victim of my own a success

I am currently a victim of my own success–too many invitations to speak, not enough time walking in the woods gathering and making photos. Last night I spoke at a local country club. This morning I will leave to drive four hours north to Bayfield, Wisconsin on Lake Superior to do a weekend of sessions at Wild Rice Retreat. Each request is reasonable. Each request sounds fun and rewarding. But all together, it has me coming and going so much I am losing connection to my own place. All my life I have swung back and forth between extroversion and introversion. I guess I am an ambivert–needing a little bit of both. I like being social, talking to people, building community, making things happen. I also like weeks of quiet time, no calendar commitments, just me and me camera and a few good books. Currently I am tipped too far to the sociability side–but no time to complain about that right now, I have to go pack for my three days up North.

baby red pine cones

I’m late, I’m late for a very important date.

Can you tell I am barely keeping up with spring? Come to think of it…it’s summer now, isn’t it? If you go my the astronomical calendar, I guess it is still spring for another 17 days. But the meteorological calendar says summer started four days ago. Either way, I am running late. Life is bursting, swelling, pushing, popping, blooming, and dying back faster than I can keep up right now. I say this every year, but spring in the North is fast! Zero to a hundred in six weeks.

I love blackberry blossoms. Their delicate white flowers are one of my very favorite spring arrivals. And I almost missed them! This branch was the very last branch with flowers in my whole yard as you can see by the number of exposed calyces where the petals have all dropped away.

On a completely separate note, if you get a chance to see the movie Silent Friend on a big screen, please do so! Borrowed from my friend Julka: “It was directed by Ildikó Enyedi and weaves together three stories across multiple generations, all centered around the same ginkgo tree on a university campus in Germany. It is about human and plant relationships and the limitations of human understanding. It is also the only film I have ever seen that, in the credits, names all the plants that were in the film! I haven’t heard people talking about it, so I am telling everyone I know to go see it!”

late blackberry flowers

sinuous curves

The stems caught my attention first. Then the papery calyces. And finally the delicate star shaped flowers. Wow, there is a lot to love about these chive flowers, but it was the seductive sinuous curves of the scapes that made me take pause in the first place.

chive scapes with flowers (Allium schoenoprasum)

Drama Queens

Yesterdays subjects 24 hours later. So dramatic.

common dandelions with seed heads (Taraxacum officinale)

in the eye of the beholder

What we call a weed and what we call a flower is purely arbitrary. I have heard it said that a weed is simply a plant growing in the wrong location. So, tell me, is dandelion a weed or a flower in your book? It’s a flower to me. And an edible green to my husband and son. So, let me ask that again: weed? flower? or food?

common dandelion (T. officinale)