Biking to the post office this afternoon, I noticed that a row of thistles had gone to seed. Just a week ago, they were in full bloom with lovely purple flowers. “I should stop and take some pictures,” I thought back then. But today when I went past them, they had turned into ghostly forms, as if overnight, a million spiders had spun webs all over them.

When it comes to procreation, nature is prolific to a fault. Why stop at a thousand seeds? Might as well make a million or even a billion seeds.