Rattlesnake Grass 6/4/14

Our neighbor, at the beginning of our street, a contractor, obviously had an open can of paint in the back of his truck which tipped over yesterday, leaving a trail of spattered white paint for over a mile, before it turns onto our street and trails right into his driveway and stops. My friend Cindy, who is also a realtor, told me the story of the day she held open houses for two houses on the street, the very day he chose to hang a deer carcass from the back of his truck to let it "drain" into the street.

When she told me about the paint, I had to confess that I had just walked down the street and hadn't noticed it, but when she told me about the deer, I could understand why she was so upset about it.

The incident got me  thinking along the lines of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and the way one reacts to something has everything to do the experiences one brings to seeing something.

From there it was but a hop, skip and a jump to set myself the challenge of looking at something I thought was ugly, and seeing if I could make something beautiful out of it. I have lots of ideas for this, but the only one that presented itself today was a little patch of rattlesnake grass growing at the edge of a plowed field bristling with dirt clods and dry stubble.

Rattlesnake grass, unlike most of the varieties of grasses and weeds that grow around here, is rather picky about where it establishes itself. It seems to like a bit of shade, and the fact that it doesn't have barbed seeds that lodge in the clothing of humans and the fur, feet ears and noses of dogs  also limits its spread. I like the intricacy of its seed heads, shaped just like the rattles of a rattlesnake, and the way they arch on their delicate stems

I did have to lie flat on the ground to get the shot I wanted. I'm glad nobody was around to see me getting up, which was even less beautiful than the sight of me prostrate in the road. When I got home, I discovered numerous foxtails lodged in the seat of my pants….not too lovely either….