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Windows of Time

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I’ve had these windows of time in my life when much more was happening beyond the physical, conscious, daily occurrences. When I was younger, I was completely oblivious to them beyond a faint acknowledgement of not feeling so great. It could be in the form of physical discomfort or uneasiness or of a mental or emotional fatigue or depression. After a close friend of mine died when we were in our early 30’s, I had this window of ‘off’ time every year in early February. It was only after a number of years of this happening that I realized my ‘off’ time was the anniversary of his death and his birth. My body and mind were mourning the loss of my dear friend without my conscious knowledge. I ‘knew’ the anniversary of his death and birthday—a window of time of only a few days apart—in essence, without ‘knowing.’ Therein lies the incredible, miraculous marvel of our human bodies, minds, and souls.

Once I realized this connection, it made those times easier to handle. Of course I feel sad and down—I miss my friend, I loved him, and he was a joy to all who met him. The whole earth was missing a great soul who left far too early. That’s how important we each are in the whole of creation. The end of April and the beginning of May is another of those windows of time for me. It marks the deaths of Chris’ Mom and Dad who died two years and five days apart. Since I was intimately familiar with the anniversary mourning time, I used it proactively to set aside that time to honor them. I put pictures of them on our mantel, we recounted stories of them, and I ‘shared’ with them about our family. As the years passed—for now it has remarkably been sixteen and eighteen years since their deaths—the mourning morphed into a window of time of gratitude and peace. I still miss them and love them and carry them with me.

It was during this window of time when Chris and I walked at a nearby park. Our daily walks are usually faster—no tarrying for picture taking—but I took the camera in anticipation of a spectacular blooming. Good thing I did. The curled leaves of the Bloodroot flowers had opened up into a fan-tourage of magnificent flower display.

But the spectacular blooming I had anticipated was that of the White Trout Lily. From green and brown mottled, tulip-like leaves grows one exquisitely formed, curved, nodding, white flower with protruding yellow stamens and prominent white pistil.

They begin as a pink-colored bud that opens during the day and closes at night. The blooms last for just a few days, making it all the more magical to see them flowering.

The floodplain of this lowland by the Mississippi River was a carpet of White Trout Lilies—millions of them by my inexpert estimate. These colonies can be hundreds of years old, as it takes one plant six to seven years before a flower is produced. These early-flowering carpets serve as ‘nutrient pools’ for the entire forest. Without them, the spring run-off would take the nutrients with them, but instead the Trout Lilies take up nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. By mid-summer the leaves die back and release those nutrients for the vibrant summer growth. They remain dormant, underground, until the next early Spring.

As the White Trout Lilies bloomed, sedge grasses and ferns pushed and unfurled from the damp soil—green is once again the dominant color!

A couple of Anemones bloom at this early Spring time in Minnesota, including False Rue Anemone with its prolific, branching white flowers that seem to dance in the breeze.

A Canadian Goose pair ate and strutted in the back water of the River and gave no bother to us as we walked by.

The feathers of the impressive gander rippled like the water in which he walked.

Farther on, another goose was dipping its black bill into the shallow water, but when it saw and heard us, it turned and swam away, honking in alarm for long past the time we were in sight.

Tiny blue violets bloomed along the trail in sharp contrast to the leaf litter beneath it.

And then I saw the turtles! A large, fat-necked turtle sprawled over a log in the River slough water, legs hanging over the sides to balance him for a sun-soaked nap. Heads were raised when they heard us, but their concern was not great enough to scramble from their perches into the water.

Beside the log turtle was another on a large rock below. Reflections multiplied the logs, rocks, and turtles as a single, red Maple flower floated by.

The next set of turtles on a log made me laugh out loud. Another fat-necked turtle had a smaller, flatter turtle as a ‘pillow’ for his rest time, and behind him, two colorful sentries guarded the rear with their watchful neck maneuvers.

Another turtle trio of different sizes piled on a log with their eyes and noses in the air. Such funny creatures!

And finally, towards the end of our slow, beautiful, enchanting, funny walk, I saw this tree stump in the slough water. Moss was growing around the circumference of the bark-stripped trunk. Old, tan grass remained from the past, while new green grass was beginning to grow. A stick was propped up against the stump like someone had left a walking stick for another. Ripples and shadows and floating plants surrounded the stump, and in the middle of the stump grew a small, newly-leafed out tree in the freshest, most vibrant green!

We are the vibrant trees growing from the ones who came before us. They are the exquisitely blooming flowers who become our ‘nutrient pools’ who nourish us in our growth. The windows of time, those anniversaries of death or trauma that are remembered in our bodies, encoded into our brains, and carved into our souls, are there for a purpose. We are supposed to remember in order to transform the grief and pain into something of substance and form, of beauty and peace, so we can recognize how important we each are in the whole of creation. Take up your walking stick, give thanks for those loving souls who came before us, don’t get bogged down by the petty, muddled world around us, and find joy in fleeting flowers and sun-bathing turtles.

