I spent some time with water lilies in August and it was a far different experience than photographing forest plants or wild weeds in ditches. In my mind, lilies had been the stuff of Monet; pastel, subdued, domestic, a little blurry. Nope. Nothing of the […]
Fleabane is the cutest little miniature flower! I remember this one from when I was a kid, when my sister and I crawled around in ditches (country kids do that sort of thing) and we noticed flowers a lot more … but we never knew […]
Before this photo project, chicory was just a blue blur on the side of I-80, seen through the car window on summer road trips to my grandparents’ houses but never really appreciated. Folks, don’t make my mistake – it is totally worth pulling over to […]
So … what is a “weed”? As I waited in line for my turn at a wild mustard patch, I had plenty of time to ponder the question. The patch was wrapped in a fluttering shawl of butterflies and bumblebees and it seemed rude to […]
Let me tell you a story about the best-laid plans of mice and men … I was thrilled to find a couple of these plants growing just off the gravel road near my driveway in late June. Since, like the dainty seed balls of dandelions, […]
So everyone knows that monarch butterflies are really into milkweed – their caterpillars eat it and the adult butterflies sip from the blooms. But take it from me, milkweed’s appeal goes way, way beyond monarchs. When I waded out of a ditch clutching milkweed cuttings, […]
Folks, thistles are underappreciated. Yes, they’re hostile. They’re hard to handle, cut, and transport. They stab you in tender places without remorse. (Lesson learned: gloves that are less than 100% leather are painfully insufficient for thistle harvesting. Ouch.) But man oh man, are thistles fun […]
Elderberry bushes grow along nearly every mile of Iowa country road (and along the highways and interstates too, though we usually whiz by too quickly to notice them). There’s a stately grove of elderberries in the ditch near my driveway, so that’s where I began […]
