Strange Alien Plant Lands in Cedar Tree ;)

Speaking of strange alien plants...

We'd just finished watching one of our favorite movies, the 1950's version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and... here are pics of a very ~s~t~r~a~n~g~e~ object I found in my cedar tree. Is is an alien plant? It sure looks like one. It's as hard as wood and covered in mean-looking red spikey things. I found two of them. Anyone got any ideas? At first I thought it might be a bug nest (eeeewwwww) but it's not, it's too hard like wood. I also thought it might be the unusual insect that once fell out of my brother's oak trees and landed on the top of his car as we were all leaning across the top of his car talking. That thingey, we finally found out, was called a scale insect and looks like a star-fish about the size of a 50-cent piece, can you imagine? But it's real. Alas, this thingey is probably just some sort of fungus, but there's always hope, isn't there :) Notice how I'm wisely not touching it with my finger. Pod people anyone? Hey, do I see a little pair of glasses and a beard on that one... beginning to look sort of like Rick? :oO Or a ponytail on the other one??? RUN! "They're here, they're here! YOUR next! Your n-e-x-t!" (laf a lot

**************** ******************** ******************

UPDATE on drawing of Dan's rose....

It was coming along sooo nicely too :( Well, I had a case of what Rick calls "overprocessing" - when artists add-to and add-to and add-to their painting and finally destroy it. First I thought, gee this looks good but it needs a little something. So I added writing all around the edges of the plant - a poem by Walt Whitman, my fav. Then I thought, uh oh, this is looking not so good, guess I'd better add something to it (very wrong). So I added a curvey white background. Sounds good = looks bad. Then when I stepped back from it (and I tested it out on Rick too), it looked like a COMPLETE total mess :9( Much too bad to post the photos here. Oh, well, back to the drawing board so to speak. Thanks for your generosity in letting me try my hand at drawing your beautiful rose pic, Dan. I've been told too many times by too many people that I should stick to my small whimsical humorous drawings and forget the fine art stuff and... ya know, it's true :)