FEATURED POST

Winter Wait

Crunchy Snow Dunes . Walking an unfamiliar route along the far side of the lake, I came to an area that opens up to a series of low mounds that roll down to the shore. In the summer these will be gently undulating with clumps of feathery grasses waving in the breeze. Now they are still, hard and crunchy, making me think of unkempt snow dunes. All the stalks leaning uphill, the breezes swept up from the frozen lake and bent them backwards. " I am winter’s meadow

Jan 301 min read

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TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Winter Wait

Crunchy Snow Dunes . Walking an unfamiliar route along the far side of the lake, I came to an area that opens up to a series of low mounds that roll down to the shore. In the summer these will be gently undulating with clumps of feathery grasses waving in the breeze. Now they are still, hard and crunchy, making me think of unkempt snow dunes. All the stalks leaning uphill, the breezes swept up from the frozen lake and bent them backwards. " I am winter’s meadow

Jan 301 min read

Joyful Weeper

Hints of Gladness from a Golden Willow . My digital tree identifiers could not agree about this exuberant tree basking in the afternoon sun. One said hazelnut, another identified it as a Peking lilac, another said eastern leatherwood, but I’m going with golden willow, salix alba ‘Vitellina' - partly because it agrees with my most reliable source and partly because I kind of remember this tree from the summer. The golden willow has more of a ‘spreading habit’ than a ‘weepin

Dec 31, 20251 min read

Decked out for Christmas

Siberian Crabapple Adds a Festive Touch. This is most certainly a crabapple but is it really the Siberian variety? With over 1,000 known varieties of crabapples, 120 of which are cold-hardy enough to thrive in Minnesota, it’s hard to know for sure. While my non-local friends consider any winter day in Minnesota to be Siberian, today’s fresh, invigorating conditions invite an outdoor stroll and reward the walker with spectacularly blue skies and trees decked for the holiday

Dec 26, 20251 min read

Builder With a Memory

Hornets Hold A Grudge. Walking my trail this afternoon, waiting for winter to come, I noticed this hornet’s nest high in a tree. It’s the home of a bald-faced hornet – one of 100,000 different species of wasps (also called yellow jackets). Easy to identify by its single large opening in the bottom, a hornet’s nest really is something to admire – from afar. Admire – because it's a stunning example of insect engineering. Worker hornets chew up wood fiber and mix it with saliva

Nov 25, 20251 min read