Musings

I “knew” this plant long before I remember hearing its name. I knew it had nice red berries come autumn. And some bright red leaves. I knew it had stiff woody branches, and no thorns. I knew that the branches were quite rigid, far more than most shrubs.

When I heard the name, I heard coh…toh…neee…assss…ter. Sure, fine. Then, sometime later, I saw the name spelled out, and I tried not to sound it out (as I was told to do, over and over; and over) because I found sounding it out to be misleading.

This is an artistic rendering of a section of an autumnal branch of a cotoneaster. So, again, it’s a distortion of reality…?

Then again, cotoneasters are taxonomically related to photinias. 😎

Posted at 9:49 PM | 3 Comments »

Well, three flower-like fleurs. Visual fleur essence.

First we have plastic mall flowers. A not-field of pseudo-lavender in an upscale mall…actually, former upscale mall…now a fine mall trying to maintain essence of upscale-osity. And a spread of fake lavender, I assume, is supposed to help.

Maybe if support staff sprayed the plastic with real scent? haha 🍀

Found this rose 🌹 on my knee. My blue rose leggings.

Today they went to an afternoon matinee at the upscale mall theaters. Seats are sold reserved now, you know…I didn’t.

Here’s a casualty of the latest snow-and-cold-snap. Poor camellia. The realest flower of the trio got snubbed by MaNachur.

Buck up; tomorrow’s on the way!

Posted at 9:19 PM | Comments Off on Tale of three fleurs

On our wander today, we made it to the BeltLine for a short block or so, then back, a simple loop that was really an elongated rectangle. Somewhere along the way I spotted a twisty-trunked tree festooned with mistletoe that nobody harvested last month. It was a really tall tree, which would make downing the mistletoe difficult, but I bet the real reason there’s so much there is that no one harvested much mistletoe here in the city.

Posted at 7:57 PM | Comments Off on High-altitude parasites

The Guru went out with me to gain our vitamin D. The foot was feeling pretty good, so we went farther afield, and found this tree, which has outgrown the space allotted to it during the last landscaping, some time back. Trees are powerful!

Farther along, we discovered that someone forgot to turn off their sprinklers.

And another homeowner kept the fish-pond oxygenating, creating ice balls and other glazed shapes.

Posted at 5:42 PM | Comments Off on Slow art

New artsy tool* here, from Santa James to the Guru, and I borrowed it and gussied up this photo. Yeah, well, outta my depth, no?

Then I tried something more contained.

I’ll plow new ground next time….

* Apple pencil (which works with retina iPad that’s the Guru’s).

Posted at 8:23 PM | 1 Comment »

Yesterday’s image was about absent leaves. Today’s images are foliage. MaNachur has decorated this decorative cabbage-family specimen with a single Acer palmatum specimen.

These desiccating hosta leaves provide quite the contrast, no? Their venation pattern creates all the texture, looking rather like the puffy zones created between lines of stitches on quilts.

Posted at 5:57 PM | Comments Off on Flip side

I futzed around getting ready for my walk. I checked the temp and thought sunny and low 40s, hmm, I’ll try my long-sleeved inner layer with a t-shirt top. Then I stepped outside. Ooops. My visual inspection didn’t identify the wind.

I slipped back indoors and added my fleece.

Smart move. It really didn’t feel very warm until I’d been striding for a while and was on a stretch where buildings and topography blocked the wind. Then, I had to drop the fleece off my shoulders!

And despite our recent bud-nipping temps (and the S), this rhododendron (in a sheltered location) is pushing out new, healthy buds!

Posted at 6:37 PM | Comments Off on Rhodo bud!

BTW, the ginkgo leaves are now grounded and the ginkgo trees are bare. Ginkgo Day was yesterday? The day before? I failed to register it….)

This morning when we left for my PT appointment, we deemed it cold enough for…butt warmers! The Prius engineers promote the butt and steering-wheel warmers because they use less energy than warming the cabin air.

PT Mike had me do some new-to-me exercises that emphasized balance (which of course requires strength), rather than simple strengthening. I felt like I made a good showing, with room for improvement. In fact, I felt confident enough to take the wheel when we left! I have no doubt I could have driven sooner, but today, one day before the first anniversary of our Prius Prime purchase, seemed propitious. And we do propitious.

The warmth of recent days is gone, yes, and rain has set in. I still managed a half-hour walk in the early afternoon….

Posted at 3:17 PM | Comments Off on Hot seat

I checked out the gravity art in the Prius swale this morning, and discovered another leaf in the tableau. And moisture. Love the row of tiny beads across the top edge of the middle leaf (if the resolution isn’t too hammered here).

New ground…a nandina leaflet transitioning—the way plants do in autumn. In reality, that branch was truly magenta-fuschia, as it looks here.

This plant’s leaves (I don’t know the name) is all about shape and only nominally—compared to the nandina—about color.

In short, yeah, we got out and walked…for a total of about 1hr20min. Yay! Of course, knee tired tired tired at this post-walk and post-dinner-cooking hour….

Posted at 7:17 PM | Comments Off on Leaf shape examples

I made two short(er) walks today, not even trying to get one app to award active minutes or the other to credit me for walking. [Neither have settings for gimps slow-walkers.] This morning’s adventure was in sunshine, so I get vitamin D credit!, regardless of the apps.

Soon after I began my afternoon adventure, the cloud-cover thickened just a tad…after I took this photo. The leaves are in the swale of the Prime’s rear window.

Posted at 8:30 PM | Comments Off on Autumnal gravity art