still interesting

This is what too much travel looks like: spent flowers. Last fall someone at one of my workshops gifted my a seed-packet of allium bulbs. I dutifully stuck them in the ground and then promptly forgot about them until a few week ago when I had gorgeous purple pom-poms in my sideyard. I had no time to take their portrait until today. Past their glory but still interesting.

P.S. Gifting seeds is a lovely trend I am all for!

allium flowers doing to seed

my practice photo was a banger

This is the practice photos I made back in February to see if I was ready to resume STILL again after my fire pause. I loved it so much, that it gave me a false confidence about my readiness. Oh well, a little overconfidence never hurt anyone. A quick perusal of what I have posted since my return revealed that I had not shared this with you all yet. I have no idea why, I loved it then and I love it still!

dried clematis buds (unknown species, within the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae)

underrated wildflowers

Wild geranium is one of those wonderful native, shade tolerant, flowers that make me wonder why I don’t see it everywhere, like hosta. It’s hardy. It outcompetes the weeds. The lilac flowers couldn’t be more charming. Even the leaves are interesting. A quick look at the Minnesota Wildflowers website (that I have bookmarked, naturally) tells me that wild geranium is native to entire eastern United States from Canada down to Florida and west to the Rockies. So this is your call to action: plant more wild geranium if you live east of the Mississippi! You can thank me later.

wild geranium (Geranium maculatum)

victim of my own a success

I am currently a victim of my own success–too many invitations to speak, not enough time walking in the woods gathering and making photos. Last night I spoke at a local country club. This morning I will leave to drive four hours north to Bayfield, Wisconsin on Lake Superior to do a weekend of sessions at Wild Rice Retreat. Each request is reasonable. Each request sounds fun and rewarding. But all together, it has me coming and going so much I am losing connection to my own place. All my life I have swung back and forth between extroversion and introversion. I guess I am an ambivert–needing a little bit of both. I like being social, talking to people, building community, making things happen. I also like weeks of quiet time, no calendar commitments, just me and me camera and a few good books. Currently I am tipped too far to the sociability side–but no time to complain about that right now, I have to go pack for my three days up North.

baby red pine cones

I’m late, I’m late for a very important date.

Can you tell I am barely keeping up with spring? Come to think of it…it’s summer now, isn’t it? If you go my the astronomical calendar, I guess it is still spring for another 17 days. But the meteorological calendar says summer started four days ago. Either way, I am running late. Life is bursting, swelling, pushing, popping, blooming, and dying back faster than I can keep up right now. I say this every year, but spring in the North is fast! Zero to a hundred in six weeks.

I love blackberry blossoms. Their delicate white flowers are one of my very favorite spring arrivals. And I almost missed them! This branch was the very last branch with flowers in my whole yard as you can see by the number of exposed calyces where the petals have all dropped away.

On a completely separate note, if you get a chance to see the movie Silent Friend on a big screen, please do so! Borrowed from my friend Julka: “It was directed by Ildikó Enyedi and weaves together three stories across multiple generations, all centered around the same ginkgo tree on a university campus in Germany. It is about human and plant relationships and the limitations of human understanding. It is also the only film I have ever seen that, in the credits, names all the plants that were in the film! I haven’t heard people talking about it, so I am telling everyone I know to go see it!”

late blackberry flowers