our household has a busy season and a slow season. this is our busy season. my husband steve is a tax guy. from mid-january to late april, he will put in nearly a year’s worth of work, spending seven days a week down in his office. but it buys him six months off (mostly) during the remainder of the year. and he likes that bargain. the kids add some intensive piano practice to their homework this time of year, because this also happens to be the six-week season of a state-wide piano competition (both kids are finalists!). normally, all this busyness works, because i have flexibility and can pitch in to make sure all the i’s get dotted and all the t’s get crossed. but this week, the cold weather handed us a frozen boiler pipe in one of our rental properties in minneapolis. steve will be dealing with that by text and email tomorrow, between and among his seven tax appointments. and i have an extra agenda item too. remember that little local company i mentioned a few weeks ago? well, i have been a busy beaver putting materials together for them at their request. i deliver my first milestone on monday. and boy oh boy am i looking forward to a little down time and a return to routine. anyway, as a result of all the reviewing of my portfolio i have been doing, i ran across this junco wing photo i never published before.  “one from the cutting room floor” they call it on instagram.

junco wing

saint paul, minnesota

insulation is just a fancy way of making air stand still. in minnesota one of the concepts you grow up knowing about is r value. windows, doors, fiberglass insulation, down jackets, all have an r value, meaning a particular resistance to the infiltration of heat or cold. when air is moving, it has almost no r value. that’s why wind feels so cold. trapped air, on the other hand, has the kind of r value that can keep you warm through the coldest night. it’s something you think a lot about when you live in minnesota with a short haired dog, a small flock of fluffy chickens, a newly balding husband, and 30 below windchill blowing in across turtle lake. the coyote in this photo trapped a lot of air inside that wiry fur. it kept him warm through several winters, until something blew in from highway 88 that couldn’t be resisted with r value.

coyote tail

minneapolis, minnesota

these elegant locks are dangling from an egret breeding plume–the delicate, showy feathers egrets and herons grow to attract a mate when breeding season comes upon them. i wonder if they spend as much time admiring their reflections in still shallow waters as our daughter, who is technically, I suppose, approaching breeding season, spends looking at herself sideways in the bathroom mirror, checking out her own breeding plumage.

egret feather

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota

i pick up feathers when i find them. i have a nice collection now. this photo is a just a sampling. i happen to live in the community that i grew up in. i was a tomboy. i spent hours upon hours outdoors. building forts and generally staying out from under the surveillance of adults. i can say with certainty that we didn’t have any of the large birds i see so abundantly today–no turkeys, no owls, few hawks, few herons, few pheasant, and believe it or not, hardly any geese. and absolutely for sure, no swans. and here we are, 40 years later, and these birds are regular and visible residents and neighbors. about 40 years ago or so, the US finally banned the use of DDT. i wonder…

found feathers from large birds: goose, eagle, hawk, owl, fowl, pheasant, heron, turkey

all from minnesota except the fowl (pintade) feather which is from france

i was trying to write about a flicker wing that sort of disintegrated on me this week, and the scattered parts found their way into several different photos. i was struggling to describe this in an interesting way, when steve walked by my computer and said, “hmm. wet flies.”  by which he means not drowned insects, but trout lures. there is no open water anywhere around us. the windchill is 19 below right now. he spent all day in his office, looking out the window while his tax clients handed him w-2s and 1099s. now i know where his mind was.

flicker feathers

saint paul, minnesota