party decorations

i love catkin season, when the trees festoon themselves with dangling tassels weeks before the leaves show up to obscure everything. it so symbolic of spring for me–nature’s very own spring fling. walking my beloved trails this time of year is like walking into a familiar room that has suddenly been decorated for a party. the word catkin is a loanword from the middle dutch katteken, meaning “kitten”. this name is due either to the resemblance of the lengthy sorts of catkins to a kitten’s tail, or, in the case of willows, to the fine fur found on some catkins (e.g. pussywillow).

alder catkins (male)

everyone’s frisky

the red shouldered hawks are crying in the skies. the wood ducks are landing in the crotches of trees looking for nests. the squirrels are chasing each other with hormonal intensity. spring is in the air.

robin’s egg shell and bittersweet berries

consider everything

in my house, everything is a potential STILL subject. even the bones we buy from the butcher for the dog to chew on. nothing is safe.

bones

spring rains

march is the season of mud around here. after a soaking rain, with the soil still frozen beneath, my front yard looks like a cup of hot cocoa. ah yes, but i’ve started peering into the understory, looking for points of limey green. call it premature. or call it optimism.

drying mud

one more with the angelica

doctoring all day with my mom again. so reached for the 8 foot angelica stem leaning against the wall in the corner of my dining room. i’ve gotten a lot of mileage from that dried, photogenic stem. right now, in the soil along river banks, the next generation are swelling like babies in the womb. more to come.

angelica stem