I admire their spirit

Most of the plants are soft and beautiful in one way or another. These little plants are totally badass. The scales are obvious, and when you look closely they are covered in little spikes. It wouldn't take much of a different world to see their buds as little questing mouths full of sharp teeth.

Most of the time they keep a low profile, growing in scaly little circles. It would be easy to overlook them. Then when they decide it's time to expand, they send out this big stalk to look for new opportunities. Or something.

For total contrast, here's more of the red and white peonies.

From underneath. Not quite what I'd hoped for. A passerby was giving me the strangest looks as I was  wiggling around trying to find the shot.

I was babysitting cats this weekend. Here's a few of them.
Waiting patiently.

Not so patient, wondering why I'm standing around not feeding them.

Hunkered down, trying to give the impression of incipient starvation. As if.

Back and forth, just in case some food got put down when he wasn't paying attention. More as if.

Right here! The food is right here, come on! How hard can it be?

They were telling me many stories about what a hard life they have, with rotten human servants that leave them all alone, and trying to tell me I'm a much better human. That only lasted till their food bowls hit the floor, then they ignored me. The other cat was much more polite, paying attention to me, and trying to get me to take her home. She even left her food bowl to pay attention to me, which is a big deal for a cat. Still it's fun visiting other people's cats, even if Curtis does give me a dirty look when I get home.