these hieroglyphs, expressing themselves quietly between parentheses, appear to be straining quite hard to make themselves understood. maybe all they want me to understand is how beautiful it feels to be made of graceful curved lines.

delicate dried stems

saint paul, minnesota

my son is reading the book “into thin air” for his english class project. he has spent several days gleefully relating the unbelievable story of beck weathers, who walked off a cliff on mount everest in a blizzard, was found and left for dead, walked back into camp and was left for dead again, and somehow survived, though without part of one arm, without most of the fingers on his left hand, and without much of a nose. i have seen enough gruesome photos of beck weathers in the last several days that, for perhaps the only time in my life, the color of these poplar leaves immediately brought to mind photos of gangrenous frotbitten flesh. as far as i’m concerned, the day can’t come soon enough when joseph moves on to huckleberry finn.

dried poplar leaves

minnesota

i was planning on writing about how one of the perks of living in minnesota is that you acquire a very nuanced vocabulary about a multitude of different kinds of snow. and i was going to talk about what it looks like when the temps are warm, and hover right around freezing, and the flakes are big and wet and cling to the branches in big fat globs. and, in contrast, when it is exceptionally cold, how there is no moisture in the air and the snow is hard and round like pellets.  and how this photo shows, without words,  that we have been having some very cold temps here in the north.  but then i googled “types of snow” and found that wikipedia lists no less than 35 (!) different kinds of snow. damn. still an amateur…

buckthorn with frost

saint paul, minnesota

the silique-style seed pods on this garlic mustard are elegant time bombs, preparing to split open in spring, and drop their payload of hundreds of little black seeds. we yank armfuls of these plants up every year, but they are more patient and persistent than we are. they take a few more square yards of terrain every spring. a creeping, incremental blitzkrieg.

garlic mustard in winter frost

saint paul, minnesota

if some wealthy patron, or national museum, or endowed university asked me to spend several years traveling around the world collecting as many varieties of seedpods as i could find (and photographing them on a white background), well, i would have found heaven on earth. i don’t think i would ever tire of foraging, collecting, admiring, and documenting seedpods. maybe i should write a grant proposal. anyone know of a foundation with grant money for a middle-aged woman with quirky interests and a willingness to follow them into obsession?

my husband just read this over my shoulder and said, “you already have a foundation. it’s the steve hoffman tax service foundation for  middle aged women with quirky interests and a willingness to follow them into obsession.”

i wonder what the application fee is…

my collection of seeds and seedpods

minnesota, california, florida, and southern france