"JADE"

In China, if you want to wish someone, "Health", "Wealth" and "Happiness"..........you give them a gift of jade.

This is a carved prayer bracelet and pierced pendants. Some are symbols of "luck", one has a rat reaching for a peach, as in year of the rat. One depicts two oriental gents. I'll post more detailed pictures later.

In Chinese tradition, jade symbolized the five virtues of humanity: wisdom, compassion, justice, modesty and courage. Symbols of these virtues were often carved into jade.

Inside looking out.

Bob, I see the squirrel did bring back the feeders. If he wants to eat this winter, he better not take then again.

Lost my battery charger, but here's a fall cruise picture

While hiking last Saturday I passed a lot of prickly pear cactus on the trail as is often the case but this time I noticed that yellow jackets seem to really like the fruit. I mean really like it! There were about 20 of them inside and around the pear.

The first photo is what a prickly pear cactus looks like.
The second and third photos are a close-up of all the yellow jackets.
The fourth pic is what the inside of the fruit looks like. I went to a seed harvest for our local conservation group a few weeks ago and as a treat one of the docents brought a cleaned prickly pear for each of us to eat. Very interesting. Sweet, but not too sweet.

Jodi-

A panoramic shot from a hike to Humpback Rocks in George Washington National Forest

{{!gwi}}

Jodi thanks for the tutorial on prickly pears. I see them for sale in the stores all the time, both individually and sold by the case. I didn't know they grew on a cactus! I wouldn't want to be the one harvesting them.

Haven't been tempted to buy one to try, though.

Funny, I've never seen one for sale in the stores. But I'm not the regular grocery shopper in our family.

My understanding is that some people burn or torch the needles off the pears after harvest which surely involved leather gloves. :-)

Jodi-

Jodi ....very cool wasp pic. Those cactus grow wild here, out behind my house. They sell the pads @ the grocery store without the thorns. But....I've never seen anyone buy one. :0)