handprints

Fungi finiti

Fungi, getting tired

Maple Tree

last flower

Leaves in Autumn Sun

Maple Tree

Maple Tree

Autumn Sun

Thistle 4

Fungi

Thistle 3

Maple Tree

Maple leaf

Maple Tree

Thistle 2

Thistle

Vines again

These were taken about 22 hours after the first one, posted Friday. I might try back lighting again in the spring, but for fall, front light looks a lot better. I think the contrast between the organic energy of the vines and the modern, uniform bricks has a lot of potential. Maybe I'll look for that in the next season. It captures pretty well that I'm looking for right now (see post below).

We had frozen grape juice pops right after this. The grapes smelled that good.

Vines--why bother?

I really want to get good pictures of the grapevine in my neighborhood. I grew up in a city of the American Southwest, and the only grapes were small wild, ones with intricate leaves, grey on the underside. There were a number of home winemakers on my father's side, but all using their family orange groves rather than grapes.

The first vineyard I ever saw was in Southern France, out the window of the 15th century stone house I was spending the summer in, learning French on scholarship. I lived out in the country, and the hallway on one side of the house had an idyllic view of vineyards, cherry orchards, and wheat fields sprinkled with red poppies. Stones walls ran between them, some as old as the Romans.

Nine years later, I saw urban grapes. I went to the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, for the first time. I was horrified by Brooklyn driving in because it was seemed devoid of non-human life. Only man-made things met the eye. It was late spring and I simply could not imagine how so many people could live there. But then I did--I discovered the tiny backyard gardens, where Italian immigrants had planted grape arbors a hundred years before. Chartreuse grape leaves were boiling over the top of privacy fences, and hardly anything is more beautiful than grape vines in late spring.

So the grape vines near my house are always a pleasant jolt--what are they doing in this Midwestern town? Thinking about this has clarified for me what I want the photos to capture: the peculiar setting of bricks and fence, where the grapes do reasonably well in a place that seems so less welcoming to them than anywhere I've seen them before.

Golubtzi...sort of

In a fit of desperation, after not having stuffed cabbage in 2 yrs., I tried a shortcut AND a new recipe at the same time. These little guys are about to go into the crockpot. The original recipe is very good, and her pictures, far better than mine, catch the charm of meatballs in a translucent leaf blanket. (link soon!) Adventures in cooking is part of not simply losing my mind from boredom. (*sigh*) But in this season of my life, I just can't do justice to labor-intensive traditional recipes.

Night of the Lepus

Vines

These grape vines are obviously very old. They grow on the fence surrounding the playground of a small Catholic school, where they've been pruned to be out of the kids' reach. They smelled terrific when I took the picture. But vines seem hard to photograph well. Still, the droopy, tired appearance is what they looked like.

Datura

This is a cultivated datura. I've also seen wild ones in the Sierra above 4,000 ft. All are very poisonous, which is why I don't have any in my yard, but many of my neighbors do. Georgia O'Keefe painted at least one.