a lot of my nature finds come from walks along the shores of vadnais lake. vadnais was once the water supply for the city of saint paul, so the lake and the land around it has been protected from development, meaning that this gem of an urban lake with its five miles of pristine lakeshore trails is available to the public, although i think of it as my own personal little kingdom. recently engineers have been tinkering with lake levels to do some work to the inlet channel, and the resulting lower lake levels have exposed about 4 meters of beach around the edge of the lake, which i have never seen before and will probably never see again. i used the opportunity to shimmy down the banks and do some bargain hunting among these plentiful shells on temporary display.

fresh water snails and zebra mussels

vadnais lake, saint paul, minnesota

p.s. shimmying at age 50 is indeed as comical as it sounds.