The Original Ashley

The winners of the 48th annual Veolia Environmental Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition were announced on October 17th featuring 100 incredible photos selected from 48,000 entries originating from 98 countries, with top prize claimed by Paul Nicklen for his bubbly capture of emperor penguins. Here are ten of my favorites and you can see all of the winners in person at the Natural History Museum in London through March 2013. A full gallery is also available online .

BEHOLD!!! The newest edition to the growing Zoo that is Josh's and my collection of animals, Norbert the Bearded Dragon! When I picked him out, the sales guy must have seen something in my face because he asked how long I'd been waiting for this and I said ten years which isn't much of an exaggeration. Ten years ago it was a snake I wanted, and I freaked my poor mother so badly by asking for one that she forgot her purse in a Tim Hortons halfway between Peterborough and Toronto. Since then I've been visiting every pet store reptile section every chance I got, researching online and asking people who have owned snakes. I became disinclined towards the legless reptile when I learned that their feces was one of the worst smelling in the pet world (a super high protein diet coupled with a extremely slow digestion process apparently ends in a particularly rank doodie, who knew?) So I moved on and took a closer look at the tanks next to the snakes. Lizards have a wide

Artist Jacqueline Lou Skaggs painted tiny oil paintings on pennies for her series “Tondi Observations.” The miniature paintings include pastoral landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. Skaggs originally intended to spend the painted pennies or toss them on the street but her plans were foiled when people purchased the paintings. Found at  http://laughingsquid.com/tiny-paintings-on-pennies-by-jacqueline-lou-skaggs/