Weird Stuff I've Seen Lately

The title says it all.

A fence post covered in green algae? moss? your guess is as good as mine, unless you're a botanist, in which case your guess is probably much better than mine. Aren't nature's colours lovely and varied? There must be hundreds of shades of green here in the spring, plus all the flower colours.

A three-eyed tree monster. Again, if you're a botanist, you probably know more about this than I do and have a fancy name for it. I'm open to your knowledge. 

Okay, these aren't weird. They're bright and cheerful, and really really hard to get rid of. It's a good thing I like them so much. The reason they are in this post about weird stuff is that they're growing up through the asphalt. I've always found it fascinating that tender plants have that kind of strength. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

For months, I drove past this every day, and smiled because I thought the power guys had left a raincoat on the wire by accident when they were out fixing the lines. I did think it was strange that they never came back for it.

Turns out the joke was on me. When I finally took a picture of it, and was able to zoom in closer with my camera, it was clear that this yellow plasticky thing wasn't a raincoat but some kind of weatherproofing doohickey that was put there on purpose. I don't know what it's called, and even the botanists out there probably can't identify it unless they're also familiar with the care and feeding of power lines. If you can enlighten me about it, I would appreciate that.

And finally, here's another foreign object on a wire. Looks like a piece of a branch that grew around the line, and it was easier to cut around it than to remove it completely when the tree was cut down. It really bothers me to see it hanging there, for some reason. Someday it will weather sufficiently and fall off. Until then, I suffer greatly.

A closer look.

How about you - have you seen any weird stuff lately? Do you feel drawn to photograph the weird stuff too?