The posts over the next several days are a year-long project for me (and for you 🙂

Like many people who use the internet, a few years ago I saw a photo of mutated flowers in Japan. They were taken by a man who lives across the border from Fukushima Prefecture (in the south) and thus he lives fairly near the nuclear power plant. (Although NOT in the exclusion zone.) There is absolutely nothing at all wrong with him taking these photos and displaying them on the internet. He is free to do as he wants, and say what he believes.

The man who took the photos believes that the flowers’ mutations are a result of radiation from the nuclear meltdowns.  He may be right. He may be wrong. One of the frustrating things is that scientists can not pinpoint exactly what causes a mutation (as far as I am aware, not being a scientist myself.)

Mutations happen naturally. So we don’t know if a.) the flowers’ mutations are a result of extra radiation from the meltdowns or b.) the flowers’ mutations occured naturally (called fasciation,) and were not the result of nuclear meltdown radiation. Nobody knows. If they say that they do, they are lying. People can have opinions, though, as to what caused the flowers’ mutations.

Here is a link to the photos of the man’s photos of flowers which have mutations. (I am not going to post the photos here directly because I don’t own the photos, nor do I have permission to post them.)

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-photos-show-mutated-daisies-growing-near-fukishima

So anyway, I saw these photos when they were originally viral, and then later saw them again. The second time I saw them, I thought, “Hmmm… I wonder if it is true that there are deformed flowers in Fukushima City? I have not seen any. But I don’t pay much attention. What’s true? What’s not true?”

So starting in September of 2017, I took photos of flowers when I saw them–for an entire year.  (This is the way I chose which flowers to take: it was completely random. If I rode my bike by some flowers and I had my camera, I snapped a picture. I didn’t think anything at all other than “Oh, pretty! Flowers! Take photo!” Usually I was rushing somewhere. Believe it or not, nobody pays me for taking photos of flowers and sticking them in my blog. Actually, scratch that. Believe it. Nobody pays me anything at all for this. It’s 100% unbiased.)

The project has two purposes: 1.) The original purpose is to show whether or not Fukushima City does indeed have more than its share of deformed flowers. (During my entire year of stopping and looking at the flowers and snapping their photos, I never onced saw a deformed flower. Shrug. They may be there, though. I’m hardly a florist.) 2.) The second purpose is to show the beauty of Fukushima City. This was not my original purpose, but I realized as I never actually saw any deformed flowers, that um, well…… they sure are pretty.

I do NOT label the names of the flowers. Why not? Because I don’t know anything about flowers. That’s why.

Okay, we shall start tomorrow….with September flowers.