my daughter found this garter snake on the path of her run yesterday evening. she texted me a photo of it with three question marks, and of course, i begged her to bring it home to me. in the midst of all of her complaining about having to cut her run short, and haul home a dead garter snake on a large hosta leaf, there was the undeniable fact that she had taken the time to text me the photo in the first place. which meant that, despite herself, she had taken her job as still blog scout very seriously. which in turn meant i could reply to her demand, “u better love me forever,” with an unhesitating, “i will!!”

common garter snake

saint paul, minnesota

Save

Save

i love how this globe thistle looks as if it’s in motion. needless to say, it was not moving as my digital shutter “opened” for the analog equivalent of 1/16 of a second. today i got to see the other end of that technological spectrum. we spent an afternoon in the basement of a friend and fellow photographer’s house, as he developed tintype photo portraits of my family. rather than iso film speeds of 200, 400, or 800, we were throwing light onto silver nitrate with an iso of 0.3, and, as a result, staring into the camera with fixed smiles for 5-8 seconds at at time. the results were some serious expressions, a very shallow depth of field, and a childlike sense of how almost frighteningly magical the first photographs must have appeared to the people who watched images of themselves take ghostly shape on wet sheets of metal.

globe thistle

mary jo hoffman

Save

Save

i wonder, would this wreath be more beautiful if the blossoms were at their peak? or is their just-fadedness a form of depth? the self-possessed beauty of a 40 year old, as opposed to the untried freshness of a college sophomore? is this the kind of earned and slightly weary middle-aged beauty that leads to the later-life beauty of a 68 year old accepting her party’s nomination for president of the united states?

rainbow of dried july blossoms: geranium, lily, sunflower, daisy, black eyed susans, red milkweed, wild indigo, thistle, iris, hosta blossoms, prairie blazing star, bee balm, cone flower, hibiscus

saint paul, minnesota

Save

i always thought the fleur de lis was a sort of stylized lily or iris. even wiki defines it as a stylized lily. turns out, it’s an entirely realistic depiction of a dried lily blossom. this very dried lily blossom as a matter of fact. i’m just not sure how they got their hands on this back in 13th century france.

dried lily flower

saint paul, minnesota

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

this could be a prime example of how different organisms evolve into similar shapes. the scalloped edges of this bracket fungus look just like the edges of the seashell that gave us the term “scalloped.” there must be something similar about the growth pattern of bracket fungus and scallop shells that generates, in both cases, just a little bit of extra material at the outer edge, which is required to fold itself into a pretty kind of ruffle. i could have done some more research on this topic tonight, but, with our trip to france just three weeks away, i couldn’t get past the thought of scallops, known in france as coquilles st jacques, poached in white wine and served in their shells with a cream sauce. in other words, bracket fungus be damned. pass the white wine.

bracket fungi

saint paul, minnesota

Save