nearing the end of year four of still blog means that it takes more to surprise me than it used to. this plant, whose flowers i noticed throughout the late summer, and whose silhouette is full of such graceful brushstrokes, is a red milkweed–a native plant that should be familiar to me by now, but whose acquaintance i only made today. that makes it my newest friend, on a day when i get to celebrate the twenty-sixth anniversary of my marriage to a much older friend–mr. steve hoffman.

red milkweed (a. tuberosa) seedpod

grass lake regional trail, saint paul, minnesota

apparently they have found liquid water on mars. i just read it today. my first assignment at honeywell was to work on the guidance and control systems for a proposed mars rover, so i have a fondness for news of the red planet. i wonder if there might be proto-life microbes up there right now that, given enough millenia, could replace themselves in the direction of something as unthinkable as a feather.

found white feather

sucker lake regional trail, saint paul, minnesota

i went searching for something to say about this photo that didn’t have to do with the changing seasons, which i and everyone else are currently overly aware of, leading to too many online observations on the subject. well, what i’m telling you is that if you ever want to spend some time on an unexpectedly sexy topic, go look up the mechanics of wilting. outside of a harlequin romance, i’m not sure i have ever run into so many references to turgidity, membranes, pressure, rigidity, and contractile vacuoles, whatever those are. please excuse me. i think i have to go powder my nose.

broken leaves

saint paul, minnesota

i am a tomboy at heart, so maybe it was a slight imbalance toward testosterone in my estrogen-testosterone hormonal makeup that caused me to grind up my frustratingly uncooperative sumac leaves from the other day in a blender. in any case, they were much better behaved this afternoon, and quite cooperatively filled the spaces i wanted filled in this twig pattern. in fact i’m happy enough with this image that i think i may forgive them completely, and move on.

sumac stems and leaves

saint paul, minnesota