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Flowers, home, Picture Galleries, Puget Sound, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Hello, September

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September seems like it really should be the beginning of the year. I never feel like January’s New Year’s has any thing to it. Things aren’t changing in the weather or natural world, the holidays are emotionally exhausting and I don’t feel ready to look at the past or energy to move into the future with purpose.

September is a month of change and transition. I tend to have time reflecting about the year at my annual trip to Mt Rainier in August and when September comes with the cooler weather I feel ready for new endeavors.

All of these photos were taken within four blocks of my home.

Foxtail grass looks like sparklers in the morning light.
Mature grasses going to seed.
Ornamental grass still shows mostly green, in a neighbor's rock garden.
The cool-ish August with a little rain has been kind to roses.
These lovely red apples are ripening nicely.
A first touch of fall colors at the edge of a Japanese maple.
Grapes are formed but not yet ripe.
It looks like the bigger older sister sunflower seedhead is leaning over to protect a much younger and smaller sibling that just got to full bloom.
Parsley seed head look almost like a snowflake.
In September it seems like all the stages of the flower and seed heads are happening at the same time.
Will they make it? Septembers tomato blossoms are on a tight schedule to get fruit formed before the weather cools.
Make a wish, dandelion seedhead.
Black-eyed Susans glow in fall's less harsh sunlight.
Asters and bees busy collecting for their winter stores.
Yellow coneflower with a bee.
Hints of the winter ahead in the reddening of the holly berries.

This week I decided to try and take photos that show the transition between summer and fall. The days are shorter and the little bit of rain we’ve had is bringing some things back into the green while others head toward seed formation.

Putting together a gallery seemed like a natural when I saw City Sonnet’s prompt: Welcome September.

family, home, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

My child’s father

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Going back through old photos this spring to find some of my niece who was graduating and my grandmother who passed away I came across these of my husband and son that made me smile.

My son is 30 now and going through a stressful time so I am sending him these, I hope it makes him smile and know that whatever the world throws at him someone’s got his back.

For Patrick Jennings Pic and a Word Challenge: Fathers

family, Flowers, home, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Crocosmia Lucifer

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On today’s morning dog walk the crocosmia caught my eye. It had already caught the eye of the local bees.

The sun hit this spay just right.
Bees gathering pollen from crocosmia lucifer flowers.

However, the real flower of my day today was my niece, who is taking a real interest in construction these days:

Toddler displaying a tower of duplo blocks that she built.

This is heart warming to her structural engineer aunt, we are already discussing the need for a strong foundation…and she is getting it!

Cee’s Flower of the Day

Snapshots from a Happy Life, home, Puget Sound

The sky is the view

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These are all taken from a little deck off the spare bedroom at my Dad’s house. We were there today and I took pictures, from about the same vantage point, of the changing light and clouds from mid afternoon to after sundown.

The tree and land do not change, but the clouds move and alter the amount and angle of light, and therefore the colors. It is interesting to me that the one taken mid-afternoon looks almost like a black and white and the one taken after sundown has vibrant colors. Maybe that is a metaphor for life in some way.

Nancy Merrill’s Photo a Week Challenge: View

Flowers, home, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Flowers we take for granted: Leeks and Parsley

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Cee’s Pick Me Up Post today inspired me to put together this post about flowers that we don’t usually think of as flowers. The quote is:

The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfullness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.

Thich Nhat Hanh

We were eating them as recently as two months ago. Then they got woody and the tops began to look like the tops of old Russian churches. Then they started to get a bit bumply under their caps …

Garden leek with its "onion top" .
Close up of the top of a leek getting ready to flower.

… and this week they are popping out.

Composite flower of the leek brusting through the skin.
Pale purple composite flower of a leek.

I think they are rather pretty. I also like the flowers of parsley. In the background of the photos above.

The starburst like flowers of parsley are more delicate than St. Anne's lace.
Parsley flower.

It is, I believe, a cousin of Queen Anne’s Lace. I like the subtlety and delicacy of it’s green tinged flowers. Sometimes, when I bother to bring flowers in from the garden, I will put them with roses in a vase, like some folks use baby’s breath. But mostly I just enjoy them when I am out in the yard.

Cee’s Flower of the Day

Nancy Merrill’s Photo a Week: Flower

family, Random Reflections

Never blink…you might miss something

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My second niece graduated from high school last night. It seems impossible that she is an adult already, about to head off into the future…and feeling like all of our futures may well be better because of her.

One of my favorite things through the years has been spending time with my nieces. Here are some pictures from the recent graduate’s murky past, in no particular order.

Two girls and a heart shaped birthday cake decorated with berries and five candles.
A girl in a green shirt uses a turkey baster to carefully add red water in a science experiment.
An almost three year old proud of the tower she built with duplos.
A toddler wearing a large tee shirt with Australian animal footprints with a crown made of a ring of plastic beads.
A toddler holding a Duplo car and person beside a fanciful tower she built.
A toddler and young girl with an elderly man playing with Easter eggs.
A four year old surrounded by her parents prepares to blow out the candles on the cake she helped to bake.
A young girl sitting on the shoulders of a bearded man.
A three and six year old standing on either side of a space toy set up.
A toddler licking a beater covered with chocolate cake batter.
A toddler looking through binoculars. Her older sister is seriously working on a drawing.

Lens Artists Photo Challenge: Favorite Things