long days, short nights

Steve’s book launch is only 2 days away. The household is busy. And we know how that goes, if anyone in the house is busy, everyone feels busy. Fortunately, we keep having regular rain, and the ferns keep growing. This is the ferniest summer I can recall. By all accounts, it also the mushroomiest, but I have not had a chance to explore that myself. It’s strange to see new-growth green this far into summer. But I like it.

two ferns: lady and ostrich

hiding in plain sight

I have been delighting in seeing these ox-eye daisies lining our roadsides lately–swaying gently in the wind, and turning their sunny faces towards the sun. But just now, as I was looking up the latin name for posting, I see that is is considered an aggressive, non-native, invasive. Gosh. Now what do I do?  The authoritative website I used to identify many of my local plants, has it labeled as “ERADICATE!”. Yikes.  It looks so harmless and innocent. Tomorrow morning as I drive my usual route to go visit my Mom, will I feel like I am driving by thousands of botanical fugitives with rap sheets? Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)

open-field flowers

At some point in late spring, right after the jack-in-the-pulpits bloom, the open-field flowers start to bloom: daisies, clover, salsify, vetch, and thistles, and these false sunflowers. For some naturalists, summer begins when the open-field flowers start to out number the woodland flowers. We are long past the transition from spring to summer, and these open-field have been decorating our roadsides for weeks. Today I finally stopped the car and grabbed this motley handful–all the prettier for being motley imho.

false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides)

Happy 4th of July?

As we celebrate the 4th of July (the day the US declared independence from Britain) here in the United States, it seems a fitting time to remember who’s land this was originally. Minneapolis and Saint Paul is the traditional homeland of the Dakhóta Oyáte (Dakota People), unfairly ceded in the Treaties of 1837 & 1851, who stewarded it for millennia. The Ojibwe and other Indigenous nations have cared for this land as well. Minnesota comes from the Dakota name for the area, Mni Sota Makoce — “the land where the waters reflect the skies.”

It is illegal in the United States for anyone other than Native Americans to be in possession of a bald eagle feather. This feather was lent to me by a young indigenous woman so I could share it on STILL. I show it here with four commonly found feathers so you can get a sense of scale.

feathers: bald eagle, cardinal, blue jay, northern flicker, downy woodpeacker

umbel season

We are heading into umbel season: queen anne’s lace (wild carrot), wild parsnip, golden alexander, cowslip, water hemlock, and angelica.  I find umbels utterly captivating. They capture my attention. My imagination. My mood. How much do you want to pour yourself a glass of iced tea so cold the beads of perspiration are sheeting off the glass, and sit under an umbel for an afternoon watching the popcorn cloud drift by in as cerulean blue sky? If I can’t do that, an umbellate umbrella on the Mediterranean Côte Vermeille will do just fine.

wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa)