overheard conversation

"...and the only other option is to freak out, and I don't like to do that anymore."

December flowers

Every year I like to watch to see what flowers make it to December; there are usually at least a few, even here in frigid Duluth. It's usually non-native weeds, although one year I did find some liatris (aka Blazing Star) with a little bit of color left to its petals. This year, however, I didn't have very high hopes, since we've recently had a string of sub-freezing (and occasionally sub-zero) temperatures. There was a clump of tansy I had my eye on, but when I checked on it this morning the little buttons had lost their bright yellow and were now more of an rusty mustard ochre. There was plenty of tansy (and other forbs) with green leaves, but that doesn't count. I'm looking for flowers.

And it is sweet clover for the win! The little patch of sweet clover behind work saves the day. The leaves were grey and shriveled, but as of 9:00 a.m. yesterday the flowers were still soft and fragrant (not quite as heady and intoxicating as they are after the first frost or two of the year, but they definitely still had a sweet clovery musk, and I didn't have to get all up in their business to smell it). I tried to get a picture, but sweet clover is actually rather hard to get a decent picture of, especially when one does not have one's Good Camera and only has one's crappy six-year-old digital point-n-shoot.

I'm not normally a fan of holiday decorations, but I do make a few exceptions. Like this. The mansion on the corner decked out its lion for Christmas.

Have you heard the news?


Andy Lipke Rulz at guitar.

Now the question arises -- who made this statement? Was it Andy Lipke's girl/boyfriend? Or was it, sadly, Andy Lipke himself?

Today's flowers in the snow count is this: Toadflax (aka Butter-n-Eggs (seriously)), White Sweet Clover, Common Tansy, Tansy Ragwort (no relation), and some kind of yellow Sow Thistley thing. But that is just counting the urban wildflowers in the few blocks distance between the bus stop and work, and did not take into account the cultivated flowers in people's yards (my geraniums are still flowering!!!)

Last night into this morning we got our first real snow of the year -- before this there had just been a few fey little flurries that disintegrate before they hit the ground. It kind of caught some of the flowers off-guard.

Most of them look pretty tough, though. I think they'll hang on a bit longer.

By my work there's some White Sweet Clover, which I didn't get pictures of because it wasn't artfully draped in snow/ice, but all of a sudden today the scent was knock-you-over intoxicating. I've noticed this before with the sweet clovers, that their perfume, which is already pretty luscious, tends to get even more powerful and alluring after a cold snap. I wonder if it's a similar chemical reaction that makes grapes sweeter after a few light frosts. But it's charming, and it's one of the reasons I love sweet clovers, even if they are all non-native and invasive.

at the bus stop

There was a very light, gentle, misting rain, just enough to turn the pavement dark, and when the wind picked up and blew the leaves away, there were dry, white, leaf-shaped silhouettes speckled all over the sidewalk.