speaking the truth

[ A bright yellow, ovate leaf sits on bright green grass. Half of it is laying flat, mostly shaded; the other half sits nearly vertical, sun shining through a few small brown-edged gaps. ]

Fall is so beautiful in town here. The cottonwoods in the park go bright yellow (as do the aspens throughout town), but the grass stays green until we’ve had a few good hard freezes. I couldn’t resist taking a bunch of leaf pictures — far more than wound up in this post.

[ Another cottonwood leaf, this one with far more brown spots in the yellow, with wider gaps in between. An entirely brown leaf sits in the grass next to it. ]

The whole time I was farting around with my camera, of course, Loiosh was being a wigglebutt. Why was I crawling around in the grass, he wanted to know, instead of petting him? Why?

Cats. They do not see the beauty in fallen leaves.

[ A close view of an entirely brown leaf. About half of it is shaded, and each tiny vein and darker brown spot is clearly visible. ]

Nor do they understand the joy of creating art, but that was later that day.

In the meantime? More leaf.

[ A green, elliptically shaped leaf buried in the grass. ]

The plaintain was all still green — I need to bring a spade & grab a couple next summer so I can plant them at home & see how they do, but for now, I’ll just enjoy the fact that they’re right there in the park. Free medicine!

Speaking of free medicine …

[ The fluffy white head of a dandelion. The long, narrow, dark brown seeds are visible through the fluff; the stem is reddish-brown. ]

I used to harvest all the dandelion & plantain leaves that went into the bite, sting & rash salve, & someday I hope to be able to do that again. In the meantime, at least they’re THERE.

Is this mushroom medicine? Is it food? I do not know! I don’t mess with mushrooms unless they come from the grocery store. Actually I don’t mess with them at all, I’m not terribly fond of the texture. But they’re pretty!

[ A small, white, round mushroom lies buried in the grass. It has a neato kinda bumpy texture. ]

I’d probably have come home with a couple decent squirrel pics, too, but alas, they take Loiosh far more seriously than I feel they really need to. I get their point, though, you never know when you’re gonna get eaten by a cat.

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[ A broad expanse of valley, seen from a high vantage point, and bordered on the left side by snowtopped mountains receding into the mist. Patches of trees give way to flat grassland, dotted with cultivated fields. Much closer, a few trees frame the view, scattered boulders below. ]

Okay yeah, that one’s big, it happens. It’s a good chunk of the San Luis Valley, which is, in fact, the largest alpine valley in the world. It’s a hell of a view.

I could get inspired & make some DAMN good faery home decor pieces there, assuming, that is, that I could find a flat spot large enough for a chair _and_ my workbench, the odds of which are an open question, because most of that part of the hill I parked on look more-or-less like this.

[ To the left, a clump of rough, lichened boulders. Directly ahead, worn and weathered pinyon pines. The ground below is uneven, rocky, and dotted with scrub oak and occasional small cacti. There’s about room to stand, but only if your balance is pretty good. ]

There are open spots, but they’re not flat, & the flat spots aren’t open, & it’s a good place to wander around for a while, but I don’t think I’ll be making jewelry there.

I did, however, cleverly notice that those pines are all piñon, & I giddily wandered around harvesting hunks of resin in between taking pictures, & I got enough to fill another tin. Which is good, I’ve been running short. (Here follows a rare product placement: I do sell piñon resin, & you can find it here.

[ A close view of a mostly-horizontal branch, upon which one can find, from left to right, a small round nugget of golden-brown pinyon resin, the large but long-healed gash in the bark from which it formed, and one of Loiosh’s forepaws. ]

I walked down to the road (such as it was & what there was of it — it didn’t have more than a suggestion of tire tracks, & I later discovered it was absolutely, definitely too steep for the van to go up) to get back to where I’d parked, finding, along the way, this interesting flower.

[ A bright yellow flower with three layers of long oval petals, seen from directly above. The leaves are long and narrow, and sprout in a circle right from the base of the flower stem. There’s another flower that has already closed up; its stem is round and reddish brown, and between where the petals have closed, there’s bits of white visible. ]

Is it a dandelion? The stem & leaves look right but I have never in my life seen such a simple dandelion flower; they’re usually a whole dome of yellow, not just three layers!

[ A closer view of the same flower. ]

After poking through a handy-dandy guide to dandelion lookalikes, I’m going to conclude that these are, in fact, dandelions. Maybe they’re just having a hard time up there? Maybe it’s a different species than the one I’m used to? I was just happy to see them, that yellow is so cheerful.

