Tiny Tuesday. : : Seedheads #2

I took Spike for a run in the field this morning. Despite it having been mowed, this is but one of many varieties of drying grasses to get stuck in his coat. This one has many varieties but I think think this  one is called purple needlegrass or nassella pulchra. The plant seems relatively benign, but look closely at the fallen needles. They turn into sharply pointed corkscrews capable of working their way into dog fur or feet, and especially spaniel ears. I pulled the ones in the picture from Spike as evidenced by his hairs already entwined in the corkscrew. There is a close-up in extras.

The vase was made by a Berkeley friend, a wonderful potter. There are many examples of her work in our house.

We must all be slowly emerging from our cocoons and remembering how to be social again. John finally called Jerry, an old workmate who has lived many different places, including Belgium where he found us a house for our stay there. Currently he and his wife live in Santa Rosa. Their house burned down in the Tubbs fire, and they had just moved into their new house when the Covid lockdown hit. They are coming to dinner tonight and I imagine there will be a lot of reminiscing and catching up to do.

There was a message on our phone this morning from another retired engineer who also lived in Belgium. He said he and his wife were trying to track down old friends, called and found out we were no longer living in Berkeley, but said he had gotten our current number from Jerry. He mentioned  some long forgotten connection with my cousin and her husband which he was trying to follow up on. I regret that I will have to tell him that both my cousin and her younger sister have both died. I suppose we all need to be prepared for news like this as so much time has passed and we are all getting older.

It does seem all the more important to make the effort....