in which I realize I’m a hippie

Our Hero Michael is here, to finish off the shingling on the garden shed roof.

By the time I finally made it outside with the camera, he’d already put the paper up on the front side and shingled about two thirds of the way up.

He was still contemplating the north side.

After not very much time, he’d completed the south side…

 

…and had made decent progress on the north side.

 

 

Oh, please notice the drip cap on the edges.

 

 

 

It was a great day to be working outside – about 70 degrees, and calm.  Kevin and I took a walk. We even held hands, except for the times when his tendonitis got in the way. That’s right – tendonitis, in his right arm. It’s from hammering the plywood up on the garden shed. Let’s review why he might have gotten tendonitis in his right arm, shall we? It is because he is not, in fact, right-handed.

OK, back to our walk. The bittersweet nightshade – wait, let me back up – I can’t BELIEVE I haven’t mentioned this plant before, because it has the cutest flowers ever, of all time. Here’s a borrowed picture of the flowers from the intertubes:

OK, so the nightshade’s leaves are turning purple – how cool is that? – and it has awesome red berries.

 

At one point, I heard a woodpecker above me, and Kevin helped me zoom in on it, mostly by allowing me to lean on him while I tilted my head way up. I have lousy echo-location skills – it took me forever to see this guy.

 

I took a handful of close-ups of moss and lichen on a stone wall, but this is the only one that turned out. This is probably Leucobryum glaucum – pincushion moss (don’t quote me, though). What we’re seeing here – those tall, pinkish skinny things – are the sporophytes, or fruiting bodies, of the moss. The naughty bits.

Just a glorious fall day in Vermont. What could be sweeter? Perhaps the prospect of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” episode of “Glee” tonight? (Whoops, I just revealed that I watch “Glee”. You will either love me more, or lose all respect for me. Ah well, it’s the price I pay for Being Me.)

I’ll leave you with a few shots from the neighborhood:

Oh my god, I just realized, I’m the long haired woman taking close-up shots of roadside weeds in a hippie neighborhood.

Well, at least there’s “Glee”.