seeds mean the end not the beginning

in my mind, summer has just begun. and yet these grasses are letting me know that they feel it is more than half over. never pick a fight with grasses. they always win.

smooth brome grass (Bromus inermis)

exuberance

these joyful weeds have been waving at me along the edge of my driveway as i come and go lately. after eight years of STILL blog, i’ve learned the names of most of the plants in my immediate environment, especially the eye-catching ones. but somehow this one has escaped my previous attention. i spent 20 minutes photographing it, and then an hour trying to identify it with no success. any of you recognize this one?

unidentified weed

*the leaves look like they are in the carrot family, but i don’t think it’s wild carrot nor hemlock. the plant is about 18 inches high. it’s growing in the edge of our shady woodlot. and the stem round.

good design takes time

the ginkgo, like horsetail, is a living fossil dating back 270 million years. when i consider the perfect form of the leaves, one of my favorite of all deciduous trees, i am not at all surprised that is took a little time. perfection takes patience.

ginkgo leaves

grenade

this beautiful bivalve made it to the shore without having all of its spikes worn off. it looks like one of those hand grenades that sometimes wash up on beaches in the english channel. i felt a little nervous picking it up.

cockle shell

busy beetles

i do love imagining sometimes what you might be thinking as you pull up STILL blog for another day, not having any idea what you might see, and i love imagining what your first thought might be when the image resolves on your screens.

beetle eaten skeleton leaf