when i first opened these lovely marbled duck eggs from our friends, i thought they looked like beach rocks, and i had an immediate vision of trying to crack one of them on the side of a ceramic bowl, and shattering the bowl instead.

duck eggs

new brighton, minnesota

next year’s buds are pushing this leaf out of the way, just as he’s figured it all out. guys, listen. i’ve got it. no, wait. you’ll be glad you heard this. life. it isn’t about looking for answers. i see it all now. it’s about asking the right ques . . .

willow leaf and twig

turtle lake, saint paul, minneota

this is a stationary kaleidoscope. you have to actually cock your head back and forth to make it work . . . i can’t believe you fell for that. i hope, for your sake, no one was watching.

bits and pieces of autumn on my desk

saint paul, minnesota

today was housecleaning day. possibly the greatest thing my husband ever gave me, after our children, was a biweekly cleaning service that he arranged for christmas several years ago and has maintained ever since. but in a house where sheaves of stems, piles of stones, scatterings of leaves, stacks of nests, and grids of eggs always accumulate on the floor between this Thursday and the Thursday after next, i sometimes feel i do more work clearing still blog props than beloved Gayle and Denise do sweeping those same floors. it got me thinking about spills, and what spilling means in nature, where fruits and seeds and pods and leaves spill all the time onto the ground, and make the ground fertile and fruitful. this blog owes a lot to spillage. maybe i should have called it spill blog.

milkweed in november

white bear lake, saint paul, minnesota

some landscapes if you have looked over them at formative times in your life, become like something you own. for me, those landscapes have included the rolling farms of central wisconsin, the rolling vineyards of the languedoc, and the rolling hills of northern california. one landscape i never expected to think of that way were cattail beds, but after looking over them just beyond our back yard for four seasons a year during this peaceful and productive decade of happy marriage and good kids, and an energetic young creative career, i have to say, i think of cattails as a now-permanent part of me. additionally, when you have forgotten until 3:00 pm to take a still blog photo, and you have no backup images to fill in with, it is a great relief to have a cattail bed in your back yard. i mean . . . i imagine that would be true,  if i ever found myself in that position.

november cattails

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota