slow and then fast

i have watched my friend style a major photo shoot at our house this week. she and i see so many things the same, but there’s still no way i could do what she does. i am a rapid prototyper. i like to shoot off in a bunch of directions and hope one of them ends up looking promising. my friend works like autumn color in the trees. she works in her head behind the scenes, and there is a gradual internal evolution without much changing on the surface, and then suddently everything is breathtakingly beautiful.

smoke tree leaves in October (Cotinus coggygria)

arden hills, minnesota

mauve

this flower is called mauve in french for obvious reasons. if we were voting to add additional flower names to the list of colors we commonly refer to, i would like to nominate primrose yellow, trillium white, and joe pye weed dusty pink.

mallow

autignac, france

seeing mushrooms

seeing mushrooms is a touchstone for me. when i’m seeing mushrooms it means i’ve been outside, on forest paths, walking through the woods, and when i’m doing that, a lot of other things fall into place. i’ve been working hard on a lot of good things lately, and i don’t really have any regrets, but i haven’t been seeing enough mushrooms.

an afternoon of mushroom collecting

languedoc, france

haunted dance line

i don’t shop very often anymore. i had to go to a garden store last weekend and realized why i don’t shop very often. the halloween kitsch and the christmas smarm was already fully operational. and you can’t escape. one day of shopping, and the first thing i thought when i saw these wild fennel stalks was some sort of macabre halloween moonlight dance of the specters. time to retreat back into my bubble.

wild fennel stems

autignac, france

hedgehog

if you’ve ever seen a hedgehog up close, their exterior looks just like the spiny husk of this chestnut. on the other hand, i don’t propose to eat any part of the inside of a hedgehog, but I would love a few of these chestnuts roasted in a barrel over a vinewood fire just now, as the first cold wave of fall arrives in the north.

blah

chestnut in husk