"My Sweetheart, My Complete Heart"

Was walking by the University Club between rain showers today. The flowers were out, grabbing drops, and doing the things that flowers do. Took a bunch of macro shots that'll take up the next few posts.

Unfortunately, there's something odd with blogger, where uploaded photos become a little desaturated. I guess I should bump up the saturation of the photos before I upload them. So if you one or two readers who like wallpapery things want any of these, let me know and I'll email you higher quality versions, I guess.

Looking at these, I realized how little I know in terms of names of flowers. I guess these ones are... violets of some sort. I guess.














In other news, whilst doing a little googling to try and figure out what these were, I came across info on the Wisconsin State Flower, which is the Wood Violet. Which is also apparently the state flower of Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Shouldn't each state get its own flower? Aren't there enough to go around? I guess people dig the wood violet.

I also discovered, via the Wisconsin Legislature website, that, in addition to the obvious state symbols (the badger, the dairy cow, milk), the following is the law of the land:
- the state bird is the robin
- the state fish is the muskie
- the state dog is the American water spaniel
- the state insect is the honey bee (cue Tom Petty song)
- the state rock is red granite (also the name of a town in central Wisconsin)
- the state dance is the polka (no surprise there)
- the state soil is Antigo silt loam (which really is surprising)
- and the state fossil is the trilobite, which is awesome, 'cause trilobites are awesome.

Someone should do a bad Sci Fi Channel movie called "Night of the Trilobite," with tons of the little buggers just swarming over everything. And it should be set in Wisconsin: "Give the order, Senator. We have to kill them now." "I can't do that - they're the state fossil! I'd be breaking my oath!"

And then maybe they could stop them by unleashing a horde of angry badgers.

Also, someone should start a band called "Flock of Trilobites."

Speaking of which, in addition to the state song ("On Wisconsin"), we apparently have a state ballad ("Oh Wisconsin, Land of My Dreams"), and a state Waltz, called "The Wisconsin Waltz," which can be heard via the state's website right here, as performed by Gary Kuchenbecker's Old Lager Orchestra of Tigerton.

I'm picturing a bunch of trilobites doing a Busby Berkeley number to this now. This could be the closing credit sequence for "Night of the Trilobite." Also, maybe Jimmy J.J. Walker could be part of the advertising campaign for the film. ("Tri-lo-bite!")

The other state songs are available here, if you're curious.

Okay, that's it for now.