abundance

i have a husband who just looked at me tonight, at the end of his annual tax filing season, and told me that he doesn’t think he has left the house for a month. not since our return from california. i have so much to show him. i have my playmate back.

blossoming shrub (plum?)

saint paul, minnesota

  • Erica says:

    German has this great word for emerging: auftauchen. It’s literal meaning is the opposite of diving in, and I always imagine someone popping out of the water pointed feet first, arms extended toward the water, and landing like the Jantzen girl at the pool’s edge. Glad your playmate is aufgetaucht.

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noblesse oblige

i got outside today to do a little spring clean up in the yard. and look what i found hiding under the oak leaves. i am glad they were hiding, otherwise i’m sure the deer would have found them. last fall i planted 300 daffodil bulbs, and last week i watched out my kitchen window as seven deer feasted on my shoots as if they were at an all-you-can-eat salad bar.  i think the deer are as beautiful as the daffodils, so i leaned on my kitchen counter and watched them eat. this is glimmer’s house, after all.  and jack the puggle’s. the tail wags the dog around here. and the fluffy butt rules the roost.

crocuses (crocus vemus?)

saint paul, minnesota

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you choose

when people ask me what my criteria are for choosing my photos, i say “it must either be beautiful or interesting. or both”. it is a bonus, of course, if it is both.

this is a photo of honeycomb built by overzealous bees and scraped from the sides of their frames. when their frames get fully built out, the bees will just keep going, wrapping their comb around the edges of the frames. when the u of m comes out to check the health of our colonies, they need to scrape this extra comb off so they can pull the frames out and inspect them. the older the honeycomb, the darker it gets…

so: pretty or interesting? or both?

honeycomb

saint paul, minnesota

  • celia says:

    Both. Definitely both.

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  • Lisa says:

    I say both.

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birthday bouquet

so i am throwing away the remains of an enormous 80th birthday bouquet my mother gifted to me prior to her two-week vacation in florida. i think to myself  “i like these spent stems. i think i’ll use them for still blog today.” then my twelve year old son wanders by and says “mom, it’s spring outside. why are you taking a winter photo?” and i panic. he’s right. spring happens so fast at this latitude. in one more week it will look and feel like summer already. and all those delicate new-growth colors–those colors that are expressing themselves right now, as we speak–will have turned into the monochromatic grass green of summer. i know i can’t even begin to capture it all. why am i squandering an entire spring day’s STILL blog shoot with dying cut flowers? joe is absolutely right. he is such a wise and perceptive kid. i should probably acknowledge this. i turn to him. and i say, joe: ‘go outside and play.’

remnants of my mother’s 80th birthday bouquet

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what are your identifying features?

that pile of downy fluff could belong to any of a number of birds. but those white tipped blue feathers only belong to one animal. it has got me thinking, what is my identifying feature? for my gorgeous friend talin it is definitely her eyebrows. for my friend kristin, it is her brown-haired/blue-eyed combo. for my son joseph, it is the cleft in his chin he inherited from his grandpa (my dad). when i was younger, i would have said it was my turned up nose. the neighbors–the parents mind you, not the kids–used to tease me saying i “would drown if i went out in the rain”. today, my identifying feature would probably be the dark circle under my eyes i also inherited from my romanian father. thanks dad! good thing i had all that practice coping with a pug nose as a kid, because raccoon eyes are way worse.

mallard feathers

vadnais lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

  • Carol says:

    From the few photos I have seen of you, you are simply adorable in every way and I think your sparkle makes you unique

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