Asakiyume mita

This is the season when Rosa multiflora, the indomitable conqueror of roadsides and wastelands, the one who can render a pleasant meadow into an impassable, laceration-producing wall of arching, spreading, canes, puts out its flowers. Everywhere there are curtains and drifts of small, white-and-yellow blossoms, with a fragrance so intense that you breathe it in and begin to float. The whole rest of the year it's thorns and You Shall Not Pass, but right now it's Come To Me And Stay Awhile My Love.

"It's worth a little blood, isn't it? You can cede a little ground, can't you? To enjoy this moment with me now?" says the rambling rose.

The flowers are wearing flower crowns these days, and going dancing:


What better thing to do as midsummer approaches?

The last time I walked this way, a truck was pulled up onto the sandy shore at the edge of the sea of meadow grass. A guy was lying beside, and sort of under, the truck. I think I saw tools under there--no doubt he was repairing something--but I kind of imagined maybe there was a lunch under there too? He was on his cell phone. Maybe he was consulting about the truck's problem. Or maybe he was just chatting with someone as he took his ease, sheltered from the road by his truck, looking out over the ripping grass and wildflowers.


And speaking of trucks, look at the magnificent truck on this now-empty bottle of tea:



I think I may use it for a message in a bottle. And speaking of bottles for messages, I offered tiny decorated message-bottles as an extra incentive for time_shark's Kickstarter for Clockwork Phoenix 5, and it funded! And I have only three decorated bottles to hand, so needed to get a few more. Easily accomplished. Here is today's roadside haul:



Now I'll just wash them, and soon I'll be decorating.

By the way, Clockwork Phoenix 5 is open to submissions, so go ye forth and submit!