Darkness Brings Promise

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Spring sunsets look like promise to me, which seems backward—one would think sunrises bring promise with the beginning of a new day. So I’m not sure what it is exactly that makes me think that, but I do know promise arises from some very dark situations.

Fire-scorched earth greeted a friend and I when we arrived for a morning walk at St. John’s Arboretum. It’s rather shocking to see acres and acres of blackened prairie and wetland. There were no more smoldering embers, but the acrid smell of smoke and ash swirled into the air and into our nostrils with the stiff breeze. The trail was the line of demarcation as we walked—on one side was the black earth, on the other side the brown and greening prairie.

Among the old, brown grass and new, green shoots, we found a clump of Pasque flowers—early bloomers of the prairie. The pale purple flowers were closed; the long, silky white hairs that covered the whole plant shone in the sunlight. The state flower of South Dakota, Pasque flowers are dear to my heart. They are known by some as May Day Flower.

Prescribed or controlled burns of prairies are a common tool to manage the land. Fire destroys invasive and woody plants, thus improving the native plant community. It quickly returns nutrients to the soil by way of the ash as opposed to years of decomposition of accumulated dried grasses.

A yellow-stemmed willow, a woody plant, is out of place on the prairie. While the matted, dried grasses provide protection for perennials over the cold Winter, it takes much more time for the prairie to ‘turn green.’ The black, burned side soaks up the sunlight, which warms the earth, the root systems, and the growth crowns of the grasses and wildflowers that remain. As stark as the burned side looks now, it will be lush and green before the other side. There is promise in fire.

So although it doesn’t look like it, much remains after the fast-burning prairie fire.

Since it was a relatively dry Winter without much snow, and early Spring was also fairly dry, the ‘wetland’ of cattails and rushes could also be burned this year.

But on the other side, the old, brown stalks of cattails and rushes gave cover to the nesting waterfowl. This young-looking Canadian Goose was frozen in her long-necked posture when we walked by on the boardwalk. At first I wondered if she was injured, but later I realized that she was probably just alarmed for her nest of eggs.

Her mate flew in as we walked on, so we backtracked to see that the female was in the cattails, probably at her nest. A nest full of potential.

As we left the prairie and wetlands, we entered the forest and saw what I was hoping to see—blooming Leatherwoods! The tubular yellow flowers hung from the tough, flexible branches of the understory shrubs.

This little Leatherwood tree looked like a child to me—fresh and bright, strong and pliable beside the tall, mature forest trees. The embodiment of prospects and hopes.

A fallen tree had scattered across the trail. It was unusual in that it had been so far-decayed while standing. Usually a dead tree falls and most of the decay process happens on the ground. The light amber wood of this tree was dry and crumbly, like a Jenga tower tumbling to the ground.

Bright, vibrant Fan Clubmoss and Shining Clubmoss grew from the old leaf litter, like miniature Cedars and Pines. Evergreens keep hope alive even through the longest Winters.

A small hanging nest, last year’s nest, was visible on the bare, budded branches. There will be new nest building and some re-use of old as the Spring promise of new eggs and new baby birds unfolds.

Nature embraces and expresses duality in most every aspect—the dark of night and the light of day, fire and ash and new, green growth, exposure and protection, decay and flexible growth. Should we think our lives would be any different? We are a part of Nature, her sons and daughters who start from eggs and grow and develop with protection and vulnerability. No matter what scorches us, our roots remain, and we can rise like the Phoenix from the ashes. That’s how sunsets show us promise, how first flowers display hardiness, how the young goose reveals potential, how Leatherwood demonstrates flexibility, and how the Jenga tree explains the cycle of Life.

Forest of Fame

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“All is ephemeral—fame and the famous as well.” –Marcus Aurelius

We should all be famous for something, I think. Perhaps it’s for a delicious potato salad, or a penchant for perfectly coifed hair, or a subtle, truth-telling sense of humor. Fame is one of those things in life that is bestowed by the audience, the onlookers, the admirers, the wishful want-to-be followers, or in this day and age, even the haters. The intrinsic nature of fame is attention from the outsiders.

The park we went to last weekend had a claim to fame that was mentioned on a website, the signage, and the map—the highest point in Wright County, Minnesota! Yep, all 1232 feet! Two official markers embedded in cement were in place beside the trail, one with an arrow that pointed to the other. We were confused if the 1956 was the altitude or the year, then realized the map said we were 1232 feet above sea level.

As we looked around from the highest point in Wright County, all we could see was trees—brown leaves and trees—brown leaves, blue skies, and trees. My fame fandom moment slipped away.

