I traveled to Finland this summer and spent 86 days traversing mostly through the northern part of the country along the Oulujoki River. Each day I was in the country I made a stamp and documented the location it was made, along with assigning a song to correspond with each image.

Plant Life

The garden has been a very difficult place lately. This has been the strangest summer—low temps in the beginning, then mild temps and high humidity and ultimately high temps with very high humidity. Things just didn't grow right, and on top of that the rats have been relentless. For the first year ever they ate my zucchini flowers. The ants exploded everywhere as well, bringing aphids- or maybe the aphids brought the ants—regardless, it's been a battle. What a year to be growing out the last of my late mother's seeds.

The garden at Art in the Park fared much better than the one at my house (even though they are less than a mile from each other). After several sets of tomato seeds yielded no seedlings, one group did germinate and the tomatoes have set fruit. The peppers from our town also set fruit, though I recently brought these seeds back. I had planted additional california natives around the perimeter and those all took this summer. And on June 24th we celebrated the ancient Italian ritual of l'acqua di San Giovanni—an act of reflection, renewal and beneficiation at the height of the summer season.

Driving That Feeling

I was at the southern tip of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Laid up in a hotel room for 3 days waiting out the beginning of the monsoon season. I watched a 20 hour documentary on the Middle East while eating roasted chilis with cheese. The documentary covered a lot of ground. Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and areas beyond. Involving their complexity, history, the famed Persian gardens and the sweeping sands that have poured through their hands for millennia. This was all done in a narrator's voice that was very soothing despite it's subjects most disturbing aspects.

The rain had stopped and it was time to go. I handed the keys to the hotel clerk. And thanked him.

'Hey! Where you headed' he asked.

'Don't know. Just driving.'

'All right, Drive it out.' His confidence my way was greatly appreciated.

I headed up the valley. Coming off the steppe. It is Fall. The smell of roasting chilis wafts through the truck's windows as I drive. That smell is mixed with cow manure and dry sand.

Just across the border and after a questionable breakfast. I drove a 1/4 mile to an old military fort. Fort Garland. Well known for deploying the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps. The Native Americans nicknamed them Buffalo Solders but among themselves and others they were known as The Iron Riders. Their bikes being fixed gear and weighing 80 pounds each not including their provisions and weapons.

Their most epic bicycle ride, an experiment by the US Army, was from Fort Missoula in Montana to St. Louis MO. 1,900 miles. Leaving on June 14, 1897 and arriving in St. Louis July 17, 1897. There were 18 of them including musician Elias Johnson who was in charge of the bugle and it's daily use for military regulation. Also, bike mechanic John Findley from the Imperial Bicycle works out of Chicago. All reports are that the ride was 'Grand' and observers and readers of the adventure were left 'speechless.'

North and further into the valley, my nerves and the truck settled down. An Italian tune-up as some call it. One of the largest Alpine valleys in the world, nearly 8,000 sq. miles. This is one of the few remaining agricultural strongholds in America that grow food specifically for human consumption. The hot days and cool nights produce ideal conditions for broccoli, carrots, lettuce and specifically potatoes, Along with the native grass hay. Bluestem, gamma, and switchgrass. It has been this way for thousands of years and still is. Something about that lends itself to a deeper thought and consideration of what and where we are going. Which might explain the drive. One gets to think of these things while driving, alone, with nowhere to go and the only sound is the wind, the engine, and the fading of the radio.
I will get back to you again.
Adios, Buchanan

Directed by F. Percy Smith

Field Notes: Entry I

Field Notes is an ongoing record of an imagined internal landscape that I've returned to for the past seven years. I approach each visit as fieldwork, documenting the place's plants, fungi, animals, and landmarks as though they belong to a real ecology.

This entry gathers observations of four botanical specimens from that landscape: grasses and flowers observed in summer, followed by a fern and a briefly appearing mushroom found in damper, darker terrain. Together they form one fragment of a larger, still-developing survey.

Each note is provisional—a record of what was encountered rather than a fixed taxonomy—and part of an archive that continues to change with every return.

Tulip Rising

The Resident (at play), 2026
 

This past spring/summer, I took an online residency class. Instead of taking place away from home, this residency was in our homes or even simply in our own bodies. It was revelatory, encouraging a time to slow down. look carefully, and listen deeply. All of the residents were invited to post our thoughts every day or week, along with the sights and sounds that we noticed. At first we were encouraged to be residents indoors but soon it was suggested that we take our investigations outside. I can't begin to say how impactful it was to suspend judgement and be free (relatively free!) of the desire to make "good/important" work. Instead, it was a deep pleasure to play/experiment and find joy in small moments.....our own discoveries and our fellow residents'.

Directed by F. Percy Smith

I've paid the most attention to incidental gardens this year: where the urban confines, remnants and rubble are tricked into becoming garden design elements. The native plantlife may only last a growing season or two before being poisoned or replaced. The land seems momentarily stolen from developers or municipal interests, rather than long-neglected urban preserves. From spring through the summer, various weeds can be witnessed in all stages of growth, while being suppressed elsewhere.

Not much grows wild in the Avondale triangle — someone certainly beats back the growth to avoid fines — but there is one isolated patch where cattails are permitted to grow to a height of 6–7'.

At the end of my block is almost an acre where a six-story hospital once stood. The ground is pure packed brick-rubble and backfill, at the depth of a basement, but the weeds don't care. Dandelions are spent by late summer, but I'm finding lamb's quarters, horseweed, amaranth, phragmite reed, lady's thumb, lone cottonwood, pepperweed, hairy aster. Panicgrass spreads in pools. A couple of marigolds make cameo appearances.

At Keeler + Milwaukee, a garden insists itself into triangular lot where condo building had stopped. Foundation walls with backfill and stalks of rebar provide the general layout, and the growth has been thickening through the season: particularly fleabane, primrose and thistle (both flowering and seed blooms).

Condo construction resumed shortly after I took these photos.

At Tripp+Milwaukee, a double lot is home to so much wild carrot / queen anne's lace that have graced my neighborhood this year. What really catches my eye is the thick runner of sedum along two of the lot edges — it certainly escaped from someone's yard, and loves it here! I can barely get it to grow in my own yard...

I spied a dense and varied patch along the Metra embankment near the Grayland Station, surrounded by piled gravel. It looks similar to the corner parkways that some residents will volunteer to cultivate, but there are no homes in this light-industry zone, which is dreary even in the middle of summer. Although remote, I suspect it still might be someone's project — the sense of sharawadgi is strong here.

Blaregnies, Belgium

Our friends, Sabine and Phillipe have a farm on the site of a 300 year old water mill that was used for milling grain.

Heirloom wheat field. Modern farm equipment is too large to harvest this field. Last year it took a week to harvest by hand. This year, they found a farmer with a small machine to do the work.

La Flamengrie, France

These stone markers around the town indicate the border between France and Belgium (once Austria and Amsterdam). This stone has Austria on this side and France on the other.

Obidos, Portugal

An old medieval city—the countryside and small farms are gorgeous. Lots of olive trees, pear trees, grapes...

Pena Palace, Sinta Portugal

The palace is the main tourist attraction, but the gardens are often overlooked.

There's a series of small fountains and ponds.

Lisboa, Portugal

People grow a lot of small gardens like this on vacant land. These would probably be destroyed or bulldozed most places in the U.S.A.