267/365: sunlight, dew drops & fungus
The underside of a shelf fungus with glimmering dew drops and a backdrop of golden fall foliage and sunlight.
Spotted during our early fall hike at Lebanon Hills Regional Park. It really is ALL about the light!
Nature
spotlight on fungus: part I
266/365: fungus
It seems conditions lately have been perfect for sprouting a plethora of fungi. Everywhere we go, we are greeting with fascinating specimens growing on, in, and under tree trunks. This one was really ready for its close-up, lit by a single shaft of sunlight on the shadowy forest floor.
good medicine
251/365: painted lady fern
I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
– John Burroughs
new hue
246/365: purple woods aster
Walking through the summer woods is a largely monochromatic experience. Green on green. Any other color really stands out.
I’m happy either way: I never tire of the infinite shades and textures of the leaves but the surprise of a wildflower is always welcome.
invasive affection
Oh purple loosestrife! Why do you tempt me with your beauty? We both know that you don’t belong here. And you never will.
215/365: purple loosestrife
charmed, i’m sure
A surprise bloom from our new native plant garden (I thought we’d have to wait for next year). We have so many new and unfamiliar varieties in this garden – I just can’t wait to get to know them as they grow.
196/365: allium bloom & bud
on summer
the heat of the sun
the flutter of wings
the children’s laughter
the cool of the creek
the buzz and the breeze
the drip and whirl of time
191/365: damselfly
that moment
Sometimes the dog is pulling your arm and you have an art fair in the morning and your son is scooping minnows in the creek, and you’re telling him it’s time to go and then the sunlight comes and hits a big tangle of dead forest undergrowth JUST SO and it all turns into a gestural scribble, a linear sculpture, a study of light & shadow. It’s nothing really. And, yet, it’s full of movement and life and death and struggle and some little bit of grace.
Sometimes all you get is that one moment, that one shot. And then it all keeps moving.
188/365: sunshine on tangle of dead branches
memories
Every time I see one of these huge puff balls, it brings me back to my 70’s childhood. We used to have to stop the car so my mom and grandma could climb into the ditch to pick them. Back home, they were given the AquaNet treatment and put on display.
Funny which moments turn golden as time goes on.
187/365: puff ball at the prairie garden
new picturesque
Thinking about this whole idea of nature/landscape in harmony with the built/manmade/industrial etc. Why not a new picturesque? Evidence of our presence here on earth as PART of the landscape.
There is a tendency to hide the human elements, to capture “nature” only. That seems like a lie.
176/365: abandoned wheels with grapevine
avant garden 365 