remember those avocado green fridges? those harvest gold ranges? the sculpted shag carpeting? the dark cardboard paneling? bellbottoms and butterfly collars? polyester leisure suits? i do. i can still call to mind the faint mildew smell of finished walkout basements, mixed with stale cigarette smoke, and free bird playing on the turntable. it was a very strange time to grow up.
locust leaves in october
vadnais lake trail, saint paul, minnesota
we have a couple of red cedar trees around us, which are not cedar at all, but juniper. i always see the green and dark morphs of these “berries” (actually cones), and think about black pepper. i guess i sort of assumed they were related until tonight, when i confirmed that black pepper grows on a vine in india, and doesn’t look anything like the prickly branches of juniper/red cedar. that’s fine. as long as they keep making gin from them, juniper berries can come from wherever they want.
juniper berries
east river road, minneapolis, minnesota
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First, I thought this would be plums….great picture !!!
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Curiously, in Spain, the gin is called “ginebra” and the juniper (Juniperus comunis), is commonly called “ginebro”. :)
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sorry, Juniperus communis
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i can’t decide how i feel about this plant. on one hand it has generated the dramatic biblical name of burning bush, and its fruit is sometimes referred to with the romantic name of “hearts bursting with love.” it has to have something going for it, right? sure, it is undeniably striking in the fall, consumed in its crimson flames. but drive through any second ring midwest suburb and look somewhere near the front stoop, where the foundation plantings have been anchored by this burning bush, and see if you hear god talking to moses, or if you hear today’s specials being announced over the loudspeaker in the Home Depot Lawn and Landscape department.
burning bush seed
saint paul, minnesota
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I don’t think the plant has lost its mystery…but we may need to rediscover our ability to see it (the mysteries around us). I like that about your blog–sometimes you help us see what is right in front of us, which can be the hardest thing of all to notice.
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bittersweet vine, sumac leaves, and now burning bush seeds. I have never noticed before this fall how often magenta and orange are paired in nature.
burning bush seeds
saint paul, minnesota
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i always think of it as the flames of autumn
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i feel exactly like these sumac leaves: exuberant and exhausted. spent all day on a photo shoot for a STILL related project that i am simply over the moon about, and now at 11:00 pm, i feel very much like a 51 year old who just spent 11 hours on her feet in dansko clogs. it’s time to get these feet up level with my heart–which, as i write this, is full to bursting. i can’t wait to tell you more about this project. please stay tuned.
staghorn sumac in october
lake johanna, saint paul, minnesota
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can’t wait to hear
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A strange time, but wonderful too. I still love bell bottom jeans and avocado green, but polyester and rust-orange shag carpets give me the creeps.
I like this elegant locust branch and its opportunistic legume companion.