color blocking

it’s a habit of mine to look for color in winter landscapes. ironically, in autumn landscapes i try to look past the shouting colors to find shape and form. as i’ve said. i have rebel tendencies. don’t tell me what i’m supposed to do.

cow-patch

it is illegal to be in possession of bald eagle feather in the u.s. but it is not illegal to photograph them. this one belongs to a young native american woman. it is legal for native americans to have bald eagle feathers. she thought i would be interested in it because it belongs to a juvenile eagle–the cow patch of white being the distinguishing identifier from a mature eagle feather which would be all brown. just the other day, i took a walk along our lakeshore, and in one tree, there was a mature bald eagle with white feathered head, making its high-pitched whistle, over and over. in the adjacent tree, there was a juvenile, looking mottled with cow-patch feathers. we were in a northern suburb of the twin cities. a fairly unromantic setting. and yet my shivers of awe were entirely authentic. and always will be.

juvenile bald eagle tail feather

minimal manipulation

normally i would have spent several hours trying to figure out how to bend this branch convincingly into this shape. but in this case, i found it just like this, hanging from another branch. a gift horse, which i did not look in the mouth.

unidentified winter twig

parasol

i snapped this photo, moments before making yesterday’s exercise in semantic writing. it’s a habit. covering my bases just in case my plan for the day fails, i was happy with yesterday’s image, but this high contrast “plan b” actually reminded me of parasol pines on the mediterranean coast under a hot sun. and in minnesota in january, that was a welcome thought.

white pine

estimating

one of my weird superpowers happens to be estimating. i don’t know why my brain works that way, but if you ask me how much a rehab project is going to cost, or what four cups of flour look like, or what the population of dallas texas is, i can usually get close, and always within an order of magnitude. anyway i just tried my hand with these needles. looks like an average of four tufts per pile. five needles per tuft. five columns across six rows down. a hundred needles per horizontal row times six. six hundred needles. plus or minus.

asemic writing with white pine needles