Audacity

Poppies are audacious! Loud! Unabashed! Having only been in our house since November - well into the rainy, cold, dormant season - we have been on a prolonged journey of discovery in and amongst the rock gardens and multiple levels of our hilly yard. These poppies just appeared last weekend... on a sunny and unseasonably hot Friday, I glanced out a window and was stunned - blinded, in fact - by their garish debut. Sigh..

Fields of Blue

I went for a lovely Mother's Day hike in the Camassia Natural Area - 26 acres adjacent to West Linn High School owned and maintained by The Nature Conservancy. The trail takes you through meadows covered in wildflowers and strewn with blocks and boulders of timeworn basalt. The 15 million year old rock was uncovered a mere 15,000 years ago by the Missoula Floods - So beautiful.

Rapunzel

My view out the kitchen window is of a camellia bush in my neighbor's yard. If you'd asked me two months ago how I felt about this common plant, I'd have answered with a somewhat ambivalent "they're o.k.". Now, however, after watching bloom after exquisitely perfect bloom open, I've become the mother in the fairy tale who wastes away from longing for some lettuce in her witchy neighbor's garden. I finally had to tiptoe over and take... a picture. You thought I was going to pick one didn't you? No way! Frighteningly, the woman who lives next door might be a distant relative of the, shall we say, 'lettuce grower' in the story...enough said.

blue below

focus refined...i've been doing more wire/metal work lately - some blackened, some not. sold a few things and sent them across the country and across the atlantic ocean. surreal

still with the sparkly though...