i try to avoid using food in my STILL photos.  i don’t know why really, too domesticated i guess. too much risk of starting to present food styling photos instead of commemorating moments in nature. but these grape tomatoes feel wild to me. volunteers from the seeds dropped by last years’ abandoned harvest. they were unplanned, untended, and unstoppable. that’s wild enough for me.

grape tomatoes

michele’s garden, minneapolis, minnesota

i know i am rushing it a bit with the fall colors.  the only color we have here yet is the red of sumacs and virginia creeper. but we have had such a dry end of summer that i am afraid we will jump straight from green to brown this fall without much pageantry. so i present this exquisite little cluster of virginia creeper leaflets, just in case.

virginia creeper vine leaf

saint paul, minnesota

with back-to-school preparations, my dad’s funeral, martha stewart living, and everything else, i have found myself a little distracted these days.  today, before i knew it, 5:30 pm had come and gone, and i hadn’t taken my daily STILL blog image. my secret weapon in such situations is a 10 year old son who loves to bring his mom treasures. this evening, i cherry picked some favorites from the bits and pieces sitting on my desk, and with a brief nod of thanks to the god of snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails, i had the shot done in time to start dinner.

bits and pieces from my desktop

saint paul, minnesota

we move our girls’ chicken coop every two days. otherwise they get bored and start bossing us around or trying to escape. yesterday, one of them made a break for it, and ended up on our neighbor’s front stoop, scaring the bejeezus out of his cleaning lady. they also scrape the grass down to bare dirt, so, for the first time in years, i have had to re-seed my lawn.  the good news is that all the scratching and pooping makes for the best-prepared soil i’ve seen.  since we’ve sort of given up on an actual lawn at this point, we’re trying a forage mix with alfalfa, grasses, and clover. if the chickens don’t like it, the bees and the deer will.

seed mix of alfalfa, grasses, and clover

mills fleet farm, saint paul, minnesota

my friend michele brought me these. she did not wrap them individually in adorable paper sacks. nature did that.

groundcherries

michele’s garden, minneapolis, minnesota