scenes from late summer

oh, the precious golden days are on the way out. I struggle between wearing t-shirts, and flannel shirts. I’ve been crazy-busy at work and haven’t spent much time outdoors – for shame! for shame!

Most thistles are on the way to white puffballs – this one still had purple bits hanging on.

Seems like all that’s left around here is goldenrod.

 

And a few black-eyed susans.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

…to do a massive purge of old paperwork! Yes, that is how we spent Labor Day weekend!

Found this guy hanging out by the front door.

The cats hang out on the deck in the afternoons when it’s sunny. Here’s Maggie looking elegant…

 

…and less than elegant.

Oh, who am I kidding, this girl looks great no matter what she’s doing. She has the prettiest little face.

 

Onwards to Charlie.

 

I love how relaxed they are, lounging around in the middle of the yard.

Open wide!

I guess I come by it honestly

Howdy, folks! Sorry I disappeared on you for a bit there – my sister and I were helping my mom move. When I was first getting ready for this trip, I contemplated bringing various things with me: the camera. the work laptop... In the end, I brought neither, and a good thing too, since we were on the go from ~8:00 am every day until we collapsed, rigid and wired, into bed each night no earlier than 11 or midnight. Lordy.

 

There was a whole lot of this.

My sister and I are very different from my mom in a couple of ways that become very apparent during a move: neither one of us has much use for fashion, for one. I am, as I type this, wearing a t-shirt, track pants, and a flannel shirt ca 1991. My sister’s even more of an ascetic – she can’t abide buttons, for instance. My mom, on the other hand, has an extensive wardrobe featuring fabulous colors and textures, with more than one pair of shoes to match each outfit. She’s also got multiple sets of china and dinnerware, all of which she actually uses, and approximately eighty thousand wine glasses. She probably wonders where we came from.

I mention all of this by way of saying that despite the fact that I am a Simple Country Girl at heart, I am now the owner of two mink stoles and a full length Persian lamb coat. I couldn’t help myself – I got all sentimental: these have been in our family for decades. Where I’ll wear them is anyone’s guess. Probably not to the grocery store. I’d love to think of myself as eccentric, but I’m not that eccentric. Yet.

Another thing I am now the proud owner of is my grandmother’s botanical journal. Here’s just a preliminary sample of how she spent the summer of 1927, when she was twelve:

Wow. I guess I come by this fascination honestly, although it took longer to manifest with me. At age 12 I believe I had my nose in a book.

I got home yesterday afternoon and I’ve been busy recombobulating myself. Today was Reiki day at the hospital – that’s always restorative – and in the afternoon, Best Beloved and I set off for the mailbox. Here’s what we found.

 

Golden alexander (Zizia aurea)

Kevin proved to be a veritable jack-in-the-pulpit whisperer, conjuring up four separate flowers.

Check out those glossy leaves. Often, jacks don’t have flowers, and I can see how coming across their threesomes of leaves might make you wary that this is poison ivy.

This one’s encouraging, because it’s managed to come up from a swathe of gravel our neighbors dumped and smoothed on the banks of the stream in the wake of That Bitch Irene, who caused the stream to jump its banks and flood the meadow.

I found one on my own that hadn’t actually unfurled:

 

There was also this really cool, blond kind:

 

Kevin also scouted out some foamflower for me.

Tiarella cordifolia.

We have a stash of forget-me-nots (Myosotis sp.)

 

And some kind of grass in the lawn is flowering – same type that I found the syrphid fly on last week.

This is a Charlie-approved post.

on showing up. (also, drunk chorus girl mushrooms.)

IT SNOWED!!!

please to note the green angel hovering in the space above the garage door. why wouldn’t angels take the form of optic glare and whatnot inside a camera? may as well show up somewhere, right?

ahhhh, the fog is burning off. nice.

thank god for goldenrod.


mmmmmm, MMMMM! oh hey: two more angels, one white, one amber. (yes, that was my brain you just heard, realizing that in the 3D, that orb of amber light must be between the leaves and the lens.)


gentian. you’ve seen gentian here before. I know this isn’t pretty, but hey: it’s a friend, and the process of turning all this stuff back into Basic Matrix Substance has to happen somehow, right? here it is.


the snow was melting this whole time – it was sunny, but sounded like it was raining.
I went back inside briefly.

some people know what it’s all about.


and back out we go. wish I knew what this guy is. grrrr.


same species. just not as tall.


could you be any more beautiful?
and now for a closer look at the flower stalks when there are more layers of them:


after this, I tried a series of head-on shots into the individual flowers. there was not enough light – I gave up, and went with a side portrait:

what do you think? pretty, no?


onwards to the intricacies of leaf decay.


happy moss, just after the winter solstice. so much green poking up.


jaunty little buggers.


moss, moss, everywhere.


I believe this is a fallen bird’s nest.
still with me? and now for an obsessive series about a shelf mushroom.



speaking of jaunty.


awww, a heart! these are all the same type of mushroom, I’m pretty sure, growing on a downed branch, that can’t make up their mind between standing up straight, as shown above…

…or sprawling flat like a lichen. This one’s doing both. “Bartender! Another beer!”


this one looks like it’s waking up from a nap.


others happily dangle upside down. there was a whole chorus line of this sort:

(I don’t know about you, but I keep hearing “New York, New York”.)


others engaged in competitive napping.


this makes me so happy.

While playing with these mushrooms, I came across a convocation of moss reproductive spores.

like so.
these guys are super-elusive to photograph close-up.

this is the best I could do. I’m not sure why: they’re tiny, to be sure, but a lot of stuff I photograph is tiny. I think part of it is the camera tends to be in love with all the texture that’s available in a perspective like this, and it wants to focus somewhere else.

like so: enticingly sparkly water on a rock.
but honestly, I think it’s the little beings themselves. they are willfully elusive. every time I see them I feel like I’ve stumbled across a convocation of forest fairies. (and as above, why wouldn’t fairies take the form of moss fruiting bodies? gotta show up somewhere, right?)
this is why I like spending time outside like this: the woods are a place where a lot of other beings are busy leading their lives, completely out of the awareness of most humans. Yes, you can travel to remote wilderness to experience nature’s majesty. or, you can also go out in your back yard.
it makes me start jonesing for more serious macro lens capability.