even after four years of doing STILL, i can still tell you exactly where i was when i found almost each and every one of my subjects. today, a local minneapolis creative colleague stopped by to rummage through my collections for a new product she is working on. while we combed through piles of organic matter looking for the perfect bits of magenta, spring green, and orange, i was offering a running commentary on where i found each leaf and each seedpod. caution: nerd alert.

dried prairie blue-eyed grass (sisyrinchium)

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota

i hoard these money plant seedpods as if they could actually make me rich. i am the ebeneezer scrooge of lunaria annua. unfortunately, we find ourselves in january, our annual lean month, between the holiday splurge and the start of tax season, when we start looking around for little pockets of money we might otherwise have overlooked. i haven’t yet managed to translate the fort knox of seed pods in my basement into actual currency that they will accept at blue cross blue shield and the local grocery store. my arguments about the intrinsic value of natural beauty falls on deaf ears.

lunaria seed pods

saint-guilhem-le-désert, france

here we go. below zero for a couple of days. remember the good schools, mary jo. remember the good schools. and the lakes. yes, the lakes. and all the bike lanes. lots of bike lanes. and hiking trails. lots of hiking trails too. there are so many reasons to live in minnesota. lutefisk. there’s lutefisk. there are the . . . ah . . . the . . . mosquitoes. yup, the mosquitoes. they’re very cute, and they make that adorable whining sound. let’s see. what else?

icicles on balsam fir

saint paul, minnesota

i have some marshmallows i need to toast. this is going to require some delicacy…

snow covered weeds

saint paul, minnesota

we have patches of blue flag iris along our dock. early in the season, they look very much like blades of marsh grass and the new shoots of cattails. so when we clear the brush along our dock each spring, there are maybe a dozen shaggy patches of vegetation that we leave untrimmed, because we suspect, but aren’t quite sure, that clumps of irises might reside inside them. about half of them will eventually unfurl their three-fingered lavender fists, and we spend the week after that making daily pilgrimages to glory in the sight.

pressed northern wild blue flag iris

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota