red october

i showed steve four variations on red october leaves tonight, having already concluded that the “hunt for red october” had failed this afternoon, and now it was too late and too dark to re-shoot, on a day when my inventory of possible still blog stand-ins was at or near zero. honey, said steve, on a daily blog, you get to just be good sometimes, and on the days you are good, that means you don’t need to be spectacular. so there you have it. good, but not spectacular. the leaves are turning red, it’s football season, it’s fourth-and-inches, and i’m punting.

collection of red october leaves

arden hills, minnesota

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the incredible edible

i guess i will be happy if my two kids associate the word “egg” not with something inescapably white in a refrigerator case, but with something more like art–interpreting a basic form loosely, and using colors from the Pantone catalog.

egg collection

 

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through the window

it is now late fall, and in theory a lot fewer insects should be finding their way into our house than in summer, when almost all of our doors and windows are open almost all of the time. but we do have a puggle who insists on regular and unobstructed access to the outdoors (when he is not grumbling about the fleece blanket’s ability to provide perfect comfort and temperature control), and we have five chickens who feel that the interior of the house should be as accessible to them as the yard. so i guess i shouldn’t have been surprised to find these moths on my window sills and patio door thresholds today, despite the nearness of november.

dead moths (possibly common gray moths)

saint paul, minnesota

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every color but blue

this summer we harvested the very first blueberries from our back yard after years of watching them leaf out in the spring, grow taller all summer, and die back in the fall, without ever producing more than a few fragile white blossoms that always fell to the ground before anything like a blueberry appeared. this year was different, and now our plants provide the full color spectrum. the fall leaves give us R O Y G, and the berries fill in the B I V.

blueberry leaves in autumn

saint paul, minnesota

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fern feathers

i swear to you that this is a photo, not an illustration, and that it is essentially unretouched. i discovered a tiny patch of ferns along the edge of my yard this fall that began slowly turning color in this haphazard, feather-like way. i have no idea how or why. i just know that, once again, the beauty and variety of nature fills me with wonder and disbelief.

ostrich fern leaflets in late october

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota

  • Gin says:

    Incredible! Like nothing I’ve ever seen. In awe…

    reply
  • margie says:

    i have seen a great many ferns but never turning these colours . glad you noticed them

    reply

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