Cattail

May 1, 2008

My mother tells of a time she convinced my dad to stop and pick up some cattails (a flowering, seeding plant that looks like a cat’s tail) intending to bring them home to us kids. He got very dirty getting them but mom was happy. She put them under the car seat to keep them safe for the drive home. She forgot them.

If you have any experience with cattails you know they will seed whether they are stuck in the ground or not. These things seeded out and waited under the car seat for just the right moment. Mom opened a car window which blew these millions of seeds into the air, inside the car… They are coughing and choking on these flowering, fluffy seeds and cannot see a thing as they are driving down the highway.

The way mom tells it, dad was not too happy at all and had absolutely no sense of humor about it. I don’t think they ever got the seeds entirely out of the car.

I was walking around a small pond waiting for a job interview and caught sight of these. These two were sitting out on their own. Focusing on a small area with a wide aperture (F2.8) was not easy especially from a distance great enough to not mess up my dress shoes.

Filed under: Landscape |