i see the number ø, obscured but visible through the messy organic screen of branches and blossoms. it has got me thinking that these twigs would make a pretty alphabet like the pine needle alphabet i did last week, and the raspberry cane alphabet i did a year ago. hmmm. i feel some font designing coming on.

dried almond blossom twigs

if you are my age, you grew up, to some extent, on the tv adaptation of little house on the prairie. and if you grew up on little house on the prairie, you spent a lot of time sniffling at the chin quivery virtue of pa ingalls, and you spent much of the rest of the time hating nellie oleson and her smug, perfect cylindrical hair curls. i found this cottonwood bark and its curly locks of nellie oleson cambium, on a walk today around pike island, at the confluence of the mississippi and minnesota rivers. i spent the morning among silver maples and cottonwoods in an unspoiled river bottom that, except for the occasional passenger jet coming in for a landing at nearby msp airport, laura ingalls herself would have recognized.

cottonwood bark cambium

pike island, saint paul, minnesota

thinking of marriage as being eternally entwined with someone else might sound suffocating. but i see it a different way. this vine could have shot off in any direction, at any time. but at each turn, it chose to wrap itself back around its chosen branch.

red osier dogwood and vine

sucker lake, saint paul, minnesota