i picked this exquisite little flower at the end of a long, talk-filled walk with my husband, the first such walk we’d had together really since the end of tax season. it was a perfect little moment. a reconnection, a beautiful late spring day, and as a reward, the gift of a tiny, bright-magenta patch of smartweed in bloom just before we reached the car. i have since tried to find a single interesting thing to say about smartweed, in all the usual places both analog and digital, and have decided it is the tinkerbell of late spring mn trailside plants–tiny, painted, and an elusive secondary character.

smartweed

vadnais lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

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jack and the beanstalk is a fairy tale, sure, but with each summer i spend in northern woods, trying to clear enough vegetation to see our lake in the distance, i am more ready to believe that a beanstalk actually did grow up to the sky in a single night. in fact, from what i can tell, european buckthorn might have it beat.

unidentified pair of vines

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota

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i haven’t done this very often, but these goatsbeard parasols are from the same plant i posted yesterday. behind the scenes, i quite often have between 2 and 5 variations on the photo i choose to post for the next morning’s still blog image. in almost every case, i pick one, or call my family over to help me narrow it down to one, and that ends up being the one and only version of the photo i post. but often it’s so hard to choose between the final two, that really they might as well be of equal value. part of me decided to post this follow-up to give myself, and maybe some of you, permission to love not just the impeccable first-place winners of your portfolio, but also the imaginative runners up, and maybe even some quirky and imperfect bronze medal winners. maybe it’s time to embrace the whole podium.

goatsbeard seeds

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota

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there are any number of fluffily perfect goatsbeard globes around me this time of year. but in the same way that i prefer the beach battered feather to the crisply perfect feather, i prefer the rain bedraggled goatsbeard to the perky big-haired head turners.

goatsbeard

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota

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when in doubt, put it on a grid: still blog rule of thumb #763.

these thistle heads made for such a gorgeous instagram photo yesterday, all piled up and showy, that i thought i’d link to that as well, for your viewing pleasure: enjoy.

musk thistle flowers

Hwy 280 on ramp, saint paul, minnesota

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