Saturday, September 30, 2006

sorrel

sow thistle

huckleberry leaves

I know I know... I keep photographing them! But they're SO beautiful!!!

cedar preparing for winter

pyracantha (firethorn)

late pink strawberry blossoms

peach

When I was a child living in this house I picked peaches out of my window from a small peach tree, pushed right up against the sunniest wall of the house, defying the coastal chill.

For reasons I assumed were aesthetic (but I was totally wrong; read the comment at the bottom of this post), my parents cut down the peach tree and planted a camelia beside the little stump. (For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm now raising my own children in the house I grew up in, and my parents have returned to build themselves a house on the hill behind the one we're renting from them.) The camelia is lovely when it blooms, but... I am waiting for the day they move it to their new house. Why?

Because, under the camelia, and a rhododendron, a grapevine, a porch and an arbutus tree, deep in the shade, one long branch of the peach tree has pushed out from the old roots and is reaching for the sun. And it blooms. And last year it set peaches that grew to nearly an inch long before shriveling up and vanishing. And this year...

This is what I found under that beautiful branch. Yes, it's pale yellow - peaches need sun for colour, and this persistent branch has none. But I ate it, and it was sweet and soft and sun-warmed, on one of the last dry days of the autumn.

All together there were 6 peaches that didn't succumb to the shade. I can only imagine what joys I will have next year. :--)

ocean spray seeds

Norway maple leaf

ginkgo leaves are still green!

columbine seed pod

butterfly bush seeds

bracken fern

swordfern curling

swordfern pollen

Saturday, September 16, 2006

New Camera!!!

You can't stop me now... I've just given up on my increasingly tempermental Canon A70, and have bought a Canon S3. Ha. All the better to photograph the autumn, which is dancing its way in with cool crisp evenings, leaf-scented winds, and rich oranges and bronzes.
Beware my trigger-finger. :--)

snowflake hydrangea - autumn re-bloom

new nasturtium seeds

nasturtium

Barbara Sunday, my highschool art teacher, used to encourage us to draw the "naughty bits" of the flowers, as she called them. I still think of that every time I photograph or paint them. So here are the nasturtium's naughty bits.

Martha Washington's progeny

lavender

kiwis

kiwi leaf

opening horse chestnut

This chestnut is getting ready to deliver its baby onto the waiting leaf, below.

honeysuckle berries

hollyhock seeds

heliotrope

scented (citronella) geranium



grapes ripening