Hi, I’m Ian by the way

I tend to figure things out as I’m working on them, including a lot of conversations I have with people I’ve never met. I’ll realize that I’m engrossed in conversation with someone who’s exchange I’ve eves dropped my way into, gotten really excited, and not given any context whatsoever as to who I am.

These flowers are pretty, but also somewhat unassuming at about an inch wide. We’ve got a bush of them thats so overgrown we can’t figure out how to trim it. The hummingbirds love it. Hummingbirds are incredible, I remember when I first saw one, I was in Irvine at my Aunt and Uncles house. I had never realized that they existed in the western world. They were these creatures I’d seen perfect still photos of, or had heard used as examples of things that are extremely fast. They were just there, out on the porch, drinking from their little feeder, being amazing. I could ramble for hours about how cool I think hummingbirds are. I absolutely will, don’t worry, I’ve got a whole rant chambered about their eyelids.

This rambling train of thought feels more like it should be about serendipity though. We’ve had hummingbird feeders, and have managed to attract hummingbirds for years now, but this place has more of them than we’ve lived around before. I never would have thought that the Lavender Star Flower would be a hummingbird magnet, but between its bunches of long spindly branches, and what must be very tasty flowers, its my favorite distraction from every boring meeting I’m in. It looks like a gangly pile of sticks, we really should figure out a better way of trimming it. I bet it’d make even more flowers with an aggressive trim.

We had a spontaneous sunflower patch this summer, thanks to our birdseed selection. At first we thought they’d come from the previous year’s intentional sunflower, but when they grew 8 feet tall we knew they were a totally different variety. They lit up our garden all summer.

These are a mishmash of flowers I found striking today. Some are fading, some are just weeds, some have since unfortunately gotten trampled by the dog. Bougainvillea is a word I associate with the octogenarian women from my childhood in an unflattering way, but I never even knew what they looked like till I asked my girlfriend my regular “whats this one?” I think there’s a combination of growing into the things you thought you were boring as a kid, and checking your assumptions.