we’ve had a couple days of rain this week, and it seems as if overnight our world is once again green. shoots shot up, trees leafed out, and buds burst. this is typical for this time of year, and it’s one reason that may day is one of my favorite days of the year. the other reason? well, may 1 was my father’s birthday, or more precisely, the day on which tradition dictated that we celebrate his birthday. he was born on a farm with with dirt floors, in a small rural village in northern romania. his mom, my beloved grandma eva, didn’t recall the exact date of his birth, she simply remembered that it was spring sometime. so we chose may 1st as his birthday. it was appropriate, therefore, that today, in keeping with the family tradition of auspicious may 1 happenings, my daughter eva accepted her admission to stanford univeristy, exactly 81 years after the day on which my father may or may not have been born on a dirt floor in beba veche, romania. happy may day, my romanian father. my american dad. my papa.

daffodil shoot

saint paul, minnesota

how big was that bracket fungus? well it was bigger than a swallowtail butterfly, and smaller than a raccoon. bigger than a blue jay and smaller than whitetail fawn. bigger than an osprey and smaller than a bald eagle. bigger than a wasp nest and smaller than a muskrat den. there. have i bracketed that bracket fungus for you? cue groans.

bracket fungus

arden hills, minnesota

our local weatherman has been calling this a whiplash spring–70 degrees one day, and 40 degrees the next. whatever the name, it has resulted in a strange spring of tortured bulbs and blossoms.  this tulip had a stem only five inches long, when it opened, and then it started to shed petals before it fully opened. harsh climates tend to grow strange specimens. i would say that the my lapadat family, and my husband’s hoffman family, are no exceptions.

tulip

saint paul, minnesota

these little kernels are sizzling and about to pop around here. how fun would it be if crabapples made popcorn sounds as their blossoms burst open? i imagine it would play out in almost exactly the same rhythm as a batch of orville redenbacher. onesie, twosie. and then the hailstorm.

on a completely different note, west elm’s design blog posted a lovely interview and feature on STILL blog yesterday. You can find it here.

apple blossoms

saint paul, minnesota

white throated sparrows are among our family’s favorite birds. their deee-DEEEE-dee-duh-dee dee-duh-dee dee-duh-dee song has two associations for us. The first is their spring migration when they filter through our woods, and wake us up on april and may mornings with cheerful exhortations to get up and make the most of the beautiful day ahead of us. The second association is the north woods, where in summer we encounter them at the end of that migration, and they serenade us in our fishing boats and canoes from the tops of towering white pines on the shores of cold, clear northern lakes. so imagine my horror, to find not one. but two, white throats this morning lying lifeless below two of my windows. i will miss them this summer. as will any number of northern hikers, campers, fishermen, and paddlers who should have heard them sing.

white throated sparrows

saint paul, minnesota