Flora

Sometimes the flora around here points a petal in your direction as if to say, “Hey, you!”

How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand!  Every season and every plant offers changing joys.  As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their diversion.  The seedpods of stitchwort hang ready for delightful popping between thumb and finger, and later the bladder campion offers a larger, if less crisp, globe to burst.  In autumn, acorns, beechnuts, and conkers bedizen their path, with all their manifold possibilities of fun.  In the summer, there is an assortment of honey to be sucked from bindweed flowers, held fragile and fragrant to hungry lips, and the tiny funnels of honeysuckle and clover blossoms to taste.

~ Miss Read, Village Diary

Flora and fauna

I came across the opening quote and was reminded of my own childhood when I sipped on the nectar of honeysuckle and popped the unopened orange trumpet flowers that grew along the driveway of the home where I grew up.  August was always such a hot month in those days without air conditioning, and my brothers and I were usually outside somewhere, trying to catch a breeze.  The air shimmered and waved with the heat, and any little draft of air or shade from a tree was much appreciated.

August meant a refreshing two week stay at the Jersey shore, and nature provided some cool air and water as well as a vast playground for our bodies and imaginations.  There was seaweed to snap and pop or weave into our hair.  Sand to sink our feet into, and to turn magically into castles and mermaids and whatever we dreamed the sand could be.  Shells to be looked over, collected, washed of their sea scent, and brought home where they’d get lost in the stockpile of seashells that is inevitable when there are five children combing the beach.  My mother would save the big clam shells and use them as ashtrays.  Since smoking didn’t seem so bad in those days (just some minor warnings on the packaging), we would sometimes paint the shells so Mom would have a prettier ashtray.  I still collect shells, but most of them are collected with my camera unless it’s just too pretty to pass up and leave to the beach or to go back to sea.

Firecracker

A brief note:  One thing I don’t get hung up on (see yesterday’s post about hang ups) most of the time are rules if I don’t see a reason to follow them (although as someone with Eldest Child syndrome, I can be a rule follower when it comes to the law and manners and things of that nature).  That is especially true when it comes to the rules of photography challenges.  I understand the 365 concept and what I should be doing, but I’m using the Capture Your 365 prompts (today’s is Flora) as fodder for blog posts because I want to stretch myself a little, and write about something other than walks.  Maybe I’m just in the mood to tell stories, and to reveal more about myself.

I’m so pretty

Do you think that’s an age thing?  That as we get older we feel almost compelled to start telling our stories?  Is the telling a way to get around our mortality?  A way to keep a part of ourselves here once we die?  Are we trying to share our wisdom?  Entertain?  Or is there a part of us that wants to go back for a little while and relive some of those earlier moments in life?  I believe it might be all of those things, but the last speaks to me today because I think it’s a way for us to get in touch with parts of ourselves we think we’ve left behind.

Leaning over the meadow

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.  The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot.  It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons and sunsets smeared with too much color.

~ Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Crepe myrtle

Thank you for stopping by today to look at some of the flora of the Eastern Shore.  I hope you’ve had a great start to the week.  The clouds that hung over us for the past few days have finally broken up, and tonight’s sunset looks like it has great potential.  Let’s head to the Point to watch the show and enjoy the breeze.  Sunset is scheduled for 8:09 PM.  See you there!

In the enchanted forest where the flora is lush and green with summer.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

Today’s joys:  Morning fog and dew; the pinkish-orange color of sunrise; the way the Morning Glories open and light up at sunrise; Bo, who is getting me up early in the morning for our walks; seeing the huge black snake on the path before stepping on it (it scared the living daylights out of me, and was coiled, ready to strike, because Bo and I had gotten too close).