Thursday: 3rd Avenue (posted by email)

[OT from cottage renovations]

this week I have been running slower than usual.  there have been several reasons for this, among which have been a longer-than-expected time to recover from the departure of visiting family and from Tuesday's vehicle strike, as well as LJ's continuing inability to restore the basic functions of writing and editing posts in this space.  aside from their recent administrative distractions, it's the delay on the technical side that has caused me to regret having just paid for another extension of this account. 

botnets and the thugs who herd them are an unpleasant but real fact of life for any online enterprise.  what puzzles me is how/why LJ can't get (and stay) ahead of them. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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3^rd Avenue

so let's turn calendar and clock back to last Thursday afternoon, over across the Circle: 

what first caught my eye was the delicate tracery of these tiny blossoms, but what kept my attention was how they interacted with the shape and form of the leaves.  I resisted a rather strong temptation to edit out the tips coming up into the bottom the image to the L; they were the cost of including the leaf detail to the lower R. 

... and here's the view looking downsun.  the little blossoms are a bit washed out but interesting things are happening with the leaves. 

Friday: Honeysuckle (posted by email)

[OT from cottage renovations]

honeysuckle can be as polymorphic as Poison Ivy or a Thneed.  like the former it comes as a shrub or a vine and seems to take no time at all to get out of control; like the latter we don't really need it. 

even though I have dug plenty (but not enough!) of it out of the Circle with a pickaxe, still it's difficult to completely harden one's heart to it, particularly when its scent carries on a soft summer evening's warm breeze. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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along Oak Street in Woodward Park

in the late afternoon sweetlight the form of its blossoms can be easy on the eyes if one takes but a moment to look. 

Lonicera

rain on leaf (posted by email)

[OT from cottage renovations]

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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3^rd Avenue

Hosta

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Acorn Lane, at Grove and 3^rd Avenues

wet head

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5^th Avenue

Yucca filamentosa

it was rather a while after moving here that I noticed how common these Yucca have become around here.  and in the region.  and beyond. 

the species distribution map is a bit intimidating:

image: USDA, NRCS. 2007. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 3 June 2007).
National Plant Data Center,
Baton Rouge, LA  70874-4490
USA.

Maple Lake (posted by email)

[OT from cottage renovations]

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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Maple Lake

what a paradox it is that when it rains, it's considered too wet to go swimming. 

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perimeter fence

Robert Frost wrote: "Good fences make good neighbours."  but I don't think it was the better of our neighbours who did this. 

and I'm on Lake Gate for two weeks in August and a shared one in July.  normally I enjoy the walk down there at the end of the day to close up the gate and again in the morning to open it, but over the years the task has taken on the additional aspect of asking trespassers to depart (the same ones, every day) it is becoming a bit of a chore. 

*sigh* it's going to be a long summer.