A single clover blossom makes a lovely bouquet. The first of the potatoes are blooming too. This year I planted potatoes spaced apart so that all summer long and into the fall I can enjoy their flowers.

In the woods, the dogwood is starting to bloom. They are called “Yamaboshi” in Japan, and sometimes it is written 山法師 which translates to “mountain Budhist priest”, but it is also written 山帽子 which means “mountain hat”. I’d say they look more like hats than priests.

Yesterday while picking up logs to burn from a friend’s place in the woods, I came across a branch covered with feathery mycelium. The transformation of wood to soil is a slow, exquisite process, cloaked with astonishing beauty. Most of the time all this beauty goes unseen, deep in quiet forests, out of sight, out of mind. Only the mycelia know. The next time you drive by a forest, know that on the forest floor, under a blanket of decaying leaves, mycelia are spinning exquisite art as they convert wood into soil.