It was actually quite a beautiful forest of Oaks, Maples, and Basswood, even though the leaf buds were barely showing. At this time of year I appreciate seeing the topography of the land—the hills, lowlands, and gullies. One can get a sense of the ‘lay of the land’ when only gray trunks and brown leaves populate the landscape. And then we began to see signs of Spring—a glimpse of things to come that will change the landscape into a growing, vibrant, green oasis.

Mullein
Red Columbine
Bloodroot

It is startling to see a butterfly so early in the season, but the Mourning Cloak hibernates in hollow trees and logs during the Winter and comes out on warm days to feed on Oak tree sap. They are called “Harbingers of Spring!”

A decaying, uprooted tree looked like a work of art in the barren landscape. Nature teaches us that all stages of life and death are valuable and beautiful in their own unique ways.

We took a spur of the trail to an outlook and picnic area. Under the brilliant blue sky and fluffy clouds, we ate our picnic lunch and warmed ourselves in the sunshine—human butterflies perched on a picnic table.

We only saw a few people the whole time we were there, so we shared the woods with the trees and the Spring Peepers who serenaded us during most of our hike. It’s such a sweet sound!

They are cautious little Peepers, because when we finally got close to the lowland water where they lived and sang, they silenced themselves when they heard our voices!

We saw more woodland art on a boulder. I suspected the origin of the etchings were from a machine that blazed the trail, but that didn’t detract from the fact that it was interesting.

There were a few stands of Pines throughout the deciduous forest that rose in green to the blue sky. They whispered and sang in melodious concert, orchestrated by the wind.

Bloodroot flowers had been unfurling in small patches or singularly by warm trees all along the trail. They are amazingly pretty white flowers that bloom while still cloaked in the curled leaves that protect them from the cold. The sap from the plant is red-orange and has been used as a natural dye. The seeds of this early-blooming flower are spread by ants, Mother Nature’s tiny workers.

While Bloodroot is probably the first woodland flower to bloom, I was looking for other Spring ephemerals, too. About two-thirds of the way along the looped trail, I finally saw the gorgeous Sharp-lobed Hepatica bursting from the leaf litter! Like many other early-blooming flowers, Hepatica has fuzzy stems to protect them from cold nights and occasional snowy days.

On the woodland floor, the leaves of Hepatica are usually hidden under the old leaf litter, but beside the warmth of a large tree trunk that is flowing with sap, the flowers are displayed with old and new leaves.

Fame is something many aspire for, perhaps even more so in this YouTube/TikTok age, but many who have acquired fame lament how it impacted their lives. Albert Einstein said, “It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.” Elvis Presley is quoted as saying, “Fame and fortune, how empty they can be.” When fame comes from the outside, whether that is from media coverage of George Floyd’s death or millions of followers on social media or the latest, greatest singer (both of which I have no idea who that is since I don’t follow things that way), the story is written by the outsiders. Imagine for yourself a life of fame from the inside.

“Fame for me is not external, it’s internal. So I’ve been famous for a long time.” –Lady Gaga

What are the origins of our internal fame? Our personalities, our God-given talents, our penchants and skills, and the qualities that were nurtured in childhood all add up to make each one of us an interesting and compelling person. We are each famous in our own unique way, no matter how many ‘fans’ we have. So we have to ‘own it,’ and I’m talking to myself here. The ‘famous’ highest point in the park was the least interesting thing about it! Look closely at yourself. Find your beauty. Listen to your subtle song. Appreciate your gifts. Claim your fame.

Beside Myself

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I was beside myself this week. And I had moments of satisfaction and happiness. But mostly I was beside myself—overcome with worry and anger and extreme sadness. We have made progress—good, satisfying progress on our church becoming a trauma responsive church. It is a nascent initiative that holds great promise, and it is extremely difficult to navigate into a practical, workable existence. Especially in a week like this one. The George Floyd trial wrapping up in Minneapolis. Another shooting death of a young black man just north of there. And so many other mass shootings in just one week’s time that I can’t even keep track of them. Then a friend with a devastating diagnosis, and the untimely death of yet another who deeply felt the pain of the world. Trauma upon trauma is piling up on us all, and the more vulnerable are paying an unsustainable, body- and soul-pounding price. And with each and every one trauma, the ripples of distress and devastation roll out into the lives of families and to society as a whole. I am not exaggerating.

This week’s weather has depicted the ups and downs of the week at large. A beautiful, life-sustaining rain gave rise to opening leaf and flower buds. After the long Winter months, there is a hold-your-breath moment when dormant trees and plants begin to show that life is once again flowing and growing. With a sigh of relief and wonder, I whisper, “There it is.”

‘Life-sustaining’ is a phrase that should be on our lips and our minds in all we do. Is this a life-, person-, earth-sustaining practice? Animals, plants, and people alike respond to practices and gestures that sustain life.

