The other day I ran across a giant pile of bamboo stalks, recently cut.

I'm sure many people will agree with me that although bamboo has "gone native" here in the U.S., there's still something exotic about its lines and shapes. A bamboo forest is unlike anything I grew up with, in temperate New England; conifers and oaks were more of the visual texture in which I made my home.

And I'm consistently surprised when subtle changes in the landscape can make me feel more or less at home. Traveling southward, I can tell that the vegetation has changed without close examination; as hills rush past, the cumulative effect of less-familiar species creates a unique taste and feel.

Bamboo will always be foreign to me.

I mentioned in one of my last posts that Stephen's grandmother has a house in Mandarin, Florida. It's an old place, built a long time ago, with an old collapsing dock and other interesting buildings slowly decaying as she is unable to care for them. An old chicken coop, a barbeque hut, a grape arbor, and more.

Among the ruins I happened to find this mysterious mound of unknown origin, which feels strangely appropriate to post, given that I'm about halfway through reading The World Without Us.

A world without us will be filled with these mysterious markings of our presence.

I spend a lot of time at my sister-in-law's house. She lives ten minutes away, in a suburb of Baltimore. Many, many times I've photographed her kids while enjoying conversation, dinners, and games. This is the tree that shades their front yard.

I grew up in a suburb outside of Boston. In spite of my own negative feelings about certain aspects of suburban living (the need to drive everywhere, the lack of trees, the bad architecture...), I know suburbs. They're a part of how I grew up, and in spite of how much I try to get away from them, they have their own mystery and charm about them.

A peaceful shoreline for a turbulent day.

Taken at Folly Beach, SC.

On a whim, I occasionally make crosses out of the stuff I find lying around.

I'm not sure if they "work" as photographs, or if the symbolism of a cross is simply overdone. But it's a game I play, and I figured I'd share.

By far, my favorite is the one made of freshly-cut grass:

A miniature photo essay on nature, looking up, out, and down, from empty & untouched to grounded & manipulated.

When on vacation in August in South Carolina, I had the privilege of seeing a newborn Loggerhead turtle make its way to the ocean.

A whole crowd of people had gathered around the little guy, for the critical moment when he both learned where the ocean was (it took a little coaxing), and swam for the first time.

As cheesy as it sounds, when you get to witness those moments of rebirth and continuation in nature, you can't help but feel that things can't be all that bad.

In one corner, we have our challenger, Green! You may remember him from such films as Spring and Summer. He's all over your least favorite vegetables, but boy, our forests would be ugly without him.

And now I give you Blue, the long-standing much-loved champion! Everybody's favorite color. Gracing the blooms of forget-me-not and morning glories, it's hard to see how this winner could lose out.

What'll it be, folks, what'll it be?

It's a pretty rainy and miserable day here in Baltimore, with misty skies drizzling all over my stoop. It seems as though the folds of winter are just starting to cover us over. But not a few days ago, I noticed that we still had some brilliant colors in the last vestiges of leaves on the trees in our neighborhood.

Oh autumn, how I will miss you, with your crisp air, bright blue sky, and crunchy leaves.

When staying at my grandparents' house in Texas, I took in some of the balmier winter weather, and sat in their backyard garden. Even before they moved to Texas, they kept a beautiful vegetable and flower garden--their pride and joy. We ate from their Needham tomato vines, and drank in the impatients blossoms sipping lemonade in the humid New England summers. Things haven't changed much, except now they have a lemon tree!