Spring flowers are a wonderful sight to see…. their vibrant, happy faces pop out through the winter’s leftover debris of dead grass, twigs and dirt, and really stand out. Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, scilla are all perky little reminders that spring is in the air.
My neighbor’s one daffodil. 04/04/26
Here’s a fun spring poem:
Daffydowndilly
"She wore her yellow sun-bonnet, She wore her greenest gown; She turned to the south wind And curtsied up and down. She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbour: "Winter is dead."
- A.A. Milne from her book When We Were Very Young (1924)*
My tulips 04/03/26
Often this time of year l buy some tulips to put in a vase to bring a little spring indoors. For several days the tulips stand perky and bright, and then the blooms open wider and their stems start to arch and bend and they take on a wild look.
04/06/26
I love it when that happens. It reminds me of the beautiful messiness of life.
Scilla siberica can be invasive. There is a lawn in Northfield covered in purple scilla… It does look beautiful this time of year. 04/06/26
Purple Scilla…04/06/26
Spring is officially here in Minnesota, yet it usually takes longer to arrive than what the calendar says. But I’m ready for the colors of spring…tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, scilla, forsythia…all signs of hope and rebirth.
Yellow forsythia in bloom. 04/06/26
* If you are in the U.S., you can generally post poems from A.A. Milne’s early collections—specifically When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We Are Six (1927)—without infringement.
With Spring officially here the weather has been a mix of cold and windy, or warm and sunny – which is what I experienced when I visited the farm this week. It was a beautiful day to enjoy the country side, to help feed the animals, to groom Abigail the miniature horse, and groom the two donkeys, Zacchaeus and Barnabas.
Abigail, the miniature horse.
I had a deeper appreciation for the two donkeys this Holy Week as I thought about the poem by Mary Oliver, “The Poet thinks About the Donkey.”
Barnabas and Zacchaeus, the two resident donkeys.
This poem was read at our church on Palm Sunday. It focuses on the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem – how the donkey waited, not knowing what for, then let himself be led and mounted. He was obedient as he placed one hoof in front of the other, and stepped into the crowd.
An excerpt:
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited. Then he let himself be led away. Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds! And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen. Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I had to include this photo of the newest additions to the farm… Jonathan and David. I call them, large dryer balls.
As I was leaving the farm, I spotted my first crocus in bloom this season. Its simple elegance stood out against the backdrop of dried grass and twigs.
A beautiful spring sighting. Photo Credit: S. Holm
On our trip to the north shore, once again we were blessed with beautiful sunrises…always a highlight when we are up at the cabin…looking out over the great expanse of water, Lake Superior. I never tire of seeing the orange ball.
7:12 am March 23, 2026
We did have unseasonably warm weather while up north. On our first day we drove into a park looking for cross-country skiing. The weather had been too warm, so there was none to be found. I asked the ranger if there were any clear paved paths to walk or hike on, and her customer chimed in that he had been looking all around the area and hadn’t found any. It is that in-between season in Minnesota, a lot of slushy-icy-melting snow cover.
The pier at Agate Bay.
It was a beautiful sunny day and since we couldn’t ski we drove into Two Harbors and parked at Agate Bay to walk out on the pier. The path was clear and it is always fun to walk out “on the water.” Along the pier we saw the gentleman I had talked to earlier at the park. He recognized me and said, “looks like we both found some clear pavement to walk on.” And we laughed.
The beacon at the end of the long pier. We saw its warning beam at night.
Soon we were almost to the beacon at the end of the pier. There was a fisherman along the side and he looked like he was struggling to hold onto his pole. Then, I heard him ask the guy (our new friend) who was walking in front of us if he would help him pull in a fish. Now that’s an unusual request.
A net helped to catch this Lake Trout.
The guy willingly hopped down on the ledge and grabbed the large net, ready to swoop in and capture the fish. It took a while…the fisherman kept reeling in the line, and then letting out a little slack to keep the line from snapping…and it took several minutes of alternating between the two. Gary and I stopped to watch the process and take some photos.
It took two people to catch this fish.
After several minutes we could see the fish on the line, in the water, near the surface and it was a big one! A really big one. The guy on the pier with the net went into action and caught the fish in the net. It was exciting. The fish measured 24-30″, from the fisherman’s mid-thigh to the ground.
One big Lake Trout.
I asked the fisherman what kind of fish it was…he said a “Lake Trout”. Nobody guessed the weight, but everyone (a few others had gathered to watch) realized it was unusually large. I took some pictures and the fisherman gave me his text number. I sent the photos on to him and thanked him for “the show.” And we merrily walked back towards shore.
We ended our day by sitting around a bon fire outside the cabin.
Fiery orange in the morning, fiery orange at night, and a serendipity in-between…how splendid.
Several years ago, a new beach opened up to the public near Silver Bay, Minnesota. It’s called Black Beach.
Black Beach on Lake Superior.
It’s along the shores of Lake Superior and it’s made up of small black pebbles…so it looks like a black sand beach, thus the name. This is unusual for this area of Lake Superior. We’re used to seeing rocky shores and colored rocks, so this is a fun addition.
