take 2

take 2

yesterday’s barberry branches before i nipped and tucked them into a perfect carpet. interestingly, i posted both of these images (yesterday’s and today’s) on instagram and asked people to vote on their favorite. i got about 100 votes, and while i have not added up the exact tally, it appears to be pretty much split 50/50: 50% ordered carpet, 50% random spill. what surprises me the most, is that those who prefer order seem to strongly prefer order, and those who prefer a little mess, strongly prefer a little mess. it makes on think.

barberry branches in autumn

  • Old Lady Gardener says:

    Oh, give me the orderly carpet for this particular subject. But with the branches spread out, I can spot those nasty thorns!

    reply
  • Gwen Walters says:

    Yes, I also prefer the orderly carpet. The colors are prettier when they are arranged carefully.

    reply

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a carpet of color

a carpet of color

fall colors arrived in earnest today. i have no idea what caused them to hold out until now, but as if synchronized to the same music, the leaves all started to change today. this beautiful collection of twigs all came from the same bush.  i wanted to photograph it with full sun on it so you could really appreciate the intensity of these colors, but alas, by the time i had the composition ready, the sky had clouded over. that’s okay, this softer look is more STILL anyway.

autumn branches from the same barberry bush

  • Old Lady Gardener says:

    I love what you’ve done here. Stunning! My guess is barberry, the thornless variety (at least I don’t think I see thorns).

    reply
    • Yes! You are absolutely right…barberry. With thorns! So many thorns.

      reply
  • Carol says:

    My take is that those of us who likes number two prefer a little adventure in life

    reply

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so nice to finally meet you

so nice to finally meet you

11 ½ year into making daily images of the flora and fauna of my region, and today i finally meet my first american hazelnut. i have no idea why it has taken this long. they are native to every state east of the mississippi (except florida). my husband, who is getting into northern permaculture, planted two hazelnut saplings on our land this summer. in a couple of years, i am hoping to be far more familiar with these beauties. anyone, who has ever spent any time in france knows how much the french love hazelnuts. hazelnuts are to french food, what peanuts are to american food. nutella, a chocolate-hazelnut spread, it their equivalent to our peanut butter, and eaten in equal quantities. so, after living in france on-and-off for 12 years, i have fully acquired the taste for all things hazelnut. i can’t wait.

american hazelnut (Corylus americana)

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we are in transition

we are in transition

it’s a big day in our house. today is my husband steve’s 58th birthday. it also the last day of the tax-filing extension deadline, which means his tax prep obligations are mostly done now until they start up again in january. and, perhaps most significantly, it is the day he turned in his 2nd pass of his manuscript–a memoir about our family’s deep immersion into rural languedoc, france–which will come out next year (as will mine).  when i said, yesterday, that deadlines were piling up. i meant it.

meanwhile, our fall colors got off to an early start and then seem to have stalled out. so there are an unusual number of leaves caught in transition like this one. which i love.

 

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willow for the win

willow for the win

lots of deadlines piling up. thank goodness for the the generosity of weeping willows. they always come through.

weeping willow leaves in autumn

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