my son joseph just looked at this leaf and said, “most people would think of a perfect leaf, and they would think of something that is like perfectly green. but that is a perfect leaf for you.” i have nothing to add.

pressed leaf

minneapolis, minnesota

a couple short stacks of sunday morning love for my still blog family. enjoy your breakfast.

beach rocks

lake superior, minnesota

a leaf fluttered out of a journal today, and reminded me that i had a flower press in the basement with a forgotten autumn’s worth of pressed leaves inside. they came out familiar and evocative and beautiful, like all good memories.

pressed foliage

minneapolis, minnesota

i have a green thumb. i am not a plant expert or enthusiast. i am not a horticulturist or a gardener. but i am good at doing a little something every day, and never missing a day. STILL blog is to some extent a testimony to this kind of dogged persistence. one of the results of this trait is that no plants in our house ever die. they all get a little sunshine and a little water almost every day, and so gifts of little baby ficus trees or dwarf orange trees turn into teenaged foster children, growing out of their wardrobes of larger and larger pots, while morphing into gangly indoor jungle plants. our family is currently overextended. i am housemothering and housewifing and chauffeuring as much as ever, while operating under a creative deadline. steve is in the midst of the hell that is march during tax season, while managing some writing deadlines that require an entirely opposite half of his brain.  eva is at capacity plus, with school, ACT prep, speech team, soccer, and a looming physics fair assignment. joseph is practicing for round two of piano competition. jack is not getting out to walk enough. and the symbol of all of this is the leaf i found today, crumpled and brittle on the kitchen countertop. it was telling me that its mother plant needed water, which is a reminder i almost never need. i looked at the leaf, and felt like i had just slept through an alarm, and was late for something.

fallen leaf of unknown identity

from anywhere

the major native american tribe of northern minnesota were the ojibwe (a.k.a. annishenaabe). their translation for the word for march is “crsuted on snow moon”. i learned that reading a loiuse erdrich book. for any of you have lived more than one year in this part of north america, you will know exactly what the ojibwe were saying. the month where occasional warm days melt the top of the snow, and then the cold returns and refreezes it, creating a hard crusty shell on the snow that cuts at your ankles if you try to walk through it. yesterday it snowed big fluffy snowflakes all morning, today the sun shone hard and cold from a clear sky, and the wind whipped through the weave of my jacket. tonight the wind chill will be in the teens below zero. this weekend we may be in shirt sleeves. t. s. eliot may have called april the cruelest month. here in the land of the ojibwe, the cruelest month is the month of the crusted on snow moon. hands down.

march oak leaves with snow

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota