what i love about this photo is the animalistic thorny spine that makes you want to see this leaf as something alive and a little bit menacing. it’s just a leaf. but it might be something else. beware.

dried teasel leaf

autignac, france

there are few things more exhilarating than a sage green olive grove. and few things more civilized than a plate full of olives, a shallow dish of good olive oil sprinkled over with sea salt, and a loaf of good bread. count me in.

olive tree branches

autignac, france

brand new eggs in a nest of dead twigs. dead feathers left behind by living raptors. the driftwood bones of dead trees washed ashore by the living sea. a gatherer like me is always trafficking in the living and the dead.

feathers, nests, driftwood, and beach rocks

languedoc, france

thank you, prickly palm frond, for this geographically appropriate send-off. we will miss you, languedoc, both your prickliness and your warm mediterranean openness, and we will see you again, sooner than later we hope.

palm frond

autignac, france

we are, unaccountably, leaving a place where the daffodils have just begun to blossom in january, for a place where a couple of feet of snow will blanket the ground until april, at which point, if we are lucky, the daffodils will start blossoming in minnesota. there is a universe in which this makes sense, i’m sure. i’m just not familiar with this particular universe.

daffodils

sète, france