resurrection fern

lost

Lost photographs of a very long walk in the forest today. Lost somewhere between the process of loading them on to my computer and fetching my daughter at work this evening. I arrived home and they had disappeared. They were no longer on my SD card , camera or in iphoto.  It is a mystery and the only witness to the event, Edgar isn't meowing.

I wanted to show you beautiful leaves, large families of fungi and a very close encounter with a magical swan on the pond in the forest. I guess I might return there tomorrow to see if I can find those perfect shots again or maybe not. I do have three pictures on my iphone , because I like sending on location pictures and emails to a friend of mine and I also have a few pics another spot. I don't know why these few remained and not the others.  

And while we are on a swan, duck, goose sort of theme here I might as well show you a few quick shots snapped in algonquin park of a wood pecker. I really adore the forest colors in this set.

I love using the sports mode for capturing pictures of birds.

xo

m

every leaf is a flower

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
-  Albert Camus

I will be collecting many a bouquet on the weekend.

 

to dye for

I am a little tired but just wanted to show you a few pictures from the second natural dyeing class I am taking at the Workroom. It was exciting to see the color changes, some of which happened almost instantly. I don't have a picture of it yet but the lichen fermentation is working out really well and is already yielding a beautiful purple color.  Next week we will remove the majority of our fibers and fabrics from the dye baths and also play with indigo and shibori. I have been having fun designing, stitching and wrapping some materials and clothing next weeks class.

cochineal

madder

goldenrod

logwood

osage

cochineal and osage

all the above

shibori prep work 

the fungi were plentiful near the falls

Yesterday was all about the colorful leaves and today is all about the equally colorful mushrooms I saw on my hike near Ragged Falls. They were so full of personality that I could swear as soon as I had turned my back on one of them their stems would bend and their caps tilt to capture their very own views of the leaves. I think my favorite one was the big wavy fellow growing right at the top of the falls on a lovely wet mossy stone. He had the absolute perfect view. I wonder what he paid for that prime piece of land.

That was my favorite with the falls in the background. 

Oh and I almost forgot the pacman mushroom. I swear he was trying to nibble my toes.

Do you have a favorite?

xo

m

get ready to have your retinas tickled

I had a little change in plans today for the magical mystery tour. Sorry no fossils, perhaps that will happen next weekend. But I do have some most amazing colorful leaves to show you. The deciduous forest of Ontario is putting on quite the spectacular show this year. We have biweekly leaf reports here to let us know just how many of the trees have turned color, how much leaf fall there has been and along which roads to find the best show. I just so happened to check those reports last night and a few days ago in my favorite provincial park in Ontario they were reporting 60% of the trees had changed from green to magnificent. When you look at my pictures it really seems like since that report on friday that the percentage has risen to at least 80%. Really the only green I saw was the evergreens and the grasses.

The destination was Ragged Falls near Algonquin Park. It was early in the morning and oh so quiet except for the sounds of the water and the birds.

Those were taken below the falls at the beginning of the trail. Then I climbed up through the mud and wet slippery stones to the top of the falls.

I spend some time exploring the surrounding forest that was very rich in mushrooms and fungi. I will show you some pictures in a future post.

I spent a great deal of time looking up and then looking down.

Took some more pictures of some of the other spectacular views along what is known as the "corridor".

I am calling that last one colorful forest on a wire:)

I got some lunch at the bakery on the west edge of the park and managed to even get my bench monday in algonquin park shots.

I only noticed when I loaded the pictures on my computer that engraved in the picnic table in the lower right corner is the word "medic". The entire day trip was just what this doctor ordered for herself.

xo

m

the colors are glorious this year

and it has only just begun. Out for a very short stroll in the woods yesterday late in the afternoon. The colors are changing so quickly, I can't wait to get out for the day trip we have planned for Sunday to Hungry Hollows.  I hope to take back roads to this location to enjoy all the colors of the trees. 

I hope your weekend will involve a little exploration, even if it of your own backyard.

I have lichens fermenting for the second dyeing class this tuesday. I so hope they will be ready but if not I am going to gather some goldenrod and rose hips. I am also planning out my patterns for shibori dyeing with indigo. I am going to use coral, sea lilies, mushroom spore prints and fractals as inspiration.

Have an amazing first weekend of autumn.

xo

m

what a beautiful world

I don't think a day goes by where I don't fall in love all over again with some little thing in the great big natural world. 

Oak leaves, oak galls, fungi, sporophytes, sleeping snails, aster and goldenrod have all caught my loving eye in the last few days. What have you fallen in love with lately?

xo

m

a real treasure

Have you ever in your life met a person and known right from the start that you could be the best of friends. It wouldn't matter that the person was half your age or twice your age. Your had so many areas of common interest and you knew that you both could learn so much from each other.

I had that experience the first time I met this wonderful woman that I went to visit at Lake Huron in August. When I entered into her home my first impressions were immediately confirmed when I my eyes were immediately entertained with all manner of trays of stones and fossils, paintings of lake stones , shells and the most wonderful nature books.

She even had a fossil of a sea scorpion and a very old and beautiful book called The Universe, the infinitely great and the infinitely small. I listened to her rock collecting stories with great genuine enthusiasm. She told me how she would deal with her desire to go shopping by instead walking up and down the pristine beach in front of the home she and her late husband built searching for treasures. The shore of the lake did not disappoint her. She also described how there were times she could hear the lake throwing stones up onto the sandy beach as if to say here look at this one. At different times and years, completely different treasures would surface. 

At her home she handed out some bags to my daughter and I and asked us if we wanted to go "shopping". Of course we did.

The brachiopod was my favorite find but I really think all these stones and fossils are so inspiring. I might try to use this as I prepare some fabric for  indigo dyeing in the course I am taking.

I apologize for the heaviness of this post:)

welcome autumn : wordless wednesday

please mommy can i get an iPad

                     

 

 

Edgar is looking for Arwen and Byron to sign his "pet"ition ( sonia's joke).  I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did.

xo

edgar and i