Harvest Moon

Plant More Trees

Nodali Llama Speaks

EARTHLINGS HEED MY WORDS!

I am an ambassador sent by the Universe. You are an embarrassment!

Your house is burning and you fight amongst yourselves!

The water that gives you life is being poisoned and you fight amongst yourselves!

The air you breathe is fouled and you fight amongst yourselves!

The ice caps are melting and you fight amongst yourselves!

The frogs and bees and fish are dying and you fight amongst yourselves!

YOUR HOUSE IS BURNING AND YOU ARE FIGHTING OVER WHO GETS THE TELEVISION!!

MAKE PEACE NOW AND HEAL YOUR HOME OR SOON YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING TO EAT BUT EACH OTHER!!

I have spoken.

So Inclined

Dining Out 2

Dining Out 1

Night Blooming Cereus

Friday night friends invited us over to watch a flower bloom. Not your usual invite but sounded like a party to me. Turns out it's an annual event to watch their Queen of the Night strut her stuff on the one night a year she does.

We arrived about 8:30, the plant in center stage on the picnic table with 5 flowers beginning to open. By 11:00 they were fully open and the air scented with their perfume.

They've had this particular plant for about thirteen years and most of the time it's an ugly thing. Gangly stems and leaves, turning dull brown in the winter. It is a member of the cactus family and is native to the Sonoran Desert.

But one night each summer, in June or July, its flowers open as night falls and then close forever with the first rays of morning sun.

Here is a time lapse video of the flower blooming.

The Measuring Door

On a lake in Maine is a summer cabin, a place called Moxie Ledge. It has been in one family for nearly 100 years. Handed down from its first buyers to their six children, it is a vacation haven to brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren, aunts and uncles, in-laws and spouses, cousins and more cousins and all of their friends.

And the door to the kitchen has been used to measure them all. It is a record of family growth through generations. The oldest notation I could find was 1924.

Click to enlarge.

I picture a circle of children waiting their turn to make their mark upon the door. Some names are oft repeated, the mark a little higher with each successive  summer. But there are so many different names it did not appear to be exclusive, not family only, but instead inclusive, welcoming to all, just like this place.

View from the porch.