out like a lion

last day of march. hallelujah.

over-wintered crabapples encased in ice

once in a lifetime

i have been crawling through my STILL archive the last few days. i have a publisher interested in a STILL book, and i am trying to wrap my head around what that might look like (it’s very early in the process, so doin’t get too excited yet). anyway, in the act of crawling through my archive i can across this splendid creature. it is a juvenile great horned owl. what the what? you heard right, a juvenile great horned owl.  it’s so magnificent i can hardly take it in at one sitting. i photographed it in year two or three of STILL blog. i don’t even know if i posted it, because i was so unsure of how you all would react to dead animals in your feed. anyway, steve and i were picking our son, joseph, up at summer camp in northern minnesota. and very early in the morning, just after sun up, we came across this owl, dead on the side on the road. it was clearly roadkill. it probably died just before dawn. he wasn’t bloody. and there were feathers everywhere. it was the feathers we noticed first, i happened to have my white tag-board and camera with me because northern minnesota is great for STILL scouting. so, we pulled over and i made a few furtive snap shots. i was still very uncomfortable with shooting dead animals back then. i don’t know why. it was as if i was doing something illegal. i have since learned that it is not illegal to make a photo of a dead animal, even if it protected. as long as you leave it where you found it. in any case, this photo has been buried in my archive for years. i don’t suspect i will ever again come across a road-killed juvenile great horned owl. i hope you can overcome the gruesome factor here, and  find it as fascinating and magnificent as i do.

p.s. zoom in and look at its feet. spectacular.

juvenile great horned owl

potted plants

i am so hungry for color that i am collecting the fallen leaves under the potted fruit trees we have in the kitchen. my husband is determined to grow citrus here in minnesota. it’s a bit of a folly, but so far the trees are hanging in there…and it’s not long before we can get them back out on the end of our dock in full sun (including reflected light off the lake). if the trees can survive just a few more weeks, we’ll have fresh lemons from our own trees by the end of summer summer. the trees are loaded with golf-ball sized fruit right now. fingers crossed.

p.s. happy birthday to my mom who turns 86 today!

reindeer in march

i think there are many secrets to be learned from lichen. robin wall kimmerer speaks lichen. i bet she is teaching some classes. i think i’d like to learn lichen.

reindeer lichen

every year…at this time of year

i don’t typically buy grocery store flowers because i prefer to gather seasonal flowers, stems, and branches on my walks. but, just like clockwork, every year–at this time of year–i find myself reaching for a handful of colorful, life affirming, living flowers at the store. it’s just enough to get me through these cold and windy late-march days. the migrating birds are already returning (we had sandhill cranes today!). and the birds know far more than i do. i am trusting the birds.

gerbera daisy