Nimitznequi–I love you in Aztec (Nahuatl)

indigenious to the americas. culinarily and culturally important to the native peoples of mexico and the southwest united states.  believed to have been wild harvested for centuries before being domesticated around 4,000 BC.  extremely important to the aztecs. popular with crafters and natural dyers for it’s magenta colored dye. and yet, with all this storied history, it is still fairly new to me. i swear i don’t live under a rock. i’m northern. that’s my excuse.

hopi red dye amaranth (Amaranthus)

not molting this time

i wish i could say these feathers were from molting rails. sadly, that is not the case. this rail was probably some raptors exquisite and filling dinner. we’ve been using the sound identification of the Merlin app on our phones to recognize the bird calls in our backyard this year (i recommend, by the way). the app is able to pick up about twice as many birds as our trained ears can. among the surprises have been sora rails. we live on water, so wetland rails should be no surprise, we simply had never rarely able to pick up their call among the cacophony of all the others. but Merlin informed us we had rails this summer, or at least one rail. and now we have one fewer rails, and one well fed raptor.

rail feathers

wind in the willows

we live in the land of abundant fresh surface water–lakes, rivers, and wetlands. willows love wetlands. we have a lot of willow. ∴ Q.E.D.

river willow switches

coming home

i started STILL blog in january 2012 when my son, joseph, was 8 years old. now he is 18 years old. and tomorrow he returns home from washington dc where he has been doing an internship with the u.s. senator from minnesota amy klobuchar.  today, while doing some work on my archive, i stumbled across this STILL image that joseph made for me in 2015 when he was 11 years old. oh how i miss those innocent days of dinosaurs and bugs. and yet, how proud i feel today of my son who texted last week to ask if we were following the manchin gambit. the bittersweet impermanence of childhood.

molting season

i’ve been  talking a lot about seasons lately. in addition to it being bee balm and  sunflower season, it is also molting season. birds typically molt when there food is most abundant, and the weather mild. because it takes an enormous amount of energy to molt. it also leaves the birds quite vulnerable while they are in transition.  our sandhill crane pair is dropping feathers, large and small, every day in our back yard. and just yesterday i found my first blue jay feather. blue jays typically molt in august. if you are out hiking, or even walking the neighborhood, pay attention to the ground. it’s molted feather season.

molted sandhill crane feathers