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[ My hand, holding a palmful of tiny round tomatoes, ranging in size from three-eights to maybe half an inch. Most are yellow; the rest are red. ]

THEY’RE SO TINY, they are seriously so small I got CUTENESS AGGRESSION FROM THEM, I ate them all in, like, three days. They’re, yanno, store tomatoes, they taste okay but not great. but they’re SO TINY.

I hope we can find seeds or seedlings for em. I want two containers of them growing in a nice spot outside, one on each side of a comfy chair. I will sit in my comfy chair, read a book, & gorge myself on freshly-grown, sunwarmed, tiny round tomatoes.

& then I will probably have acid reflux, but some things are totally worth it. NO REGRETS.

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[ Tiny red oval berries hang in clusters from otherwise dead-looking twigs. ]

I had a bit of time to wander the parking lot while waiting for Jasper to be done with a doctor’s appointment, & I brought my phone with me, & it’s ALMOST SPRING, so I took pictures.

(I was NOT tempted to eat the berries. But they’re really pretty.)

This juniper (I think?) bush has these weird spiny needles in amongst the scale-like ones I’m used to seeing. I’m not sure what’s going on here. Maybe that’s the new growth?

[ A close view of the needles on what is probably a juniper plant. Some are covered in basically green scales; some have short spiny leaves or needles. ]

& the promise of spring! There are buds! They are thinking about growing!

[ Twigs and branches of a tree. Some of the smaller twigs have reddish bark and buds on the ends, which are also reddish. The bigger twigs and branches have greenish bark. ]

I’m looking forward to warmer weather & new growth. (I’m NOT looking forward to more wind, but here we are.)

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[ A spindly dead plant. Much of it is covered in tiny ice crystals, so small the overall effect is white. A single branchlet, sticking straight up, is more-or-less in focus; the crystals have built up along it such that they look like white flowers. ]

I can’t resist taking pictures of plants covered in ice or icy snow. It’s like cats in the warmy spot, I just gotta stop & take thirty-seven pictures. Every time.

But I mean come ON, even a hunk of beat-up rope looks awesome with snowy ice bits on it!

[ A weathered yellow rope bears more of the ice growths, Many of them are in the same broadly conical flower shape, but some are more cylindrical. ]

I took SO many pictures, trying to get a few that got SOMETHING in focus; my phone camera (no, I still haven’t figured out the DSLR) insists on focusing on the furthest thing in the shot, even if I tell it to focus on the thing in the middle. (Hmm, note to self, check for macro apps for this phone …)

ANYWAY I did manage a few, at least, & I’m pretty pleased with em.

[ A confusion of branches, some in focus, some not; but plenty of the ice flowers are crisp and clear. ]

Not like I won’t get more practice. I really can’t resist this stuff.

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[ The inside of a Dunkins Munchkin box, empty of donut holes. Instead it holds a bunch of creek glass in various colors, mostly white and green, but there’s also a blue and a pale purple. And some rocks ]

I don’t think anyone’s been mudlarking along Fountain Creek, cos I spent at least as much time wrangling Remy as I did actually looking for stuff, & I still found this much in maybe half an hour. I hadn’t thought to bring my mudlarking backpack, which has several pouches & a sash to hold them, so I just filled my pockets. I’m surprised my phone screen didn’t get scratched, cos I only had two pockets & one was not REMOTELY gonna be enough.

Plus, blue. & a relatively easy shape to wrap. Some great rocks in there — check out the red & white to lower left — & some pottery bits, a very good vertebra, a piece of PURPLE (rare, but I’ve found several there), & another piece that might be an even paler purple once I’ve scrubbed it.

They’re all sitting in a big jar full of water for a day or two, & then I’ll take them outside with an old toothbrush & clean them off. I’m pretty sure there’s a pair of dark green pieces close enough to make earrings out of, & I know there’s enough white for a faery home decor piece or two. I can always use more pendulums, & the blue is the perfect shape for the tip of one. I can’t wait to see what I make.

Found anything cool on the ground lately? (If not, I highly recommend mudlarking, especially if you can get to Fountain Creek …)

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[ Two bright yellow dandelion blooms occupy the foreground of the shot; behind it a small stream pours over a waterfall perhaps a foot high. Moss covers the other bank. ]

After dropping Jasper & Remy off at the airport (& failing to sleep again; if Jasper needs dropped off at the airport at 3am again, I am Not. It), I stopped at a little park in Monument, because I knew it had nice public bathrooms.

