you would think a big 16 inch spire of asparagus standing alongside a walking trail would be impossible to miss, but with everything going vertical this time of year, we almost walked past several of these, and certainly did walk by others that are still standing, obvious and delicious, along this morning’s route. on the other hand our searching gazes did turn any number of other stalks–bracken fern stems, quack grass, buckthorn saplings, willow whips, and one slender green wooden dowel staking out a property boundary–into asparagus.

wild asparagus

sucker lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

p.s. today is my 50th birthday :-)

i can’t explain why, but this image seems to be trying to talk. it reminds me of something on a cave wall that means something i should understand if i could only shut down my left brain long enough. i love the spiral so much, but i don’t know what it’s trying to say.

box elder seeds

sucker lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

i found this turkey feather on the sidelines of my son’s soccer game last night. it was stuck in the ground like a territorial flag reclaiming that corner of chippewa middle school for the nation of the wild turkeys. when we got home we sat on the deck for the first mild spring evening of the year and felt very much as if we were interlopers in the kingdom of the birds. we watched in disbelief as the following parade filed, flew, and flitted past: a pair of american redstarts, yellow warblers, yellow rumped warblers, cardinals, blue jays, crows, chickadees, nuthatches, a white egret, a wood duck pair, red winged blackbirds, three bald eagles, one osprey, and, just at dusk, a family of great horned owls. many of these are migrating through on their way to their boreal summer homes. but some will stay with us for the summer, and all were welcome rulers for an evening of these four grateful subjects.

wild turkey tail feather

chippewa middle school soccer fields, saint paul, minnesota

these rasta birch twigs had each grown a beautiful head of swaying dreadlocks, as they nodded in the spring wind to a sound unlike reggae, in a place that was nothing like jamaica.

paper birch catkins

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota