This day was indeed fruitful for Mr. C., tending to his garden, pruning and weeding, and enjoying a surreptitious cigar. He was the first to find the large, dark turtle by my sister's gate. My sister said, "He's friendly; he doesn't even stick his head in his shell." Then, I rushed off to the internet, my researcher hormones on high alert. I found that snapping turtles cannot stick their heads in their shells and they are the only turtles without this ability. By the time I returned with my other camera, he had slipped away and the people who'd been watching him had kindly given him his opportunity.
This summer I've experienced a shift in how I see the world. Maybe it's the wisdom of dog being passed onto me from Morris -- we walk, he sniffs, I wait -- what's in front of one's nose is most important. I am focused on what's in front of me: small insects, mushrooms -- I never thought about mushrooms with such excitement. Suddenly they are appearing everywhere and different kinds, so many that I can barely learn their names. I am in awe of people who study them and --as if I've stepped off a precipace -- I could change my life and devote my time to these resilient little entities. (oh, that picture is a robin's egg, not a blue mushroom. Each time I discovered a mushroom, I run for the camera. But I think: What will I do come winter? I can see myself writing about them, and painting them, but I do not want to make paintings that are cute, quaint. The mushroom is too mysterious and otherworldly. Today I found a group of white mushrooms in the woods and when I took their pictures the pixels glowed around them. 
