Circles

It's been raining here and I've not gotten out with my camera this week. I couldn't think of anything circular in my collection of photos. I am sure I have some, I have been in some sort of creative funk lately. But I remembered the photos I'd taken when we went to the country on July 4th. There are circles galore in those photos!

These are late huckleberries. They are related to blueberries. When they are ripe they are a dark bluish-purple color. They are smaller and very tasty. We only saw one bush of these growing (wild) but we made plans to coddle the bush for the next year and look to see if any others are coming up nearby. We want a good and delicious crop of huckleberries!

These are chinquapin nuts. They won't be ready to eat until sometime in the fall, around September, I believe. They have a prickly outer covering that finally cracks open to reveal a small nut. You have to kind of bite them open and then extract the nut. I have fond memories of walking in the woods with my grandparents and my family, looking for these trees. We have three or four that are growing in the woods near us.

And these are muscadines! They make good wine! They are also useful for making jelly. The grapes will not be ripe until the fall. They aren't all that good to eat right off the tree because the outer grape skin is very tough. Also, the vines are useful for making wreaths and other vine crafts. But you can't gather them until winter when all the leaves are gone.

I was going to acknowledge that the butterfly is not round, but he/she does have tiny little round spots on top of the wings. I just happened to catch this shot when we were up at my aunt's house in the country. There must have been twenty butterflies darting in and out of the flowers. This was the only orange one though, and he was tough to get!

We are making slow progress on working on the house. We were going up there this week with a friend who was going to bush-hog and the rain stopped that plan. I'm excited about it all and still hoping everything works out and we can have the house habitable before too much longer. I grew up in town but I have so many good memories of being in the country visiting family--grandparents, aunts and uncles and such. It is a place of peace and rest for me.

You can go here to see other circle photos.