my spirit bird

i have been crawling through my archive trying to put together a proposal for a STILL book. as a result i found this unpublished photo of a great blue heron. i came across this guy, trailside in winter. probably too old to fly south. he was frozen, but otherwise in tact. look at the elegant dexterity in that foot. the great blue heron is my favorite bird. they arrive very early in spring, when the lakes are still mostly frozen. then stake out their personal fishing grounds. we almost always have one who chooses our long boardwalk as his or her private fishing platform for the summer. they nest in large colonies called heronries (a more specific term than “rookery”) that are isolated from human disturbance.  i think i know where there is one near me. but i don’t tell anyone about it. only my hiking partner knows about it. every evening in summer, when our heron wraps up his day of fishing , i am awed by the tremendous volume of his wing span as he effortfully lifts himself up out of the cattails and glides over our house to go join his family, and the rest of the colony, for the evening where there is safety in numbers. magnificent.

great blue heron 

just my favorites

a few of my favorite bits from the larger desert assemblage. that crazy corkscrew bit is the fruit of the mesquite tree. and the gray bit to the left of it is an ocotillo cactus skeleton. such incredible specimens i’d never find here in the north. any desert natives know what that green-leafed plant is with the seeds that look like eucalyptus?  i feel like a kid with a new toy. what a delight it was to walk around a new place with eyes wide open.

collected desert flora: fruits of the screwbean mesquite tree, ocotillo cactus skeleton, live oak acorn and cap, 

white skies in palm springs?

iphone cameras have a mind of their own. sometimes it is fortuitous. while i was snapping a few shots of the cacti at the palm springs cactarium last week (a marvelous place), my phone camera recoded this photo on what looks like a white sky. and yet the desert sky was nothing other than a cloudless deep cerulean blue for the whole week. i don’t know how or why the photo came out this way. if i had tried to make it myself, i would have needed a huge white screen to place behind them (these cacti are about 3 meters tall). it would have been effortful and cumbersome. so, this one was an oddity. a freebie. i’ll take it.

cereus(?) cacti at the palm springs cactarium

palm springs haul

here is what i pulled out of my magic carpet bag i carried home from palm springs. i’m sure you’ll be seeing these bits and pieces show up in compositions over the next few weeks. i see now that my mental model of a desert palette has been way too narrow.

bits and pieces gathered in palm springs

back home

i am just back from a week in palm springs. what a boost a change of scenery can be. this was my first time away from minnesota in two years (since covid began). i knew i had cabin fever, and needed a change of scenery, but wow, i underestimated what a boon to my well being it would be. i feel rested and relaxed and recharged. it was a week of museums and galleries and hikes and hot tubs. a perfect little recharge. and, i came home with a grocery bag full of desert flora finds, and a journal full of pressed clippings. i am now (finally) ready for 2022…bring it on!

pressed california flowers