transition

a symbolic end to our busy season.  @sjrhoffman and i have arranged our lives so that we make most of our household income in the first six months of the year, freeing us up to do mostly creative work for the last six months of the year. this was a conscious evolution, that took us quite a few years to finally achieve. it sounds rather luxurious, and in many ways it is. but the reality is that we pack a year’s worth of working hours into those first six months and that takes a toll, especially right now when we are at the end of that phase, and the two overlap for a short time. someday we may strive for a more balanced annual rhythm. but it is the best solution we have found that allows us to pay the mortgage, pay college tuitions, and still grow rewarding creative careers without the stress of having to be creative for profit. i’d love to hear what solutions you’ve come up with that work for you and your families.

round lake superior beach stone

fern lady

i am just now realizing the irony that i have become the Fern Lady of lady ferns.  we recently bought the house next door to our own, and we are in the middle of a fairly substantial renovation of it. the house has been neglected for years, maybe decades. it’s requiring far more work than we anticipated. so there are many contractors coming and going. the yard, which has never been mowed, is full of ferns. i have counted four different kinds.  i am calling the new place “fern house”. anyway, i am spending far too much of my time transplanting ferns from one side the house to the other, in order to save them from the crunch of contractor boots and tires. i think it will pay off in the long run. but right now it feels like folly.

lady fern

adolescence

i’m still fascinated by how we form mental images of plants and flowers at their peak of maturity and ripeness. daisies are white with yellow centers. cattails are topped by hot-dog shaped seed pods. and sumac seedheads are deep scarlet. but daisies are still daisies when they are 3 inches tall and cattails are still cattails when they are brown winter stalks, and sumac is still sumac when it is an adolescent rose blush, instead of a wine-dark fall red.

female staghorn sumac fruit in june

moving on

last night we hosted a big event at the walker art center auditorium, where some of the most important voices in our local food scene got up on stage with my husband and talked about northern food. it’s a funny kind of event to be sold out: “a panel discussion? oh, about kanye and kim k, right? no? about . . . what? food? and you’re saying it was sold out. hmm. well, ok. you minnesotans are interesting.” the event has taken up much of our last two weeks, and not it is behind us. we are moving on. i feel some writing and some artmaking may be in our futures…

milkweed flower buds (Asclepias L.)

the annual musk thistle photo

i photograph musk thistle once every year at this time. but i have yet to capture their exuberant beauty and abundance on our roadsides. the camera captures a larger and larger percentage of our lives, but it can’t capture the effect of walking onto a sea of flowers in real life. some majesty is lost no matter how talented the photographer and how diligent the post-processing. and as a photographer, i say, thank heavens this is true.

musk thistle (Carduus nutans)