By mid-week, clouds rolled in again. As snow fell, I sent a card to a dear old friend, happily baked a cake for a young one, and laughed on a phone call I received.

The news can be devastating and yet we put one foot in front of the other. We gather our food and nourish our bodies. We help one another the best we can, even when our attempts seem to fall far short of what is actually needed.

We are all in this together—in this society, on this Earth, in this time in history.

By the end of the week, we had sunshine, warmth, and blue skies.

Sun-drenched catkins will produce pollen or seeds before leafing out in the life cycle of a Poplar tree.

Honeysuckle shrubs produce leaves before flowering. Every Spring plant and animal is intent on creating and sustaining life. Therein we have Hope and Beauty.

The phrases ‘beside myself’ and ‘out of my mind’ are used to describe the dissociative ways we deal with overwhelm and trauma. We are not ourselves—literally—in body or mind when events or occurrences produce such overpowering sensations and feelings. We make space, turn away from, become ‘not like me,’ do things and say things we may regret later. We step out of our bodies and ‘lose our minds’ when the trauma is ‘too much,’ when the discord between our life view and reality is so great that we literally can’t stand it. Many people are experiencing ‘too much.’ A common way for people to turn away and make space from overwhelm is to try to ‘calm’ our bodies with something that makes us feel better—I tend to use food, others use alcohol, drugs, shopping, or gambling. They are coping mechanisms that can lead to addiction and to other collateral damage. So while it seems like a good idea in the moment and can actually give us some relief temporarily, in the long run, it can be much more problematic. So what do we do? We start small. We find small things that give us a feeling of relief or happiness or satisfaction. I do qigong every morning to stretch and move my body. Yoga works. Running works. I walk in Nature to calm my body and mind. Hobbies work. Reading works. Connecting with others in some form of affirming communication is probably one of the greatest life-sustaining practices we can do. Love and acceptance activates the parasympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system that calms our body and minds. And once again, life is flowing and growing.

Another Time, Another Season

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I remember those times in my life when change was abrupt, when my life on one side of an event was completely different from the other side and when there was a glimmer of knowing that life as I knew it would never be the same. Some of those events were life-changingly wonderful—the day I met Chris and those three December days I gave birth to our children. Joy was the gift of those days. Others changed my life with gut-wrenching sorrow and disbelief when even the thought of getting through it was untenable, let alone any possibility of healing. How slow the hours drag by when one is in pain.

It is at this time of the year when pictures from a week ago can seem like they are from a different season. A week ago the temperature was abnormally high, the ground was dry, and winds were strong enough to warrant red-flag warnings in multiple states, including Minnesota. This week we have had rain every day—steady, consistent showers with perpetual cloud cover and cooler temperatures. The Spring world has soaked it up and responded—grass is turning green, Forsythia are blooming in sunshine yellow, and leaves are emerging from the dormancy of Winter. Change comes swiftly, eagerly, and joyfully.

Our Easter hike with Aaron and Zoe was at Crane Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, southeast of Little Falls. Wherever I hike at this time of year makes me feel like I have come at the ‘wrong’ time. The snow is gone, and Spring has yet to show up except for the earliest, subtle signs. The Refuge seemed stark and empty, despite the beautiful blue sky. We followed the Platte River trail through an Oak savanna, the sunlight streaming through the bare branches to the brown grass below.

The Platte River was surprisingly wide as we continued through the restored tallgrass prairie. I wondered what the prairie and the beautiful big Oaks looked like in summer and noted to Chris that we needed to return to this place at another time, another season.

And then we saw the fire-ravaged trees—the benign mediocrity of the prairie morphed into signs of sorrow. Fire is one of those events that can change life forever, whether for humans or trees.

Crane Meadows is part of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge complex where we saw the same fire damage to trees in an Oak Savanna that had been burned. A controlled, prescribed burn for the prairie should not impact the mature trees in such a way, and I wondered what had gone wrong. The loss was immense.

Like at Sherburne, there was a burned tree graveyard, even more stark in the post-Winter, pre-Spring landscape.

The River and cool water gave visual relief from the burned area of trees. A small dam crossed the Platte, widening it into Rice Lake. I wondered if this was a nest of some sort or just debris that had gathered on the rock with high water.

As the River widened into the shallow lake and wetlands, there seemed to be more ‘life’—Pines, Aspens, Willows, and wetland grasses breathed ‘potential’ into the landscape. Soon a green blush will envelop the Aspens, and the Willows will leaf out from the catkins that had emerged.

Rice Lake had a few ducks—a couple showy, black and white Buffleheads and some rafts of Common Mergansers. I was surprised there weren’t more migrating birds, however, and I wondered if we were too early or too late to see them.

