i felt spent and unimaginative yesterday and couldn’t find anything to shoot that i hadn’t already shot, and in some cases, shot multiple times. my rule when i’m stumped has always been to find inspiration by going narrower, or deeper, or both. so i went narrow, looking around me while sitting on the living room couch, and suddenly my gaze landed on our stack of firewood. “hello, firewood,” i said. “my name is mary jo.”

firewood end cuts

saint paul, minnesota

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i had big ambitions to spell out something witty, or at least inspired, on this leaf this morning. but i started with that “w” and look at it. it’s a mess. all the little leaf fibers made the process less like scissoring construction paper than like trying to slice pulled pork with a spoon. after 20 minutes or so, i had spelled out a tentative and unconvincing invitation to “wander.” after which, i followed my own advice, and wandered to starbucks for an iced vanilla latte.

fiddle leaf fig leaf with cut outs

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one rule about which foods go together is that anything grown in the same place in the same season will probably go together on a plate somehow. and if the wine served with that meal also comes from the same place, it will probably enhance that meal. here are the ingredients of an evening walk spent entirely within a single square mile, and here is the dish i present to your hungry eyes, hoping it is harmonious and satisfying.

a mid-july walk

arden hills, minnesota

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this ambitious wasp colony was on its way to building the wasp equivalent of marina city in chicago. if the torrential rain hadn’t washed them out, i wonder if they would have made it to 60 stories. and if they’d made it to 60 stories, i wonder what the wasp equivalent of trump tower would be, and whether the trump wasp nest built right next door would have incorporated little bits of brass and gold into the hexagonal structure of the individual office cubicles.

wasp nest

saint paul, minnesota

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a storm rolled through tonight, and about the time i would normally complete my STILL blog caption for the night, we lost power in the house (and neighborhood). i had uploaded the picture earlier in the day, and left a placeholder here where the description normally goes. the placeholder said “blah.” there’s a part of me that would have enjoyed leaving the placeholder, and seeing what kind of comments i got in the morning. you are all smart cookies. i think some of your interpretations of the deep, secret meaning behind “blah” might have been more interesting than this caption. thanks for being who you are, and goodnight. i’m going, very happily and gratefully, to turn off my electric lights and go to bed.

common (bull?) thistle

minneapolis, minnesota

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