there’s something i find quirkily romantic about the two halves of this black locust seed pod. they are two things and one thing at the same time. each contains the seeds of what the other is missing. they have pointy heads. when they kiss, their bellies touch.

black locust seed pod in march

lake phalen, saint paul, minnesota

i shot several different angles of this bouquet of winter aster stems. but i responded to the selective focus of this one best. it reminds me of our life right now, spent focusing on what is necessary and in the foreground, and hoping the blurry background does not get lost entirely. college testing, steve’s writing awards, piano contest, a still blog image a day, and fitting in a walk are in the foreground right now. i just hope the mortgage, the mandatory soccer team meeting, and tomorrow night’s dinner don’t fade completely out of the frame.

end of winter stems of wild blue aster

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota

pollinators are popular. everyone is talking about them. everyone is rooting for them. well, at least those of us with a conscience are. these milkweed seeds were mailed to me by one of steve’s clients. she saw our beehives, and immediately recognized a kindred spirit. she hatches monarch butterflies every spring, and as a result has become a milkweed evangelist. a johnny appleseed of milkweed. as she left the house, she said “i am going to mail you some milkweed seeds.” and indeed two days later a hand stuffed package of seeds arrived. i dumped the seeds out onto my white tag board to photograph for STILL.  the white silky floss normally attached to the seeds quickly took flight and eventually settled into every imaginable nook and corner of the house. but enough seeds stayed put to have their portrait taken.  and i am glad they did, because who knew that milkweed seeds had so much texture and such delicious coffee colors? i will plant these in a sunny corner of my back yard, and then i will practice my polite listening nod for the inevitable time when my ever expansive husband starts talking to me about how we really should be hatching butterflies too. you know, for the pollinators.

milkweed seeds

minnesota

one of the very first signs of spring in minnesota are the pussy willows. as a kid i used to see pussy willows every now and then, and i think i believed that there were some trees that always carried little pussy willow buds on them, and i just happened to see them only sporadically. but if, at any given time, i wanted to see pussy willows, all i needed to do was head out into pussy willow country,  and i would be able to see, whether in march or july or september, little stands of pussy willow trees. i mean, there were strawberries in my lunch all year long. it just required my mom to pick out strawberries that week at the grocery store. everything was possible. i am both happy and sad to have come to the understanding that this year’s pussy willows, and this year’s strawberries, will be the only ones i will see until next year, when i will be one year older.

pussy willow (willow catkins)

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota

here’s a confession. i really don’t like dyeing easter eggs. i did it out of motherly duty for a few years, but the reality is that the kids think they want to dye easter eggs, but what they really want is for mom to do all the hard work of hard boiling and coloring the easter eggs, so that they can arrange them artfully in the easter egg baskets, which takes approximately .003% of the overall easter egg dyeing time expenditure. meanwhile, mother nature has been busy creating colors like the ones above, without dissolving any paas pastel tablets in lukewarm water. i can’t do any better than that, and no longer plan to try.

collection of found and gifted eggs:

goose, duck, pheasant, chicken, quail, partridge, blue bird, cardinal