Slowly but surely, our living room has become our own miniature natural history museum of sorts. My biggest aquisition to date was a find at Paxton Gate, my favorite store in San Francisco.
It's this little fella here:
(My monkey lamp is looking increasingly out of place on those shelves)
I think he's a klipspringer or possibly a steenbok, definitely a small African antelope. I fell in love on the spot, so I rescued him (he was in total disrepair). We carried him all the way back to Portland with us in our little car, which was quite the spectacle. I had him restored locally and he was given a proper mount, so now he's standing up nicely and looking handsome.
At the same time as our living room gets filled with more and more specimens and illustrations and things, I'm also assembling a natural history themed present for a little gal's birthday that's coming up. I'm so excited about this big stash of Golden Guides I've squirrelled away for her:
I get so much use out of my own small collection, so I'm really excited to give her these. They're such a nice balance of not-too-dumb, but not-too-intimidating.
I also found this amazing silkworm lifecycle encased in resin at my favorite local shop, Flutter:
So that's another gem for the collection o' presents. I really hope she digs all of this...now I'm just on the hunt for a pretty magnifying glass!
I hope your week is coming along nicely - thanks for coming along for a little science-y fun!