ventral view (belly up), from China. This nearly complete skeleton is fascinating down to the tiny digits. It was in-between adaptation from a terrestrial to a marine animal. Keichousaurs may have been the ancestor of the giant Jurassic Plesiosaurs. About 6.5 inches along curve.

Duke University Chapel in November. Perfect for fall.

A Triassic marine reptile in ventral view (belly up), from China. This nearly complete skeleton is fascinating down to the tiny digits. It was in-between adaptation from a terrestrial to a marine animal. Keichousaurs may have been the ancestor of the giant Jurassic Plesiosaurs. About 6.5 inches along curve.

The Hjemkomst Viking Ship, Hopperstad Stave Church Replicas at the Heritage-Hjemkomst Interpretive Center in Moorhead, Minnesota. Testaments to the power of dreams.

A slice approximately an inch long. Chondrules are the spheres; CAIs (Calcium-Aluminum Inclusions, the oldest known material in the solar system) are irregular white inclusions. Allende. Chihuahua, Mexico. Fell 1969, February 8, 0105 hours. Carbonaceous chondrite (CV3). Regarding CAIs and chondrules: "[CAIs are] white, millimeter-sized objects found, often together with chondrules, in the most primitive kinds of chondrite meteorites, notably some types of carbonaceous chondrite. They consist of high-temperature minerals, including silicates and oxides of calcium, aluminum, and titanium. "In 2002, an international team of scientists accurately dated CAIs at 4.57 billion years, making them the oldest known objects in the solar system. The same team found that chondrules, another of the earliest relics of the solar system, are 2 to 3 million years younger than CAIs. Both types of object formed when dusty regions of the solar nebula were heated to high temperatures. The dust melted and then crystallized, forming first CAIs and then chondrules. Larger objects, like asteroids and planets, formed about 10 to 50 million years later." Excerpted from http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/calcium_aluminum_inclusions.html

"In 1971 Robert Asp, a guidance councilor at Moorhead Jr. High School, began his dream to build a Viking ship and sail it to Oslo, Norway. Asp built the Hjemkomst in a former potato warehouse in Hawley, MN that he rented in 1974. Six years later, Robert Asp sailed his ship on Lake Superior. He died of Leukemia in December of that year. In the summer of 1982, Robert Asp’s family and friends sailed the Hjemkomst 6100 miles from Duluth, MN to Bergen, Norway where they arrived on July 19, 1982. "Learn about the voyage, including the storm 500 miles from New York that created a crack in the hull nearly 14 feet long that almost caused the crew to head back to North America. See how the crew lived during the 72-day voyage." Excerpted from http://www.hjemkomst-center.com/ship/main.htm

"Norwegian Stave churches were built just after the close of the Viking Age in Scandinavia in the 1100 and 1200’s. The technique of using vertical posts--or staves--had been modified over time to become wooden architectural works of art. The church in Moorhead is a full-scale replica of the Hopperstad Church located in the town of Vik, Norway. "The replica church is a quintessential labor of love. Guy Paulson began carving for the church in January of 1997. 'I have been carving for about 25 years, so a challenging project like this intrigued me,' Paulson says, 'It's something that honors my family's Christian heritage.' It was dedicated in 1998 as a gift to the Center and the city of Moorhead from the Paulson family. "The carvings for the church began in January 1997, and on-site construction of the church started in August 1997. All carvings were done by Guy Paulson. The church is constructed of cedar, redwood, and pine." Excepted from www.hjemkomst-center.com/church/main.htm

An ~16-inch trackway of fossilized footprints attributed to the synapsid Cheilichnus duncani. Synapsids were descended from reptiles and the ancestors of mammals. Permian in age (~270 million years old), this is a remarkable trace fossil from Arizona. An ancient walk forever petrified.

Cretaceous Burmite Amber Elephants on a Campo del Cielo Meteorite. The amber is ~105 million years old, of dinosaur age, from Burma. The nickel-iron meteorite individual (~4 1/3 lbs.) is from Argentina. A very odd, rare scene that displays beautifully.

Mexican Village Restaurant in downtown Fargo, North Dakota, before opening. Here the manager mops the floor, gleaming warmly.

Memento Mori--Stop Sign. A sign of things to come!

Two manifestations of clear quartz crystals, glorious and sparkly.

A large mug with fossilized Early Jurassic dinosaur footprints, as well as a thought-provoking comparison of human and dinosaur across a fifth of a billion years. Perfect for the dinosaur lover. Fascinating for kids and adults alike.

A view of the beach at Duck, Outer Banks, North Carolina, one balmy November day.

Hope in the darkest of places.

100 of my best images from Flickr.com, quirky and varied (see tag list), but with no illusion of anything but odd ordinariness and a curiousity for things from the natural world.

A large mug with two photos of eerie weather at the Red River Valley Fair, Fargo, North Dakota. It was a dark and stormy fright!