surprise!

every dragon fruit i’ve ever sliced open has had white flesh with black seeds. i cut this one open expecting more of the same. it had other ideas.

red dragon fruit (pitaya) (Hylocereus costaricensis)

liquid fire

given my daughter’s ties to california, not to mention my own, i have fire on my mind a lot these days. i didn’t set out to make this orange slice look like a vortex of liquid flame, but some part of my consciousness, or subconsciousness, must have wanted to contemplate fire today. for what little it’s worth, i’m over here wishing for rain on the west coast.

navel orange slice 

running low

my store of available fruits and vegetables is beginning to run thin. i think this project has another week or two in it, but i have to say, it has given new life to this long still blog experiment, and having steve around to help me has been a new (or renewed) phase of our collaborative life that i have a good feeling about. the end of one thing, like all seasons, is the beginning of the next thing.

white asparagus

braiding sweetgrass

one of my favorite recent books is braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer, about trying to rediscover a connection between humans and the earth that undoes some of the insanity of western post-industrial culture. here is the author on late fall: “that september pairing of purple and gold is lived reciprocity; its wisdom is that the beauty of one is illuminated by the radiance of the other. science and art, matter and spirit, indigenous knowledge and western science–can they be goldenrod and asters for each other?”

goldenrod and aster

hiding in plain sight

after almost nine years of still blog, i sometimes feel as if my next subject will have to come from some distant place i’ve never been. nature is vast but not infinite, and i have frisked her pretty thoroughly around my house. and yet as i walked up my own driveway yesterday, this complicated beauty was suddenly there like no big deal. i assumed she had to be a domesticated plant, but no. she is known as obedient plant, and she grows wild across the northern united states. per her name, she posed quite obediently for her portrait, although there was something jaunty in the tilt of her green topknot. i believe she and i will remain friends.

obedient plant blooming (Physostegia virginiana)