I went to New Zealand a couple of months ago (I actually started writing this only a month after getting back, but now it’s been 3. Oops.) and split my time between two Bens. It was amazing.

I took tons of photos, of course, and spent many hours editing, cropping, lightening… and then I deleted them all. I’m not sure how, though I have a hunch that I managed to select two folders while deleting something else. Woo!

It’s winter here (I got a winter birthday! In name only, because it felt like spring, but still. If I were in school I could bring cupcakes to class like all the school year birthday kids!) and leaves have changed colors, the sweet gum trees are dropping their seeds, and the Galahs are feasting on them at the side of the road.

Taken during a morning run

They didn’t like me very much.

I’ve started editing NZ pictures again, but… man that’s a daunting task and it’s going slowly. I hate redoing work.

So in the meantime you wanna know about something cool? Pretty flowers are cool! I took these on several different photo walks from late summer to winter.

Sometimes known as frangipani, the plumeria tree is really interesting. It’s produces beautiful flowers frequently used in Hawaiian leis and it looks like an emaciated succulent when bare.

I totally wasn’t exaggerating: strange cactus, perhaps?

Shortly after it leafs out, it starts the long process of blooming. Not that it takes a long time for it to flower, but that it just keeps going and going and going.

I remember them first flowering in… December, maybe? At this point some of them have lost their leaves, and some still have a few buds developing into flowers.

 The flowers are just so perfect and lovely.

They feel really good, too. Texturally. They’re thick and meaty with a velvety skin.

So anyway. All at the same time, while the sweet gums are dropping leaves and seeds, some plumeria are bare, others are budding, and the magnolias are starting to flower. wtf winter, Oz?

It’s totally Spautumn. New season. I’ve named it.