Some of my favorite flowers growing in our backyard are the purple balloon flowers. Before blooming, the flowers look like little presents, green at first and then swelling nearly to bursting as they take on a violet hue. Sometimes I'm seized with the urge to squeeze one and see if it pops open, the way Impatiens seed pods do. I go through this sequence of thoughts every time I look at them.






The blooms are brilliant, too, but I love the little "presents" more. Don't they look squeezable?

I also found the exoskeleton of a cicada [or that's what I think it is], clutching a maple leaf. Its former inhabitant was nowhere to be found, but was probably up in the trees somewhere making a racket.