Across the lake we noticed an eagle sitting on a point of land that extended into the water. Through a spotting scope at the observation deck, it looked like he was raiding a nest and eating eggs.

On the return trail, we passed by an eagle’s aerie and saw mother eagle sitting on her expertly engineered nest, panting in the afternoon heat.

I think it’s common for us to believe that something happens at the ‘wrong time.’ We even use it as an apology and ‘out’ for doing something—usually by saying “It’s not the right time for me to do this.” Valid truth-telling in the choices we make. But what about the events that are beyond our control? I have waxed and waned about the ‘wrong timing’ of some events in my life—job searching and recessions, health issues and the fall-out, moves and their impact. Valid truth-telling deemed an excuse? Are the ‘wrong timings’ in our lives a nest full of potential or is it debris? Even if it’s a nest full of potential, a predator at the top of the food chain can destroy those possibilities with a swift stroke of power. And when we try to do the right thing to preserve and maintain the ‘prairie,’ things can go wrong and more harm is done—collateral damage is real and abruptly life-changing. Stark, empty sorrow. But there is a difference between burning it down inadvertently and burning it down on purpose. The arsonists of society are too often at the top of the food chain and slip through the cracks of accountability. Was it the ‘wrong’ time for us to go to Crane Meadows? We didn’t see migrating birds or fluttering sweeps of golden Aspen leaves or blooming prairie wildflowers, but we did see the very real and authentic reality of the transition time between seasons. It wasn’t ‘pretty’ or ‘exciting,’ but it was real—like every one of our lives. Scorched trees and dreams. Bland landscapes and routines. Empty wetlands and pockets—or hearts. New saplings and plans. Life-giving water and compassion. Building nests and resilience. A refuge for them and for us. We will return to this place at another time, another season.

The World Beneath Our Feet

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Give me the man who will surrender the whole world for a moss or a caterpillar, and impracticable visions for a simple human delight.

The man who authored this quote was Bruce Frederick Cummings, born in England in 1889. He published a book of diary entries entitled The Journal of a Disappointed Man in 1919. That was also the year he died at the age of thirty from multiple sclerosis. It was only in 1915 when he was rejected from serving in World War I that he learned of his diagnosis and prognosis. Afterwards, he wrote eloquently of his struggle from his ‘naturalist at heart’ perspective. He wrote about his impending death:

To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe — such a great universe, and so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my ‘Soul,’ my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part — I shall still have some sort of a finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me — but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you.

It was because of the rain the day before that the world beneath our feet burst into a lush, colorful canvas. Last weekend’s rain was the first substantial Spring shower of the season, the one to wash away the accumulated grime from Winter’s melted snow piles and the one to anoint the dormant ground with Nature’s blessing. The first to respond to that blessing is an array of mosses and lichens that have been covered with snow most of the Winter. Without traditional plant structures like roots, stems, leaves, and flowers, they absorb water and nutrients like a sponge—plumping up, greening up, and livening up.

A bed of moss makes a desirable, protective seedbed for tiny new trees, helping to keep the ground moist for germination.

Since mosses and lichens have no roots or structures to transport water throughout their system, most grow close to the ground so as not to dry out. When a tree is ‘grounded,’ moss will soon overtake it.

Young saplings looked like they were wearing ‘mossy pants.’

Deer tracks dug into the soft, squishy carpet of rain-drenched moss.

Lime green Plume moss pushed aside the dark purple, rolled leaves of late Fall.

Mosses and lichens are an essential part of our ecosystem, absorbing carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Little stars of Juniper moss twinkled among the Jack Pine needles.

The forest floor, that world beneath our feet, is a community of sticks, leaves, grasses, insects, mosses, seeds, bacteria, lichens, fungi, and others—all living and working together in a symbiotic relationship.

When mosses ‘bloom,’ they produce sporophyte stalks and spores—after the rain, they were already getting to the business of reproduction.

The ‘red coat’ protuberances of British Soldier lichens are eye-catching in the early Spring monochrome…

…as is this light green lichen on the dark wood of a Pine.

Waves of wispy grasses are matted against the moss from the weight of Winter’s snow.

But on this day after the rain, the rejuvenated moss prevails.

Glittering Wood moss—isn’t that the most magical name!?—crawls over a log.

A golden lichen, Reindeer moss (which is also a lichen), and Trumpet lichen are intricate pieces of art on the forest floor.

The world beneath our feet is often overlooked in the practicality of getting from one place to another and in the mundaneness of green and brown. It only takes a closer look to discover a world of infinite variety and exquisite artistry. We cannot abandon ‘impracticable visions’ or ‘the whole world’ in pursuit of a moss or a lichen, but a balancing of those extravagant, exuberant goals with a simple human delight will ground us in our humanity. What would be your pursuit if you knew your days were numbered? A year of a global pandemic and millions of lives lost and grieving should shake us to question that, just as Bruce Cummings did after learning of his prognosis. May the tiny Trumpet Lichens proclaim exultant victory over death, and may we all be anointed with Nature’s blessings. Amen.

