Seeing Green
March 17, 2012
Here is a celebration of Green for St. Patrick’s Day!
Green candy on my window sill
Green and white striped candy canes
Green buttons
Green thread
Disposable fountain pen with green ink
My favorite sweater, a gift from my friend and colleague Kathy who finds treasures like this at thrift stores.
A new batch of Green Velvet Soup with ham (see my blog post for 12/10/2011 for the recipe)
Green shamrocks on my sister's Bleek sugar & creamer
Watercolor sketch of Bleek sugar & creamer
O March that Blusters and March that Blows
March 13, 2012
“O March that blusters and March that blows,
What color under your footsteps glows
Beauty you summon from winter snows
And you are the pathway that leads to the rose.”
– Celia Thaxter, “March”
Thin ice in the meadow
March weather is fickle. But the iron hold of winter is softening. The melting proceeds unevenly and wonderful abstract shapes form around grasses and leaves.
Thin ice in the meadow
Abstract shapes form around the meadow grasses
The snow melts first around the a dark leaf
Interesting how the snow melts in craters around each individual stem of grass
Leaves Hang Like Socks on a Clothesline
March 10, 2012
Last season's leaves hanging like wet socks on a clothesline
“American beech leaves hang like socks on a clothesline, and they remain there, becoming almost translucent, until early spring.”
– Nancy Ross Hugo, Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees
Sometimes words are written so vividly that you can immediately hold an image of the subject in your mind’s eye. That’s what happened when I read the passage above for the first time. I liked the descriptive simile so much that I copied the words in my commonplace book.
Our Minnesota woods does not have American beech trees that I know of, but I did find other leaves hanging like wet socks on a clothesline. They, too, were almost translucent in this late-winter season.
Leaves pegged to a woody clothesline
Lone leaf like an unmatched sock
Icy leaves before the thaw
Aged to translucence
Ben’s Wildflower Field in Late Winter
March 9, 2012
Looking west across Ben's wildflower field
My brother Ben planted a wildflower field next to the farm’s driveway. It provides a spectacular profusion of mixed flowers during the summer months, but it has its own kind of beauty during the winter. I particularly like that the seed dispersal structures are so evident at this time of year.
Seed heads in varying states of dispersal
I love the calligraphic lines of these grasses, punctuated by flower seed heads.
Dried flower stalks
This dried cone flower looks like it has a Mohawk haircut!
Dried wildflowers
Dried seed heads
Looking across the wildflower field to the red barn
Ink sketch of Ben's wildflowers in winter
Watercolor sketch of Ben's wildflowers in winter
Watercolor sketch of goldenrod
Watercolor sketch of milkweed and pods
After the Storm: The Ice and the Thaw
March 7, 2012
Minnesota woods after the winter storm, before the thaw
“March. I am beginning
to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings
the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost
where the moles have nosed up their
cold castings, and the ground cover
in shadow under the cedars hasn’t softened
for months, fogs layering their slow, complicated ice
around foliage and stem
night by night . . . “
– Luci Shaw, from “Revival,” posted on The Writer’s Almanac
The morning after Minnesota’s snowstorm gave me my only taste of the icy and snowy winters of my childhood. I went out into the woods, while it was still cold, to see the frosty wonderland before it thawed.
Following the groomed trail through our woods
A light touch of frosty ice on the distant trees
Ice-coated branches
An icy wonderland
Young tree against the trunk of an old one
Red oak leaves encrusted in ice
The ice added a bit of sparkle to an otherwise gray and brown woods.
Heavy with ice
The trail through the back woods
A bit of red
Sloppy footprints through the slushy snow
Gone Into the Fields
March 6, 2012
“Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs-
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind,
While the touch of Nature’s art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustom’d visitor:-
‘I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour yields.’”
Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “The Invitation”
Plowed fields under a dusting of snow
I’ve just returned from a week’s trip to Minnesota to stay with my 93-year-old Dad on the family farm. It’s been an unseasonally dry and almost snow-less winter in Minnesota, but a storm passed through during my stay. The farm was on the south fringes of the storm front, and we got just a small amount of snow, some rain, and sleet. My sister, who lives in northern Minnesota, got 10-inches of snowfall in one day!
The farm is quiet in winter. I enjoyed my solitary walks through the woods and fields. Like Shelley, I kept my eyes open to what the Minnesota winter yielded.
Water after it has passed through the culverts under our driveway
Thin ice
My brother raises elk; this is his bull elk (looks like it has a third antler!).
Empty nest
Animal tracks in the snow . . . raccoon?
Dried leaf
Flying Dragons and Demure Crocuses
February 29, 2012
Flying Dragon at the Center for Urban Horticulture
There is not that much going on in the winter gardens at the Center for Urban Horticulture. Or rather, it’s more likely that there is a lot going on, but I just don’t have the training and vision to see it.
Nonetheless, on this most recent visit, my eyes were caught by the calligraphic lines of the Flying Dragon plant. The curling, thorny branches very much evoked the feel of a mythical Chinese dragon.
Flying Dragon branches
And, of course, I was also captivated by the crocuses, poking up demurely from the garden beds.
Crocuses, Center for Urban Horticulture
Crocuses poking up through the mulch
A February Walk in the Union Bay Natural Area
February 28, 2012
Union Bay Natural Area, Seattle
I took a short ramble through the Union Bay Natural Area on Lake Washington south of University Village. There is a puddly loop trail through a wetland area. It was pretty quiet on this winter afternoon.
These dried seed heads were the most predominant plant in the area.
Dried stalk
Reflections
Stalk silhouettes
Back lit stalks
Backside view
A February Face
February 25, 2012
So much going on in our February sky
“Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”
– William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing
I love this mention of a “February” face. Can’t you just picture it? So full of fleeting, stormy emotions. Just like our February skies.
Dramatic, dark gray cloud amidst a paler blanket of gray
I love the glowing light of the sun on these gray-sky days.
Mystery Plant
February 22, 2012
While I was out and about looking for early crocuses, I came across this dense patch of blooming bulbs (or possibly corms). The petals resemble irises, but the plants were dwarfs, no taller than crocuses. I can’t recall seeing them before. But they are very pretty!
Do you know what they are called?
Dense, early blooms
Tightly wrapped bulbs and freshly opened flowers in the same bed
The colors of Spring
Ground-level view
