around my neighborhood

since moving back to berkeley i have really enjoyed walking around my neighborhood taking in all the wild and unruly gardens. truly one of the best features of most of berkeley is the abundance of lovers of native plants, drought resistant gardens and low tech garden tools. it's a rare thing to hear blowers and mowers as people rake and mow by hand. in fact there are very few lawns and some - like me - are just letting them run their course to see what comes up. the local wildlife (mostly birds squirrels and raccoons) love the long grass and weeds but i'm sure i'l begin to regret it when the burrs come up.

people also don't bother with the leaf fall too much. most of the trees are evergreen, live oaks, bays etc. which means they drop their leaves all year round!

thus this image of a leaf on the sidewalk. which reminds me of a symbol in a cave painting or something and thus the name. i took this with a lensbaby composer with the double glass lens. the composer works like a ball in socket so you swerel the lens around instead of squeezing as in the origanal.