Beavers and Burls

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It didn’t take long into our hike before the title of my post popped into my head—beavers and burls. We were at Fort Snelling State Park in the Twin Cities for an outdoor meet-up with Aaron, Zoe, and our niece Stacey. Before we had even crossed the bridge to Pike Island, a beaver tree let us know the permanent residents of the island were busy and hard-working. Lt. Zebulon Pike chose this island for his camp site on his 1805 expedition to explore the upper Mississippi River. He met with Dakota Indian leaders whose people had lived, hunted, fished, and made maple syrup on this island for eons.

Huge Cottonwood trees, with their roots embedded close to the nourishing river shores, were like giants lining the island. And on the huge trees were huge burls. Burls are growths caused by some sort of stress—an injury, insect infestation, virus, or fungus. The abnormal growth contains a plethora of twisted, interlocking knots from dormant buds. The wood is prized for woodworking because of the unusual grain.

Hard work, hardship, building, and healing. The trees were telling us stories.

The beavers worked along a tributary of the Minnesota River that cut across and joined the outlet from Snelling Lake to flow into the Mississippi. While we saw many beaver-cut trees, we didn’t see any lodges or dams or beavers, though we knew they were there. Soon we were following the Mississippi River; the River was low from Winter’s scarce snowfall, exposing sandy beaches on both sides.

The water was clear and cold, inviting Stacey’s dog to wade and drink at various points along our four-mile trail.

The ice-clear River invited an Eagle to peer from his lofty vantage point into the transparent water for a fresh meal. A bevy of boats and fishermen were also looking for fish along this stretch.

Too late for this one.

Zoe’s work for the Conservation Corps on this island is removing Ash trees infected by Emerald Ash Borer like this heavily infested tree. The insect ‘trails’ are called galleries—destructive but artful.

At the point of Pike Island, the Minnesota River meets the Mississippi River. The Minnesota was markedly cloudier and discolored compared to the Mississippi. The two big rivers converged to continue their southward flow.

The Minnesota River side of the island was a typical flood plain of large trees and not much underbrush, but like most floodplains, I’m sure the summer vegetation is lush. The fallen trees were in various stages of wear and decay—covered in moss or stripped bare.

As we circled the island, we returned to the beaver and burl side where ambition and tenacity of the beavers were on full display along with hardship and healing of the Cottonwood trees.

This cut was so recent that the sap was flowing from it.

The trees were telling us stories—of ambition and hard work, of hardship and stress. The old huge ones cannot live as long as they have without the wear and tear of life showing in their boughs and in their core. And so it is with us. Accelerated growth and learning of childhood. Vigor and zeal of young adulthood. Hard work and hardship of our middle ages. Abnormal growth and artful beauty in confronting pain and grief in our lives. Occasional destruction we cannot recover from, but mostly we heal—somehow, some way. The River of Love nourishes us and sees us through another season, another year.

Seven years ago today I published my first blog post with this quote from Rachel Carson. “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature–the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” I have more faith and belief in this quote now than I ever have. Thank you to all the readers who have been with me these seven years and to those who have found me since. Nature holds up a mirror to show where we have strayed and gives us a path to healing. Please join me in appreciating, preserving, and protecting the global gallery of Nature’s abundant art.

Snow Chasers and Bear Bias

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We left home last Saturday with a bare yard—bare of snow, that is, except for a withering pile on the north side of the trees. As Winter was slipping away, I was in search of snow. Earlier in the week we had an overnight dusting, but I saw the Brainerd area had gotten five or six inches. So we headed north, hoping the sun and temps hadn’t gotten to the snow before we did. About ten miles or so south of Brainerd we began to see snow on the ground. We saw large piles of packed wet snow that had been plowed from the roads. I was hopeful we could snowshoe once we got to Northland Arboretum. We slipped into our snowshoes and began our hike on a south-sloping hill. Hmmm.

Birch tree catkins caught my eye, along with a golden patch of ice in the stream. Was it from pollen, a fungus, or sawdust?

Whatever it was, it made for an interesting piece of ice art.

After a short stint on the snowshoes where we pecked our way around too many bare spots, we returned them to the car and resumed our hike on foot, or ‘boot’ rather. Monet’s pond and stream were just beginning to open up; the bridge was not quite as picturesque as when we saw it in the summer.

It was a beautiful blue-sky day! The pine–birch–oak woods held a beauty beyond the brilliant sky and snowy background. There was an ‘aliveness’ about them, like an anticipation of things to come.

A wandering deer was camouflaged in the brush, her slow meandering movements showed no concern for us noisy neighbors.

