i  attribute at least some of the success of STILL to the strict adherence to the rules i set when i started:  found natural objects, mostly wild, on a bright white background, with natural lighting, and minimal modification. i typically only do food if i find it growing wild, such as morel mushrooms, or wild asparagus. but i am a rule breaker by upbringing, a trait instilled and encouraged by my very own mother.  and so today i break my own rules and give you tea leaves because they were too beautiful not to share.  my husband Steve makes his own sleepy-time tea concoction using the 11 dried herbs, leaves, berries, flowers, and petals shown. it works like a dream (ba-dum TSSSS), and he has the whole family addicted to our nightly fix. yawn…time for bed.

peppermint, hibiscus, spearmint, lemongrass, lemon balm, rose hips, red clover, raspberry leaf, chamomile, valerian, hawthorn berries

i take my eggs raw, in the shell, served in a bowl of grasses, thank you. and a side of rösti potatoes. and a latte with skim. wait! and a large o.j.

nest and egg collections

remember pick-up-sticks? where you have to lift the colored sticks off the pile without moving any of the other jumbled sticks, and each color represents a different number of points? and then if you lifted the black stick, it was worth 50 points AND you could use that stick to gently lift the other sticks from the pile, instead of using your thick, clumsy thumb and index finger? it was such a corny game. but sometimes i look at my son entranced by the images flashing across the iPad in front of him, and i think of the stupidity of pick-up-sticks with pure fondness and nostalgia.

red pine needles

saint paul, minnesota

my husband is only about two weeks into tax season, and already i’ve heard tales (anonymous of course) of divorce, addiction, betrayal, madness, death, heartache, and true love. soap operas have got nothing on a tax office. love is a petaled and thorny thing.

bush rose stems in winter

saint paul, minnesota

i have, well i had until today, a large planter in a sun-filled corner of my kitchen which was filled with kitchen herbs for cooking.  steve let our hen glimmer in to lay her daily egg in our bed while i was out running errands, and then he returned to his lower-level office. by the time i got home, every herb in the horse-trough-sized planter was uprooted, and most of the dirt was scattered across the kitchen floor. glimmer was still happily taking a dirt bath in her new spa. that is a long explanation to say that i did not go for a walk today to find my STILL subject. i cleaned my kitchen floor instead. and so you get this photo of an unfurling leaf from the bird of paradise plant in the living room that glimmer mercifully has not yet sought out and destroyed.

bird of paradise leaf