in minnesota one of your jobs growing up is learning to identify conifers. some of our best trees are “pine trees” although most of them aren’t really pines, they’re firs. you learn to distinguish the flat needles of the balsam from the round bottle brush tips of the spruce. you learn that the white pine has five needles per bunch and the red pine has two. you learn that white cedar has a strange spicy cherry smell when you run your hand over it in winter. and you learn to love the tamarack, not only for its spectacular golden fall phase before it (unlike any other minnesota conifers) drops its needles. but you learn to love it for the comically large round buds it carries all winter long on its needle-less branches. it gives an impression of friendliness. it isn’t trying to blend in. it’s an extravert. like the lovable guy at the party in the loud blazer. hey, nice to meet you. i’m bob. what are you doing in these parts?
tamarack pine cones
st. paul, minnesota
owl feathers were not commonly used as quill pens. usually it was goose or turkey feathers. all i know is that some days, as i look out over a sea of my fellow human beings, heads bowed, right hands raised, staring intently into the screens of their iphones and androids, i want to go back to the time when everyone knew that the flight feathers of big birds made for good writing instruments, and if you were right handed, you wanted a moulted feather from the left wing, so that it would curve out away from your line of sight as you wrote beautiful, longhand script.
european buzzard feather
i have no philosophical or artistic reason in particular to post this flower. i just wanted to share the russet of those dried petals, and even more so, the copper patina of that scaled flower base. no reason. just sharing.
dried protea blossom
another minnesota winter has preserved us more or less intact. it’s time to thaw out, shake off some dead petals, and bloom.
over-wintered daisy
st. paul, minnesota
this may look like a scrap of red pine bark, but look more closely (or google venus of hohlefels), and you will discover that it is really a venus figurine, flaunting its ample hips and showing off its vast child-bearing belly and drawing attention to the place where all human life begins and generally showing the world what it has to reckon with.
red pine bark
vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota
This image makes me feel things I’m not sure how to articulate. It feels vintage and mysterious and a little other-worldly to me. I love it. Also, I’ve learned to call all of our trees here in Portland “evergreens” simply because I don’t know a cedar from a doug fir, I just love them all. You should come here and take some photos!