All posts by laurahinnj

Bunnies, Whatever

Google search

April 2, 2010 laurahinnj 8 Comments

The most popular search term that directs readers to this blog relates to bunny poop.

This, as you might imagine, is pretty humbling to me.

😉

(Hope your Easter’s happy!)

Snapshots, Whatever

Should it ever stop raining…

March 31, 2010 laurahinnj 8 Comments

My plan is to pack a bag with cheese, some lovely fresh berries, challah bread, a good-sized grubby blanket, a book, a large container of bubble mix, and a bubble wand and head to somewhere that I can feel the sun on my face.

Who knows what’ll happen next.

What’s your plan?

PSA, Whatever

Wings

March 30, 2010 laurahinnj

by Hugh MacLeod, shared under Creative Commons license.

I get these great cartoons via email each morning; some days they’re sweet like this one, but more often they’re irreverent in a way that tickles the creative part of my spirit.

You can see more of Hugh’s artwork, read his blog and sign up for his daily comic at gapingvoid.com

Half-finished ramblings, Whatever

Yes, you.

March 29, 2010 laurahinnj 8 Comments

You there…

(not you guys, of course, or you)

But you… yes you, looking over my shoulder as I write.

(and you too, faraway, but not invisible)

You think you know me? You think what I write here is the truth of me? The truth of us?

Pfft!

I can be anything… go anywhere… do anything… be anyone, here.

How would you know otherwise, really?

I can write any story, create any truth…

You’ll believe what you want… read your own truth into whatever I write, but know this:

I write with the knowledge of you, there, always.

What you create from my stories is your truth, not mine… a mirror of what’s inside you.

You’ve a very convenient window into what you imagine to be my world, but this is not my world. This is a story I tell to entertain myself.

Sometimes I write to entertain you… or to annoy you, maybe, just a little.

😉

(Of course you know that, right?)

I like to make lists, Snapshots, Whatever

12

March 28, 2010 laurahinnj 5 Comments

Found it.

🙂

12 in my 39 by 40.

Crazy things i do to amuse myself, Snapshots

5/100

March 26, 2010 laurahinnj 2 Comments

Russell is a plant geek that works for the Pinelands Preservation Alliance and while not technically a total stranger to me, I couldn’t resist this photo of him in his element.

This photo is #5 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at Flickr 100 Strangers or www.100Strangers.com

Snapshots, Wanderings

Pine Lizard

March 25, 2010 laurahinnj 6 Comments

The swift and secretive fence lizard is said to be very common in the Pines, but this is the first one I’ve ever managed to see…

Wanderings, Wildflowers

For the wayfarer

March 24, 2010 laurahinnj 5 Comments

You have to kind of wonder when, on a trip for the earliest blooming flower in the Pine Barrens, you step out of the car to find most everyone on their knees in the sand, peering into the vegetation with hand lenses or macro lenses.

What the heck?

I wondered just what bag of goods the Pinelands Preservation Alliance (via MevetS) had sold me on this trip… as if the setting on a bombing range weren’t crazy enough!

These tiny plants and their diminutive *flowers* were our focus.

My focus on them was never very good, by the way, because they’re so darn tiny!

Broom Crowberry is a very special plant, not only because it’s among the earliest of bloomers, but also because it’s quite rare outside of the pine plains habitat. Plant geeks seem to love it, despite its drab appearance. I was sort of less-than-excited about it cause I wanted SPRING! and PINK! and FLASHY! but whatever.

This attitude is probably exactly why I need to go on these trips… don’t you think?

😉

I love the Pine Barrens, but its beauty is very subtle. It doesn’t give away its treasures easily, I know. You have to drive and then hike past thousands of pitch pines and scrub oaks, get lost countless times on sugar sand roads that all look the same, sweat and freeze and question your sanity and then, maybe, she shows you something wonderful for your efforts.

Where it grows well, Broom Crowberry grows in great mats across the sand… it likes to be out in the open under the sun and flourishes, according to plant geeks who study these things, in areas of disturbance… hence our visit to the bombing range (and the area near some power lines where these photos were taken). Like so many Pine Barrens endemics, it’s well-adapted to fire… in areas that aren’t regularly burned (or bombed!) it’s shaded out by tall trees or shrubs.

We learned that botanists (among them Alexander Wilson of ornithological fame) traveled from Philadelphia to the Pinelands to find these plants and Thoreau described Broom Crowberry as “a soft, springy bed for the wayfarer”.