Today I took a walk with my artist friend Carole, through the woods and wetlands to a local beach. We both brought our sketch kits. At the edge of the sand, we spent a while following some beautiful wolf tracks, then sat down to draw.

I was determined to do my Inktober assignment based on something out there. Both prompts today, “rocket” and “anatomical,” seemed like a mismatch for the location. But… there is a plant with the English name “sea rocket”growing on those dunes. It’s a low-growing salt-tolerant succulent. This time of year the oblong green seed capsules are rolling all over the sand:

Here’s my stylized ink rendition of the sea rocket’s fruiting pattern.

To give you a sense of place–and a taste of Carole’s lovely art–here’s a link to Carole’s blog. Scroll down to the painting of “middle beach” and you’ll see the kind of setting we enjoyed on our walk. The Lingít name for that stretch of beach is L’éiw tú, “inside the sand” (source: Placenames of the Huna Káawu).