think about how it feels to tweeze an eyebrow, or pull an indivdiual hair from your head, or, heaven forfend, wax a patch of leg. then think about poor clove, our long suffering hen, who contracted a case of pasty butt at two weeks old, then became egg bound, then sprained her hip, then swallowed a sharp plastic gardening tag and sneezed blood in her efforts to spit the tag back out. four days ago, she was attacked by a fox, and lost, among other things, the tailfeathers above. this morning she tucked heartily into her morning scratch feed, and ignored the harassment of her bullying sister, glimmer. she’s a quiet soul. and a tough cookie.
tail feathers from Clove, our golden buff chicken
saint paul, minnesota
i fed these poplars art and poetry. i fed them newton’s laws of motion, and fermat’s last theorem. i fed them leonard cohen and paul desmond. i fed them the taste of coffee and the smell of winter woodsmoke. i fed them the feel of a linen shirt and the sound of lake superior against its northern shore. they drank it all up, and look how they’re thriving.
poplar saplings
saint paul, minnesota
mostly i posted this because these two colors together just send me. that ever so slightly rusty red-orange paired with the softspoken matte verdigris of the robin’s eggs. but it is also appropriate that the berries are from a bittersweet plant, and the eggs are from a robin, because this summer flew by, even more than most, and it seems a very short time ago that the robins had just returned to our yard, and now it is the first day of school, and the robins are already thinking about heading out, and that, my friends, is very bittersweet.
bittersweet vine and robin eggs
saint paul, minnesota
clove you are strong , you are woman