The icy shoreline of Black Beach.
We’ve never spent a lot of time on Black Beach…we just stop by on our way up the north shore. There is parking lot with vault toilets, the path leading to the beach and some picnic tables set back from the water. It is pretty, so it’s a fun stop.
Ice boulders.
So, when we were staying up at a cabin near Two Harbors recently, we took a drive one morning, up Scenic Hwy. 61 and decided to stop at Black Beach to see if there was any white snow left on the black beach.
This shows perspective on the size of these ice drifts.
Wow! Were we surprised! There were humungous ice drifts settled on the beach.
A path through the ice formations.
As we walked out closer to the lake, we realized how large these ice drifts… ice chunks… ice boulders were.
Are we still in Minnesota? This is another view of the path through the ice formations
It was fun and amazing to walk up to the ice formations, and walk through a row of them. I can only imagine what it was like earlier this winter. This is March and they were melting in the 38* weather…icicles were forming on the bottoms of the masses, dripping water back into the lake.
The icicles forming as they drip back into the lake.
In a small way, it reminded me of the sea caves we walked to several years ago near Bayfield, Wisconsin, when the DNR created a path on the frozen Lake Superior so folks could walk out to see the sea caves, usually only seen by kayakers on the open water.
Gary walking towards the lake. The photo is deceiving. There is a big drop off to the beach at the edge of the ice, with ice packs below, lining the shore.
We are continually amazed at the variety of adventures we find on our trips to the north shore of Lake Superior…my happy place!
Cannon Valley Elder Collegium (CVEC), in Northfield, offers learning experiences for learners aged 50+, and has done so for nearly 30 years. Classes are are taught by retired professors or anyone with knowledge on a certain subject, and are usually eight weeks in length. It’s a wonderful offering.
For the second time, I signed up for a class called BrainDance through CVEC. The instructor is a professional dance artist and educator who lives in New York, but grew up in Minnesota and comes back to teach dance classes occasionally.
The BrainDance, is an “official” dance, created by Anne Green Gilbert. It is a sequence of eight developmental movement patterns (adopted from infant/toddler development) that reorganizes the brain, improves focus, and reduces stress.
It is a fun class! We practice the brain dance to music, before moving onto other movements and dances, using our creative minds plus exercising our bodies. I wish this class continued all year.
This picture makes me smile. Each week I put my mat and water bottle under this picture in the dance hall. It brings joy to my heart every time I see it. I remember it from last year too. Sometimes I’d mimic her movement in our free dance.
Each week we took time to practice a choreographed piece to the song “Imagine” by John Lennon. A fitting song for these days. At the end of our eight weeks, we put on a recital! We invited family and friends to watch our “production” and then the instructor invited the audience to join us in a circle dance…which my husband did! He couldn’t say no! Everyone enjoyed themselves.
BrainDance is described as “cultivating joy and enriching your mind, body, and spirit through the power of dance… it improves balance, strength and flexibility…” In addition to all that, I found it to be a delightful and energizing experience.
St. Johns Lutheran Church in Northfield hosts a monthly event called Creating Community for Common Good – Courageous Conversations, and it is open to the public. Their focus is to invite speakers who will “enlighten local and national implications for education, housing, health care and the environment, as well as freedom of expression and equality.”
On this evening, Lupita McClanahan, a Navajo elder from Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly, was the speaker. She’s a storyteller and cultural historian and she drew a crowd. The room was full. Her event was focused on personal resilience and strengthening culture identity through adversity.
When I learned a native American elder was speaking, I knew I wanted to attend and hear first-hand stories of her experiences. Lupita focused on her people’s way, her upbringing. She grew up in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
Lupita McClanahan, Navajo Elder
She explained her people are the Diné people (clan of Navajo) and her upbringing was known as Beauty Way. She told antidotes…how her people would introduce themselves including four pieces of information: first your clan name, then where you come from, who your grandparents are, and finally your name. She told how a baby’s name was whispered into to baby’s ear and not revealed to the community for a long time, how they would hold a celebration for the baby’s first laugh, and many more.
She talked about her experience in boarding school. “They” couldn’t pronounce the names so “they” called people by a number. Her name was Number 55. She was at the school for nine years. She overcame the trauma and chose to become a bridge-builder between cultures by sharing her stories.
She talked about the belief that their purpose in life is to take care of the earth and its four elements; earth and water, air and fire. They believe that the land owns us, we do not own the land, and we must take care of it.
Picture from Canyon de Chelly National Monument, highlighting organization footpathjourneys.com
Lupita currently lives in NW Arizona, when she is not on speaking tours. She lives with no electricity, she tends sheep, grows corn and hauls her own water. She also guides public tours of her native land through the organization footpathjourneys.com
Canyon de Chelly National Monument (Four Corners Area) is considered one of the jewels of the Navajo Nation.
I always enjoy hearing other people’s stories. An hour and a half went quickly and I’m glad I ventured out on this evening to hear Lupita and learn about her Beauty Way.
To continue the public artworks post, here’s more I’ve seen in the past few weeks.
