california sun

i generally like to de-emphasize shadows in my still blog photos, but hey, i’m in california this week, and so you get some bright sunlight and some contrasty shadows. just squint a little bit and it’ll be fine.

peach-colored dried botanical bits

sfo

this morning we get on a plane for six days in northern california. we’ll be visiting our daughter, who is managing somehow to spend the summer between her sophomore and junior year in san francisco on an intern’s salary. she is not, to our knowledge, dealing drugs, although i’m going to peek in a few drawers…

queen anne’s lace (Ammi majus)

perfection is overrated

i could have gone all the way to iceland to bring home a perfect feather, but that perfect feather would have been like all the other perfect feathers. this feather had to work hard to look like this, and it was sitting there, one of a kind, waiting for the longshot chance that a minnesota nature blogger would happen upon it on a rocky beach in iceland. we were meant to be together.

battered icelandic beach feather

the grass is always browner

how many march posts have i spent sheepishly half-apologizing for yet another composition steeped in grays and browns, and promising that april showers would soon bring life and color back to still blog’s seasonal palette? and yet here i am in late july as gorged with midsummer color  as i am starved of it in late winter, and what i felt today was a craving for just a little taste of neutral earth-toned late-winter stems on the spectrum running from straw colored to walnut colored. the grass on the other side of the fence today was brown.

various over-wintered stems

so, what’s new?

we still don’t have a tv in our house and so i get my news primarily via urgent texts from my mom these days. based on the content of the texts i’m glad i don’t get news from many more sources than that. the news around the hoffman hosue today was that, after years of being aware of the red and white oaks on our property, i discovered this little clue sitting in our driveway, indicating that we also have at least one bur oak. headlines screamed. exclamation points were used. hyperbolic chyrons crawled. pundits opined. it was a big news day. i hope things calm down a little bit tomorrow.

mid-july bur oak leaves and acorns (Quercus macrocarpa)