safety in numbers

these glads are just coming into themselves…i may have jumped the gun…in a few days the whole stems will probably be full of blooms. i don’t really have a lot of experience with glads. it’s all a learning experience to me. damn, i love learning.

gladioli

city of gold

for one month every year, our roadsides turn golden. sunflowers and goldenrod become the main attraction. and their appearance is perfectly timed with the sun getting noticeably lower in the sky, adding an additional golden hue to whole scene. i love these mellow weeks of warm days and cool nights. and golden yellow light.

sunflowers (Helianthus)

artist date

yesterday i took the advice of the julia cameron (the artist’s way) and went on an artist date with my friend liz. when i taught my STILL workshop a few weeks ago, one of the attendees told me about her parents gladiolus farm in elgin, minnesota. it sounded magical. so yesterday i drove an hours and half to southern minnesota, to visit the farm.  it was like field of dreams–remember that movie?  carved out of a working farm, 100s of acres of corn standing 9 feet tall,  was four acres of gladioli in every color imaginable–including dozens of hybrids created by the family. tens of thousands of gladioli in a neat little square cut right out of the corn fields. it was a sight to behold. but the best part of the visit, was learning that the family grows the glads, not for financial gains, but for the simple joy of sharing them. they donate all the flowers to locals hospital, nursing homes, and school fundraisers. on the day we visited three generations of the family were out cutting for the weeks deliveries. the grandkids were especially happy to show us their individual hybrids, each named after them, and that they had had a hand in creating. the warmth and generosity of the place was palpable. and the rainbow of  colors was in indeed magical.  i came home with a huge armful of “dead heads” that were being thinned and tossed into piles at the end of each row. so i warn you now, you will likely be seeing a lots of gladioli photos in the coming weeks.

interestingly, any flowers that did not grow perfectly straight got cut and added to the toss pile. ironically, the first flower i picked up to photograph was this bent stem that so beautifully highlights its zippered spine. where they saw only imperfection, i saw beauty. sometimes it helps to be uniformed.

gladiolus (Gladiolus)

feel the light

the intensity of the light peeking through these gingko leaves is assuring me that there are still a few weeks of summer left. morning mists are telling me that night time temps are dropping, and soon daytime temps will follow suit. time to make the most of the remaining  days of summer.

gingko leaves (Ginkgo biloba)

extraordinary ordinary

many times over the years i have carried a handful of queen-annes-lace home to photograph, only to find out on closer inspection that i have also carried home a hitchhiking black swallowtail caterpillar. but only twice have they remained in the house long enough to form a chrysalis. the lifespan of a swallowtail is short: 1 week as an egg, 3-4 weeks as a caterpillar, 2 weeks as a chrysalis, and 1-2 weeks as a butterfly. two months from beginning to end. brief and beautiful visitors on earth. wiki tells me that swallowtails are common east of the rocky mountains. and although i do see them every summer, it is always a welcome visitation. their 5 inch wingspan just fills the palm. and their weightless beauty overflows.

(eastern) black swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes)