Tiny Tuesday : : Nature's Lace

This stuff grows on our oak trees and despite it's delicate lace like appearance, it is tough as nails. I learned from my cursory research only what it is not. It is not lichen or Spanish Moss, although we have lots of those too. I think it is fascinating, and have tried photographing it many times before, but today, I brought it  inside and put it on OilMan's puzzle table which makes a good white background, but the best part is that his task light, a row of six little LED lights created wonderful shadows.

I took hundreds of pictures and finally managed to narrow it down to just two. Both are the same little piece but produced such different images and shadows I just couldn't decide, so I put the other one in the extras. Thanks to Walking Wombat for organizing this challenge and to Beckett for judging this week.

I have been up to my eyeballs, literally, today attaching little birds to my lichen covered oak branch on the front porch. Since the whole thing was inspired by Dana, I asked her to come over and check it out. She did, and promptly found a bigger, more substantial branch. I unwired all the birds I had just painstakingly wired onto it while she hung the new branch and birdhouse. Then we rewired all the little birds. She was right…her branch looks better.