when in rome (when it snows)

we’ve had 30 inches (1 meter) of snow in february alone.  the entire city is a STILL blog backdrop. i could take a year’s worth of images if i could just make it through the thigh-deep snow. everything around me is on a white background. snowshoes anyone? little help?

cattails in february snow

a daily practice

seven years of looking up, and looking down. i have one superpower, and it is consistency.

seed pods, bones, and feathers

A Minnesota Original

Our local public television station, TPT, has just released a short film about STILL blog and me for a series called Minnesota Original. The producer, Amy Melin just doesn’t do anything that isn’t less than breathtaking. I have admired her work for so long, and now she has trained her careful and perceptive eye-behind-the-camera on me. The film is about STILL Blog and my creative process, set in my home and in our surrounding woods. It perfectly captures the spirit of STILL. It is a quiet film steeped in the early spring green of ferns and oak leaves, and the late winter browns of cattail beds.

I hope you’ll take a look. You can watch it here.

If the link above doesn’t work, try cutting and pasting this link:  https://www.tptoriginals.org/exercise-your-creativity-by-journaling/

basket weaving

i’m pretty proud of myself. i eyed these twigs sticking up out of the snow along a boulevard in south minneapolis. the delicate leaves still intact despite two feet of snow and two months of northern winds.  i had no idea what kind of plant it was. maybe a kind of fern? maybe an asparagus? but then those empty seed cases caught my eye down near the vertex of the branches and i thought, huh, those look . . . and yes i used this word . . . those look “milkweedish.” a quick google search when i got home led me to something called whorled milkweed. a new-to-me minnesota native plant. if not for STILL blog, i probably wouldn’t have even seen this plant among all the urban distraction. and if not for STILL blog, i certainly wouldn’t have been able to identify it so readily. it’s a small thing that is not quite so small as it seems.

whorled milkweed

minneapolis, mn

living by the seasons

living in our tiny corner of rural languedoc in southern france has reminded us just how pleasant it is to live by the seasons. we usually arrive in late summer. for one month we feast on plums. just as we feel we can’t eat another plum–no matter how it is sliced, simmered, baked, poached or preserved–the season ends abruptly and is replaced by peach season. the same pattern repeats itself–the initial delight, the comfort, and ultimately satiation. and just like that, it is suddenly fig season. i bring this up because i am guessing that some of you are getting a little weary of my snow and ice covered winter images. but rest assured, soon enough, and abruptly, there will be signs of spring. but for now we are entering the last phase of winter season. we’ve had our fill. most of the figs have been made into tarts and preserves. there are just a few left, and then the apples and pears will be coming into prime. or in the case of southern minnesota, soon enough, the final tenacious oak leaves will drop, pushed into free fall by the first swelling of juicy buds.

crabapples in february