The Spring sun was working on the exposed places…

while other places in the shadows and in the hidden nooks still had inches of snow.

Our destination this time was to get to Beaver Pond—our last time here we were so inundated by mosquitoes when we got to this part of the trail that all we did was swat and squirm. In our misery, we turned around at the Pine Plantation. In the Winter landscape, we could see the source and homeplace of the hungry mosquitoes—a large shrub bog and wetland.

Pussy Willows were beginning to bloom in the wetland—Spring was here, ready or not.

It was a day for appreciating the amazing clusters of white-bark Birches against the sapphire blue sky—something that gets lost when green foliage covers all the trees.

As we hiked farther north along the Johnson Plantation trail where the only human form of tracks were from cross-country skis, all of a sudden I noticed a trail of very large tracks. When we were at Northland in the summer, there had been a black bear sighting on the day we were there, and on this warm, almost-Spring day, perhaps a bear was coming out of hibernation! Bear tracks, I exclaimed! The palm of my hand fit neatly inside the tracks, a full six by four inches.

The tracks followed the trail; we followed the tracks. In one clearing where the sun had melted the snow, a large pile of fur-filled scat lay among the pine needles.

It was a perfect place for a bear to live—remote, wooded, plenty of food and shelter.

Even though the tracks looked a day old with the melting, refreezing, and melting again, we joked about giving a hungry bear the nut bars in my backpack.

I wondered aloud what had caused these moon craters in yesterday’s slush, and it wasn’t until I was further along the trail that I knew—a plop of wet snow fell on my head from high in the trees. I needed a little personal evidence to figure out my question.

Deer and Wild Turkey tracks intersected the ski trails, and soon the bear tracks left the trail and disappeared into the woods.

We arrived at Beaver Pond where a large lodge poked up through the ice on the far side.

When we circled the pond, we saw an inlet the beaver used and kept free of reeds and rushes so he could swim to the shore and float fallen logs back to the lodge.

Looking back across the pond, we could see the Pine forest, not just the trees.

The ring details of a striking amber-hued cut Oak log revealed the slow-growing and evenly nourished life of the tree that was.

Spring was showing in small, subtle ways in the snow-ice-water where warmth had penetrated the frigid layers of Winter.

Had a bear ripped the rotting wood from a standing Birch to get at insects?

Snow was melting away from Wild Blueberry shrubs on the rocky hills—a delicious bear food for summer.

It had been a beautiful, warm, nearly-Spring day in the wilderness of Northland Arboretum. I was quite thrilled to see the large bear tracks, and had even wished for a glimpse of the critter at a distance. But…here’s the thing…

they weren’t bear tracks. When I uploaded my pictures to the computer a few days later, I looked at the tracks and thought “That’s not a bear!” I looked at pictures of bear tracks compared to mine and said “That’s not a bear.” I looked up animal tracks and animal trails and dimensions of tracks—it wasn’t a bear. My mind was so focused on the bear that was there last year, on signs of bear, on food for bears that when I saw those huge tracks, I ‘knew’ it was a bear. I was bear-biased, even when I should have known the tracks were a canine of some sort—a really large canine.

It never occurred to me that it was a wolf. I thought wolves were only in far northern Minnesota, but I looked at the DNR wolf map, and sure enough, they are in the Brainerd area. My bear was a wolf. A bias or prejudice is a strong inclination of the mind or a preconceived opinion about something. I had both—I wanted it to be a bear, and I had previous information about a bear living there. My mind even over-rode my eyes and the knowledge that I have about what a canine track looks like! And I was closed-minded about a wolf even living in this area of the state.

We have tricky minds. We see what we want to see. Even though I am a scientist and an observer, I fooled myself. The information we feed upon can make up our minds for us. The things we want to happen can obscure what is actually happening. It can make us see things that aren’t there and aren’t true. It can make us blame people who deserve no blame. It can make us hate people and things for crazy, petty, obscure reasons. So how do we not fall into the mind tricks? We slow down. We ask questions. We compare notes with others who may not think just like us. We gather information. We trust our guts, even if things on the surface look great. We look at the forest and the trees, and we watch out for what falls from the top. I asked Chris what he thought the tracks were, and in his skepticism of it being a wolf, he said “Yeti,” and he’s sticking with it.

A Mixed Bag

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For our fresh air and sunshine walk last weekend we went to Mississippi River County Park. This being the messy, melting, still snowy time of year, we prepared ourselves for some slogging and sliding. Instead of slipping down the icy hill to the River, we walked around a nearly-melted open field to get to trails on the topside. The melted snow had congregated into a large pool of water around a sprawling tree—we trekked through the ankle-deep water at the edge of the woods. At first I thought my waterproof boots were no longer waterproof as a wave of cold overtook my feet—luckily I was wrong and still dry-footed. The trails were a combination of snow, ice, mud, water, and dry ground—what a mixed bag, I thought.

