All around this island, when you stare at the water, you see bull kelp. Starting to grow early in the season. In full bloom, later, during the summer. Almost poking out of the water in early fall. Too tall for low tide!
Here is an informal picture of bull kelp (nereocystis luetkeana) floating about in the current. This annual kelp grows to impressive size (90 feet+) in one season, then breaks down and washes up in the most interesting “curls” on the shore, in the fall.
It creates forests underwater, where countless creatures hide, live and make a living.
This is a busy time of year, working in the garden, working in the studio.
I am trying to produce results without being too critical… on the way to those results. It’s a fine balance. In the meantime, Photo Wednesday is upon me. So here is how I feel: All Tied Up. Also, my back hurts (smile). This is a young cedar sapling, entwined by a native honeysuckle vine (Lonicera … something), and the winner of this competition will probably be the vine, judging by the marks it has already made as it strangles the cedar. Here is a report from another location.
Time to take a look at my neglected garden, clean up, try to eliminate the blackberries that are making an incursion… Dangerous business, blackberry removal. Must get thicker gloves. In the meantime, bumblebees are having a party in the rock cress (aubrieta) that is growing over the stone wall.
Every time I take a good look at arbutus trees, I notice something else about their lines, their bark, their endurance. There is a plasticity, and a natural grace that are played out as the tree grows, as it sheds its old bark, to reveal what is coming up. Fresh starts.
I love patterns. Repetitions, variations, rhythms. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
After a great deal of rain (several weeks of rain, in fact), everything on this island is acquiring a green patina of mossy moisture. These branches and their patterns of moss and bark, light and shadows, caught my eye…
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