Cone flower

 Cone flower growing in our garden.

Burned out truck, Coralville, IA

A look into the burned out truck from its driver's side. You can see that the class is all gone and even the side mirror appears to have warped and melted from its original position.

Burned out truck, Coralville, IA

 A look down into the burned out guts of the truck's engine.

Burned out truck, Coralville, IA

In the parking lot by the trailhead was this totally burned out old truck. Looked like its engine had caught on fire while driving, pulled off the road for the drivers to bail out, and then simply been abandoned.

Knobbly tree, Coralville, IA

A wonderfully knobbly thick old tree.

Heart cut, Coralville, IA

 Limb cut with the surrounding bark forming the shape of a heart.

Fungal cascade, Coralville, IA

 One more cascade of fungus, its yellow caps draping floppily over one another.

Fungal closeup, Coralville, IA

Diving deeper in towards the gills, to see their fine and feathery structure.

Fungal closeup, Coralville, IA

 This specimen was less rounded and more frilly.

Fungal closeup, Coralville, IA

 A closer look up into the gills on the underside of these fungal blooms.

Fungal bouquet, Coralville, IA

Another sprouting fungus, hanging from the side of a fallen tree and reaching out like a sort of bouquet.

Sprouting fungus, Coralville, IA

A fungal cluster at an earlier stage of development, with all of the mushroom heads just starting to push out and rise.

Tree fungus, Coralville, IA

 A closer look at one of the sprouting bundles of fungus.

Tree fungus, Coralville, IA

Yellow-white fungus was sprouting like clusters of umbrellas from many trees in these woods.

Mountain bike trail, Coralville, IA

 Mountain biking trail through the Coralville woods.

Butterfly, Coralville, IA

 Butterfly perched on a ragged purple flower.

Goosetown, Iowa City

There is a neighborhood in Iowa City known as Goosetown, apparently because once upon a time a bunch of people there owned geese. A beautiful mural celebrates this otherwise easily forgotten history.

Snuggleball

 Salvatore curled up into a snuggly little ball in his boppy.

No hole unfilled

 Pom-poms in the tracks, all lined up nicely and with a couple of Bangla letters to enhance them.

Shape tracks

Now the pattern has changed to diamonds.

Shape tracks

 Toy train tracks enhanced with colored wooden shapes.

Duplo steps

 Patterns in primary colored Duplos.

A box of triangles

 Another careful preschooler arrangement, exploring the sorting and coloring of shapes.

The discovery of stickers

A few months ago, our 3-year-old really figured out how to peel off stickers for herself for the first time, making this collage in her enthusiasm. Since then, it has been a delight to her and a loving challenge for the rest of us, with sticker fragments regularly being peeled of socks and disentangled from hair.

Tracing lines

And in puzzle pieces too.

Tracing lines

 Another long thin line traced between the tiles.

Tracing lines

 This time the lines are traced with marbles and dice.

Tracing lines

Lines on our tiled floor traced out in pom-poms.

Multcolored tube filling

Tubes from a marble shoot, filled with sorted pom-poms in various colors.

Like baby scorpions

 For some reason, this little pile of red pom-poms on the rocking horse's back makes me think of baby scorpions, clinging in a swarm on their mother's back.

Color matching

 Yellow pom-poms on the yellow back, green on the green wheel, blue beneath the blue body.