The ‘southern’ part of the trail, where sunshine could do its work, was muddy and mostly clear of snow. The warmth of the sun felt like a delicious hug, and my coat choice seemed a bit overcautious as I heated up. We passed a pond of thick ice that had a melted sheen of water glistening on its surface, the old tracks of animals crossing over it still marked in the ice.

Cross-country ski trails were still prominent in the slushy snow where only a week ago, the skiers had inches of fresh snow to glide through. A warm week had made fast work of the melting.

As we looped around to the north side of the park where trees met the River, there was much more snow, and in places, it even crunched under our feet. I was glad for my warmer coat on this stretch of the trail.

The River was also a mixed bag—a thick expanse of snow by the shore was still shaded from the sun by tree shadows. A palette of blues, whites, and grays showcased the melting River ice in all its states.

Back at the picnic shelter, after slowly making our way up the icy hill from the River, we found a message by a chalk artist: “Life can be a little crappie”…

Life can be a little Crappie

and in small letters and parentheses…”sometimes.” It’s a little fishy play-on-words—if you don’t know better, you read it as ‘crappy’ even though the fish name Crappie is pronounced ‘croppy.’ So the artist gave us something to smile about and something to admire, along with an acknowledgement that sometimes things are messy, difficult, or just a little crappy.

Three feet from the fish artwork was a green picnic table with graffiti carved into it:

‘Mixed bag’ is an idiom from the turn of the twentieth century derived from a hunting term that refers to an assortment of birds killed in a single hunting session and put into a bag they carried for game. A mixed bag is an assortment, a mixture, a miscellaneous collection of things often having both positive and negative qualities or aspects. Our hike last week was a mixed bag of trail conditions. Our lives this past Covid year have been a mixed bag in all sorts of ways. There have been lots of crappy things about the year—and you don’t need me to reiterate them—and there have been lots of surprisingly wonderful things, too. Positive, neutral, and negative, an assortment and a mixture, sometimes life is a little ‘crappie,’ and life is good.

The Goodness Takes Over

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Have you ever not wanted a day to end? A day like riding horseback with good companions in warm sunshine? Like an amazing wedding day? Like a longed-for celebration after years of endeavor? Have you ever not wanted a time in your life to end? A time like the carefree college years? Like the close, nurturing time with a baby? Like the busy, fun, crazy days of kids’ high school activities? Have you ever not wanted a season to end?

I may be in the minority, but I don’t want Winter to end—not so early and not so quickly, that is. It’s been an easy Winter. After some early October snow, November and most of December were snow-free and relatively warm. We had a mild January with a few fits of snow here and there. Granted, we had one week of biting cold temperatures in February, and truth be told, it gave me hope that Winter (as I wanted it) was finally here. But the pendulum swung to the other extreme, and the melt was upon us. Temperatures burst above freezing, then crept into the 40’s—in early February, I exclaimed?! My Winter hope was revived with a snow last weekend, just one week ago today—a good four to five inches! Beautiful! I love how the snow hugs the trees.

I love the blue tree shadows on snow, both sun shadows and moon shadows. I love how the cold feels on my face, how the snow crunches under my boots, and how I can ‘track’ the animals that share this world with me.

But very soon the new snow settled and melded together with sunshine and above-freezing temperatures. Each day this week got warmer and warmer. Grass started showing around trees and by the edge of the road. Large patches of grass grew as the snow melted.

Yesterday the thermometer read 50 degrees—was I seeing things? But the evidence was there; there was no denying it.

Most people, I would guess, don’t want to let go of the hot, flip-flop days of Summer…or the blossom-laden, cool hope of Spring…or even the crisp, apple-picking days of Autumn. I meet those seasonal transitions with aplomb, so why am I so reluctant to give up Winter?

It’s like those days, those times, that we don’t want to end. Winter looks good, and more importantly, it feels good to me. There are twinges of regret that we didn’t do enough or even do the things we had planned in our heads. I had two more places where I definitely wanted to snowshoe this season! The good times slip away and often we don’t even realize it’s ending. But what is it exactly that we don’t want to let go of? I think it’s how those days and those times and those seasons make us feel alive. When we lose ourselves in the very moments we are living. When the temperature or the difficulty or the busyness is not even a thought in our head, let alone the headline of our day. When we love the people we are with and the activities we are doing. The Goodness takes over. The giddy, smiling, heart-full, satisfying Goodness that we are blessed to experience. I will feel my sadness as Winter slips away, but with Goodness are miracles. The melting snow uncovers and makes room for the miracles of Spring. Each of those days and times and seasons that we don’t want to end, fills us with Goodness for the next part of our journey towards our next heart-full day in our miraculous lives.