i decided today, after an outpouring of love and support for yesterday’s image and for this whole quirky project of mine, that i needed to stop and just say thank you. i spent yesterday in a multi-subject conversation across several media with a community as meaningful and real as any i’ve participated in, virtual or not. i felt inspired and rewarded and included. so. stop. thank you.

unidentified early november leaves

grass lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

the colors this fall were extraordinary. i wanted to bottle them, so i could pull them out of the cupboard in march when i will need a boost to get through until spring. take one tablespoon of sumac red, mrs. hoffman, and call me in late april.

dried and crushed sumac leaves

saint paul, minnesota

this weed couldn’t have looked more obvious when i came upon it. like some bristle armed alien marching out of the prairie. yet i have probably walked past this very stem one hundred times since april, and never noticed it until today. there it was, one step off the trail i walk most frequently with the dog. really? an entire spring, summer, and fall of walks, and now we meet? perhaps we have met before, and you just dyed your hair or got new glasses…

trailside weed

rice creek regional trail, saint paul, minnesota

it’s the last day of october. we had one of the most colorful falls in memory here in minnesota. but the north winds rolled down from canada this week and like the glaciers several hundred thousand years before them, they haven’t left much in their wake. we have some really nice soil, some piles of terminal moraine, and these damaged mementos of a colorful past. now it’s time to square our shoulders and face northward with stiff nordic upper lips.

late october leaves

grass lake, saint paul, minnesota

invariably these little black fungus spots are called “unsightly.” i find them sort of adorable. like the prints our dog makes on the white floor unknowingly when he’s just come in from trying to dig something up out of the back yard.

tar spot fungus on silver maple leaves

island lake trail, saint paul, minnesota