i love the way this little nest sits so snugly in the tangle of this witch’s broom, and i love the random shapeliness of the wispy branches. this was obviously a bird with a sense of place.

rice creek regional trail

saint paul, minnesota

minnesota is a little too far north for most cherry trees.  i get jealous every spring when i see  cherry blossoms arrive in places like washington dc and nashville before we even have ice-out on our lakes. we have our own flowering fruit trees, similarly abundant and colorful, with the difference that neither the fruit nor the word–crab apple–evokes anything like the sweetness of cherries.

crab apple blossoms

saint paul, minneota

after two days of heavy rain, the fiddleheads have burst from the ground with added exuberance this year (despite this one’s slightly doleful hanging head), and are now almost 18 inches high.

fiddlehead fern frond in may

saint paul, minnesota

it is may, and the gray tree frogs trill all evening and into the night, like troubadours singing for their lady loves. we sit on the deck and listen as darkness falls, and remember what it was like to sing all night for no good reason but love.

we found this courtly gentleman hiding between two weathered gray cedar planks of our dock this afternoon. he leaped down into the marsh grass and disappeared, and is probably one of the singers we can hear right now out our open patio door. he is most likely fern green, blending beautifully into his new marshy surroundings, and he is trying to sound, with all his might, like the gray tree frog equivalent of Cary Grant.

gray tree frog

turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota

we are adopting a colony of honey bees from the bee-squad at the university of minnesota.  the hive was dropped off today.  our entomologist becky explained that dandelions and willow blossoms are an important source of early pollen for northern bees.  we have plenty of both.  so we should have some pretty happy bees.

dandelion blossoms

saint paul, minnesota