What I didn’t know was that there’s a lovely little stream running through the trees down at the back of the park, the which I discovered after following Loiosh down that way. I love running water a WHOLE LOT & really miss not having any nearby where we are, so I spent a while just sitting & listening, then stuck my feet in & washed everything from the knees & elbows down. TBH if it’d been earlier in the day I probably woulda flung clothing everywhere & just had at, but it was, like, noon, there were kids over on the soccer field, chances of bathus interruptus WAY too high, you know how it goes. But even just getting the appendages clean was VERY NICE.

Also. The sound of the water.

[ Ten seconds of video of the same spot as the first picture, complete with the pleasant burbling of running water. ]

I sat there & listened to it for a WHILE.

They’ve just let the stream do what it wants through this part of the park, which means that, of course, it’s doing a bit of wandering.

[A narrow stream, perhaps a foot wide, winds back through scattered trees before disappearing under a bridge in the distance; in the foregreound it widens and shallows til it’s perhaps three feet wide and a couple inches deep. ]

Eventually Loiosh got bored & wandered off; I followed while he sniffed around, ate a bunch of grass, & ran up a couple trees. He REALLY was having a good time. Eventually we found our way over to some BIG cottonwoods, parts of which were covered in very pleasing lichens.

[ A wide strip of lichens runs up the bark of a cottonwood tree. Most of it is a deep forest green, but some is yellow-green and some is straight-up yellow. ]

I love lichens, they’re so cool.

I also love trees with holes in em, cos there might be something cool in the hole.

[ A cottonwood tree, broad at the base and dividing into two narrower trunks further up, sports a hole in the lefthand trunk, clearly where a third trunk had split off and then perished. The bottom of the hole is covered in rich-looking soil; the rest is lined in weathered wood, though there’s something vaguely blue-purpleish partway up the inside. ]

Enhance … enhance … okay fine, I just stepped closer …

[ A view of the hole from slightly above. A few brave seedling plants are sprouting in the soil at its bottom. The bark around the hole is sparsely covered in scattered lichens, and there, embedded in the wood at the back of the hole, is a roughly squared-off purplish thing. ]

… is that what I think it is.

[ Closer still. That squared-off purplish thing is, in fact, a rock embedded in the wood. ]

It’s a very good rock! I wonder how long ago THAT got stuck in a much younger cottonwood …

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[ Nestled into a leaf-covered bank under a tree is a gnome home. It’s made from brick, with an arch-topped door in the center and a window to each side. The roof is a gentle arch. In the fenced front yard is a wood pile and a few potted plants. ]

I found this gnome home to be ENTIRELY delightful, & I envy whatever gnome is lucky enough to live there.

… hell, I’d move in myself, if I thought I’d fit.

[ A closer view of the left side of the house. The window is shaped like a hexagon. There’s a small stack of firewood next to the house, and a broad chopping log just inside the fence. ]

With the excellent insulation from being mostly underground, you don’t need NEAR as much firewood. They’ve still got some left from over the winter! I feel like their chopping log is a bit tall, but perhaps they have a stepladder to help them stand at the right height to use it. & there’s certainly no shortage of wood in the area; they can get more with just a bit of wandering.

[ The right side of the house. The window is roughly square, but with rounded corners. There’s a pale blue plant pot sitting on the ground near the house with what looks like a couple different plants in it, given the different shades of green, and another pot sitting on a table just behind the fence, black at the top and yellow at the bottom, with white flowers. Purple lichens are growing out of a crack in the house wall. ]

& such a lovely garden! With tree roots no doubt growing all through the ground, doing a container garden does, I think, make a lot of sense. Though it also makes it clear how much labor went into excavating for the house itself! I wonder how far into the bank they dug. Whoever lives there, they’ve definitely put a lot of work into making this snug & comfortable home.

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[ Several small plant stems, gathered in a group and all pointing up. Each one is covered in snow and ice. ]

Couple days ago it snowed! Or iced! Or probably graupeled. Anyway everything is covered in white, except for Remy’s run, because he ate all the snow there.

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[A small round cactus barely sticks out of tiny gravel. It’s no more than an inch across, sticks out of the ground less than half an inch, and is covered in tiny spines, all parallel to its surface.]

Spring is, finally, coming in. I found a tiny cactus. Glad I didn’t find it with my fingers.

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