another polar vortex

today the temps were – 20 degrees F/-29 degrees C.  as i sit here, they are about to head lower for the rest of the night. good luck little feathered creatures, puffed up on your perches tonight. i will feed you breakfast in the morning.

letting go

my son made these shapes for me today. it’s appropriate, because i see in their shapes a mama paramecium, nosing her baby paramecia out into the wide dangerous world. my son is 15. i want to push him out past his comfort zone, and i want to reach out and gather him in, and let him know that the world is safe because i will always be here to help make it so. off you go, little ones. but not too far.

leaves cut into strips and set in motion

good old fashioned snow day

school has been cancelled for today. i seem to recall walking 27 miles of barbed wire. having a cobra snake for a necktie. walking to my little house on the roadside, made out of rattlesnake hide. kids these days…

winter branches with seed husks

a puff of breeze

i decided this tiger lily looks like a limp flag, a little puff of breeze has just caused one corner of it to flap lazily. next week, we hit 25 below here in minnesota. for some reason, i’m thinking of summer breezes. coincidence. surely.

dried tiger lily flower

virtual and real

today i visited with two friends in flesh and blood, whom i met via this most insubstantial medium of the internet. it was a meeting made up of chicken soup and tea and cheese and good bread and gifts and laughing about hard things. it was anything but insubstantial.

dried chrysanthemum