peek a boo

i can’t help but see this little baby acorn, with its beautiful artichoke pattern, as an excited hide and seek player, sure that she is completely invisible, and at the same time, ready to scream in fear and burst tension as soon as she is discovered. i have always been attracted to the kind of purity and transparency that you see in animals, and toddlers, and the occasional beautiful, unguarded, and very rare adult soul.

immature acorn of a northern pin oak

rice creek trail, shoreview, minnesota

windblown

my parents blew around the upper midwest when i was young,  from saint paul mn, to eau claire wi, to roseville mn to omaha ne, and back to shoreview mn, where they came to rest, and threw down roots in the place i mostly remember as home. but for a brief time, before i was born, my dad was offered a position in northern california. he and my mom swirled out to sausalito,  hovered for a couple of days as they thought about buying a place there, and then caught a strong easterly gust back to minnesota, where they decided they would make their life, among extended family and old friends. some days i want to go back in time, to sausalito, where my folks are looking at cottages and talking about the future, and i want to calm the blustery coastal breeze, and give them a few more days to really think it through.

goat’s-beard seeds

saint paul, minnesota

rascals

i love that the two flowers in the front row are gossiping and joking while the elder flower head in back is trying so hard to be pious and well behaved. i’m sorry. try as you might, you can’t turn me into the flower in back. i will always be one of the two in front, seeing how far i can push the rules, without getting punished too badly.

oh and BTW: happy solstice!

nodding musk thistles (Carduus nutans)

minneapolis, minnesota

rescued

yesterday i was talking to some friends about rescue dogs. how i try to find places where i can walk our dog off leash, and how there is an etiquette about calling up to approaching walkers to reassure them your dog is friendly and ask if they are ok with a little butt sniffing. the second most common response i get, after “yup, he’s fine,” is, “sorry, he’s a rescue dog, we don’t know how he’ll react.” i was griping about this a little bit, in the way you do when life sends you a small inconvenience and you want to turn it into something bigger, just because you’re in the mood to complain. several hours later, my mom was on her way over for dinner. i had been working all day, and suddenly found myself without a still blog photo at the point when the evening light was just getting a little too low to make a good image. as i was working through my options, none of them particularly good, my mom pulled up for dinner with a fistfull of clematis flowers. “I thought these would look good against your black backgrounds, honey,” she said, as she got out of her car. i guess we all need a little rescuing now and then.

clematis flowers and buds

shoreview, minnesota

my assistant

our eva is back from college. her eye for pattern, color, and composition is extraordinary, and has only gotten better over the course of her freshman year. you may not be quite as happy as i am to have her back in our house, but you should know that still blog will be more interesting for a while, with her as my assistant.

bits and pieces of nature