Cosmos

Cosmos are one of my favorite flowers.  They come up on their own, ask nothing, and bloom in a riot until the frost.

I might have to start over with new seeds next year though.  I think I have a mutant!  About half the plants have these weird flowers with no petals, just little yellowish balls of non-showy flowers.  I had noticed that the patch didn't seem to be blooming as prolifically as usual, and when I went to pick a few to draw into my sketchbook, I discovered these strange things.

The photo above is highly edited to balance the flowers with the bright October sky.








This photo is heavily edited, too, in order to make the colors pop, with a heavy sprinkling of film grain and vignetting.

That periwinkle Adirondack chair was a junk find that my sweet husband bought to me.  I don't love the color, but the distressing of the old paint is delicious.  Probably next spring it will get a fresh coat in a color I adore.  And see that rusty red wall behind?  That is the current color of half of our house. Our mission this week during our bit of "Indian summer" predicted for us is to repaint that part of the house.  I picked a dark gray green, and as much as I do NOT relish the project, I look forward to the results.  It's going to be such a great update!  The other half of the house needs new siding, so it will remain a very dark brown until it gets new siding (next year? I hope?) and we'll paint it all to match with the gray.

This is not a beautiful picture (though I do love that sweet little weed, called "Lady's Thumb"), but it's just a quick study in depth-of-field.  Unfortunately, there is no good editing hack to change depth-of-field.  You have to catch it with the camera.  The photo above is focused mid-range, so the foreground and background are just slightly blurred.

In this photo, I got the focus to the very front making a bit of lemon balm bokeh in the background.

Later in the week I'll try to show some house-painting updates, as well as show the results from my first print-making session the other day.  For now, I'm off to get covered in paint-- the house kind, not the kind I prefer.