in transition

i love everything about cup-plant. i love its fused leaves that form a cup. i love its daisey yellow flowers. i love its height. i love that it’s native. i love that it is a good pollinator. and now, apparently, i love its seed heads too.

cup-plant seed heads in mi-october (Silphium perfoliatum)

winds of change

apparently, we are suppose to love ornamental pampas grasses, and hate these phragmites. they look very similar, and it’s often hard to tell them apart. neither are native to my bioregion. pamas are grasses. and phragmites are reeds. but that’s not why we love one and not the other. as best i can tell, we hate phragmites because they are invasive. whereas pampas grasses are well behaved, and stay where they were planted. i think both are beautiful.

phragmites

yes, i’d love a cappuccino. thank you.

this has to be one of my favorite fall leaf palettes. warm, chocolatey, creamy browns. it makes me think of coffee with cream. cognac. leather. chocolate. cinnamon. firewood. caramel. and apple cider. and you? no thinking now, just feeling. what jumps to mind?

not not pretty

i try not to underestimate anything. pick up one of these fall lily of the valley leaves and it’s not that pretty. put a bunch of them together and, if it’s not exactly pretty, well . . . it’s not NOT pretty.

lily of the valley leaves

colorless or colorful?

today was a blah day. not bad. just blah. i got a COVID booster shot yesterday because i have an autoimmune condition (sjogren’s syndrome). and i woke up today feeling puny. with a mild temp and swollen lymph nodes. nothing serious. just puny. so i pretty much spent the day cuddled with the dog reading. in other words, i sort of felt like these oak leaves. drained of color. but, then my husband walked into the bedroom and said “you know what day it is, right?”. i looked at my phone, october 8? friday? is it suppose to mean something? he paused with a shit eating grin on his face, until i exclaimed “OMG, IT’S FRIDAY! TED LASSO DAY!!” and just like that my blah day got all sparkly and full of expectant hopefulness. yes, i, like so many others, am a huge ted lasso fan. and today, the last episode of season 2 dropped. we have a bedtime routine for watching ted lasso, so i still have a few hours to wait. giddy with anticipation. not blah at all.

white oak leaves in autumn