how come you never hear the word “combobulate”?

What’s up with the purple gentian? This looked so promising at first, but not a one has bloomed.  At best we have a wilting into brown.

At worst we have an infestation of slime nuggets.

No, that’s not the worst. The worst is being eaten alive by some kind of mold when you have yet to unfurl your purple freak flag.

This is super blurry because I was being eaten alive too – by mosquitos. MOSQUITOS! In September! Arrrrggghhh!!! Very annoying.
Fall used to be my favorite season, hands-down. The change in the air, in the light; the smell of fallen leaves – pure exhilaration. Lately? Not so much. I’m having trouble adjusting. I think it’s because I’m still getting used to the new schedule/job – I don’t have NEARLY enough free time on my hands to dawdle and peer into flowers’ naughty bits and ask questions and research stuff. You know, the IMPORTANT stuff.

The trade-off for glorious berries is wilting leaves. I want to be the berry! Not the leaf!

More and more of the thimbleweed (tall anemone) is opening up. Dreams of baby anemones, made manifest.
OK, enough whining, sweet girl. Tomorrow I’ll be doing my Reiki volunteer gig at the hospital; there’s the possibility of an as-yet-not-figured-out hike with a friend, and dammit, I’m going for a run. And maybe I just need to adjust and start taking pictures of rotting and decaying things. It will be fun! Hooray! I could launch this new phase with a quick peek at the completely-squashed-flat baby snapping turtle I found in the shared driveway yesterday but I think I’ll spare you.
I guess once we cave in and get the woodstove going, I’ll be OK. What does the cattail think, when it goes from its nubbly velvet perfection…

to this?  Maybe it’s psyched, actually.