feeling puny

feeling puny

these tiny siberian scilla, or squill, are coming up along our driveway in pastel blue waves right now. despite knowing that they are invasive, i love seeing them because they are one of our first doses of color after the snow melts. unfortunately i am missing this little pageant because i have managed to catch some kind of flu, just in time for spring, after surviving all winter intact. tomorrow will be day four of prostrating fatigue, headaches, chills and fever, and a sore abdomen from coughing so hard. these little flowers are puny. but not as puny as i feel right now. happy spri…cough hack wheeze…spring.

blue scilla (siberian squill)

  • Ginny says:

    While squill is delightful, the flu is just hateful! Hope you’re up and about soon, MJ.

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ovenbird

ovenbird

ovenbirds are one of those birds you hear all summer long if you spend any time in the north woods, to the extent that their call becomes a little bit monotonous. like the red-eyed vireo, or the phoebe, or the eastern wood peewee, or even, on the occasional sleepless summer morning around 4:00 am, when all you want is to turn over for another couple of hours of sleep, the infuriatingly persistent american robin. it’s awfully hard to see an ovenbird in person, though. because their green backs blend so perfectly with the deep woods where they sing anonymously all day long. it was a melancholy pleasure, therefore, to see an ovenbird this morning on my rear deck. his head and body bent into a most gracefully sinuous line that displayed his spotted beauty, and told the tale of his violent collision with our window. we’re very sorry, well-dressed stranger. we would much rather have been bored by your cheerful call all summer than made your acquaintance under these circumstances.

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body positive

body positive

today we are celebrating all the leaf shapes. The rotund, the pear-shaped, the oddly protruberant, the whisper thin, the many-limbed, the damaged, the dark hued, the light-skinned, the spotted, the native, the nonnative, the tiny, the classic, the irregular, the asymmetrical, the topheavy, the left-leaning, the right-leaning, the flocked, the hairy, the bald. the big tent flap is right over there. please let yourself in.

pressed leaves

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long views on the last day in april

long views on the last day in april

all the buds are swollen, and some leaves have begun to burst, but the trees around here have yet to start seriously leafing out, which means that i currently have long sight lines through the woods that will quickly be strangled by the fingers of fully leaved tree branches. this also means that i will collect fewer things on my walks over the next few months, because there will simply be less to see through the vegetation. and that means that the productiveness of today’s relatively short walk should be celebrated. which is why i am celebrating.

northern woodland nature finds from one walk

 

  • Kimbersew says:

    This looks like home, today for me too (western Mass) All the textures! It makes me want to stroke the silky walls of those empty milkweed pods

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how much is too much how much is not enough?

how much is too much how much is not enough?

i spent 45 minutes or so this afternooon, fussing with six different branches, each with a different shape, and each featuring a different variety of newly burst leaf bud. i added them to my composition, and then removed them. i maximized and minimized. i created fan shapes, and ovals, and diamonds. i took photos of all six, and took photos of each individually, and took photos of two or three or four or five at a time. finally i arrived at this composition, or rather i arrived at six compositions sort of like this one, and then asked my family for help deciding, and together we decided on this one, which is not exactly an evocation of art as a burst of fully formed inspiration delivered by a greek muse in a tunic, but it is a pretty accurate description of how art gets made in this household on a more or less daily basis.

swollen spring buds waiting for first rain

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