We took a quick trip to Florida to escape the Minnesota winter…only to be greeted by unseasonably cold weather there. O well, we had a good time. 😉
When we arrived in the Tampa (TMP) airport we were greeted by an oversized (floor to ceiling!) pink flamingo. His long pink legs and long pink neck bending down to the ground was fantastic.
In Dunedin, Florida there is an outdoor mural of dogs painted on a building in the downtown area. It takes up two outside walls of the building (one was in the shade and too dark for a photo). The artist called for photos from dog owner’s and then painted the mural depicting everyone’s dogs for all to enjoy.
Also in Florida, there was a well-done public shell exhibit close to the beach. I appreciated the collector’s willingness to educate the public on all the different types of shells found in the area.
Inedible, exquisitely decorated, layer cake.
Inside a restaurant, for all who entered to enjoy, was a tall, beautiful layer cake made of costume, sparkly jewelry. People come up with very creative ideas.
There was a sweet picture in a coffee shop’s public bathroom. A framed print someone probably found just to fill a space on the wall, but this simple piece spoke to me that day. It felt like an invitation to a tea party.
And finally, just the other day we went for a walk in the unseasonable 54* warm weather, along the Cannon River in Northfield. There, new to us (how long has it been there???) was another mural painted on a bridge abutment. There were several beautiful nature scenes.
The credit was only listed @surfaceofbeauty. What I could glean from online was the artist is Natasha May Platt, @surface of beauty, a floral mural artist…from New York!
We so enjoyed the public artwork of lovely floral and fauna paintings that bring hope for spring.
I plan to continue to look for different public artworks that speak to me. May you enjoy looking for all the public artworks in your ordinary days.
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love; it will not lead you astray.” Rumi 1207-1273
“You’re only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” Robin Williams
“Have I gone mad?” asked the Mad Hatter “I’m afraid so,” replied Alice “You’re entirely bonkers, but I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.” Lewis Carroll
Somehow these quotes speak to me of enjoying wonders of ordinary living. Living with abandon and paying attention to all that surrounds us.
One of a “nide” of pheasants that gather in the field in back of our house. I learned a group of pheasants are called a nide.
I do love nature…oh so much. Recently I have enjoyed seeing up to 15 pheasants in the field behind our house. There is so much beauty in nature, and its proven to help our mental acuity when we stop to appreciate it.
Then there are made-made public artworks. I’ve taken more notice in the past few weeks as I’ve tried to be more in tune with my surroundings.
I had an appointment at the Park Nicollet Clinic in Burnsville recently. It is a fairly large facility so there is some walking involved to get from the parking garage, through the covered walkway into the building. There is a wall of posters hanging in the entry hallway. Many people walk on right by this display…I have before. But once I noticed the posters, I enjoyed looking at different Minnesota lakes on this cold winter day, when the lakes are frozen over now.
I’m posting four of the eight posters depicting different lakes in Minnesota.
As I stood admiring them an employee walked by and said to me, “I claim this one” pointing to the Lake of the Woods poster. I replied, “OK, I’ll take the Lake Superior poster.”
I took notice of several other works of arts on display throughout the clinic that day.
Other public artworks that caught my attention these past few weeks were huge (approx. 4 feet X 8 feet) photos printed on metal and posted along an antique store parking lot in Mantorville, of all places…
Rio Grande No. 5771 Photo by Brian Hindal, a local Mantorville resident.
Each photo is taken by a local person with a description next to the photo. There were ten huge photos and a variety of subjects… I’ve included three favorites…
Americana Photo by Cory Ingram, a local photographer, writer, fisherman, and physician.
Sunflower Photo by Annemieke van der Werff
These public artworks are a wonderful way to display local artists and create a warm and welcoming space…even in parking lots!
Also, there is a wonderful exhibit on display at the MSP airport, entitled The Felt Menagerie;
The bird is all made of felt…flowers, feathers, feet and beak.
A collection of unusual creatures by Dustin Black.
Felt fish and felt pebbles.
These pieces were so whimsical. They made me smile…and made me marvel at the work involved using all felt material.
Whimsical felt fishes.
Once you start looking…it’s amazing what you see all around on ordinary days.
The dawning of a new day….7:32 am, January 15, 2026
“To begin, begin”
and
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
Both quotes are from William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
These two quotes resonate with me as a writer. I call myself a writer loosely…I like to write and I write, therefore I am a writer. Maybe not a great one, but it is a creative outlet for me.
Sometimes I get stuck…and I’m feeling that way now. But many “successful” writers offer the same advice as Wordsworth…To begin, begin. Just begin to starting writing. And it usually works…words flow!
My friend, who is a very good writer, expresses herself succinctly all the time, even during times of trials, and she finds it therapeutic. I also find writing therapeutic, to “fill my paper with the breathings of my heart” and sometimes that means to vent frustrations, but I do it for myself and not for others to read.
And that’s where I’m at during these turbulent days we’re experiencing in Minnesota, with killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE. I felt the need to post something on my blog…as to why I’m not posting something on my blog. 😉
