right on cue

the long labor day weekend is behind us. the temps dropped 20 degrees overnight. the minnesota state fair is over for this year. the kids are back in school and school buses have slowed the residential streets. and right on cue, the sumac leaves have begun to turn.

sumac leaves transitioning to fall

if i had to pick just one

a trip to the farmers market for more tomatoes today. i don’t know how many more weeks of vine-ripened tomatoes we will enjoy here in the north, so i am happily over-indulging while it lasts. i think tomato is my single most favorite food. can you pick a favorite food? just one. with no qualifiers. leave a comment, i’d love to hear what it is.

cherry tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme)

seeing what we have become habituated to

i am not very good about eating my greens. nor photographing them fro that matter. every year at the end of summer i panic, and think, omg, summer is ending and i haven’t tried to capture the lush greeness of it all. here’s a start. a mountain of green.

showing gratitude

i really wasn’t feeling it today. so i sat down to read Rick Rubin’s book (The Creative Act) instead of making my daily STILL photo hoping inspiration would come in an hour or two. and right there on the second page i read Rubin says “be grateful you get to create”. doh! ‍♀️. apparently that was the inspiration i needed.  i got up and created. and i am grateful i did.

gradient of dried botanicals

matchy matchy

this week i was struck by how all the orange school buses perfectly match the roadside flora. where i live, most kids attend public schools. so there are lots of orange school buses on the road from 7 AM to 5 PM–first the elementary kids, then the middle schoolers, then the high schoolers, and finally the after-school activity buses. i love seeing school buses on the road. perhaps it’s nostalgia. but more than that, it brings parents and kids outside for a bit each day while they wait for the pick-up or drop-off. its makes our otherwise sleepy suburban community feel more vital and alive. the energy of school-age kids is contagious. i smile seeing them running from the bus with friends, their backpacks bouncing up and down on their backs. if i squint into the afternoon golden sun, i see orangey-yellow schools busses slowly making their way down golden-orangey-yellow lined roads. it’s all so harmonious and warm.

black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta)