Fancy 'Cat's Cradle'

Almost called this "Oh what a tangled web we weave" (quote by Sir Walter Scott).

Cat's cradle is a string game you may remember from childhood. It requires two people to pass the string back and forth to make various string shapes. Cat's Cradle instructions can be found at the following two links:

youtu.be/CAZhx5PKgl4

www.wikihow.com/Play-The-Cat's-Cradle-Game

After a volunteer shift on 23 July 2014, I wasn't too far away from the Erlton/Roxboro Natural Area, where I was finally going to go on a botany walk. Having been to this location several times before, I knew it was a short, easy, flat trail, and that I could go as far as I wanted and then turn back early, which is what I did. I had missed pretty well all the botany and birding walks the previous few months, which was quite depressing. The main thing I wanted to see were these Nodding / Musk Thistles, as they are my favourite species of Thistle. They are called a "weed", but I love to see them. The sun was unfortunately in the wrong direction, so I was only able to get a couple of OK shots, but better than nothing. This flower head, past its prime, had quite a fancy tangle of spider web over it.

Its name, Nodding Thistle, comes from the fact that the flower heads commonly droop to a 90° to 120° angle from the stem when mature. Here in Alberta, this species is a noxious weed - but a beautiful one.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carduus_nutans

With a couple of hours to "kill", I had spent them at the Reader Rock Garden, which was just a few minutes' drive away from the evening botany walk location.