Spring ephemerals: wildflowers that bloom for only a few days in the spring.
Last week I took a couple jaunts out to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park, one of my favorite parks in the area. Springtime in Nerstand always shows off its wildflowers before the trees leaf out. In spring the sunshine can reach and nourish the plants. We had an especially cold, windy and dreary April, so it seemed the many varieties of wildflowers decided to all pop up at once in May. It was spectacular.
Marsh marigold (yellow) in the background.
I was able to participate in a wildflower walk with the new park naturalist at Nerstrand. As our group walked along the path towards Hidden Falls, he identified many different plants.
Lots of water flowing over Hidden Falls at Nerstrand Big Woods State Park.
Trillium
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
It was a good refresher course for me…each year I like to wander through the park and try to identify the spring flowers. I forget some over the year, and like to be reminded of their names.
False rue anemone.
Meadow Rue
The rare – grown only a few places in Minnesota and nowhere else in the world – the dwarf trout lily, was in bloom. It is always special to see that tiny, kernel of rice-size flower.
Photo taken in 2021. I used my finger to show perspective.
It was a sunny, glorious day as we hiked the trail. Not so windy, as it has been, and is, as I write this post.
Blue skies and spring greens.
A favorite: Spring Beauty
Bellwort
Soon the tree leaves will cover the forest floor in shade, and the beautiful spring flowers will go dormant and wait until next spring to resurrect once again.
It was a dreamy evening, the other night…after dark…sitting on the deck, watching the lunar eclipse. It was called the blood moon. I learned, “a “Blood Moon” happens because the sunlight shining directly onto Earth passes through the atmosphere and is projected onto the moon–giving it a red tone during the eclipse.*” It was amazing to watch. I’ve always been fascinated by the moon……
Photo of a postcard, with a moonrise watercolor by Dee Teller.
This was happening after a long day. We had driven up north of Brainerd – and back home again – to attend my uncle’s memorial service.
The cover of the memorial service brochure. All the stockings of this family hung with care. Christmas 2021.
Uncle Bob was 94 years old when he died, last December. I last saw him in August. He was in fairly good health (he drove us to his granddaughter’s cabin down the road a couple of miles), although his hearing had deteriorated a lot.
A favorite photo of Uncle Bob in Norway.
My uncle, my dad’s brother, was a kind and loving man. He was special to both Gary and I, and many others. His memorial service was well attended. They had a wonderful program and fun photos all around. During the luncheon afterwards, some of the grandchildren handed out a scrolled-up piece of paper with a ditty about…If you find a penny think of Bob. I dismissed it as cute…but not apropos.
Some of Bob Kallestad’s family.
Later, as I was sitting on the deck and going over the day’s events in my mind, I found myself lamenting the fact that I didn’t have an elder in my life to talk things over with anymore. I found myself talking to Uncle Bob a bit that night on the deck, in the dark, watching the moon disappear – and soon Gary came and joined me as we watched the lunar eclipse together.
When we went in for the night, I stepped into my closet for something and as I reached to turn out the light there was a penny on the closet floor. An unlikely place to find a penny.
We were reminiscing about old-time corner grocery stores and Lersberg’s Foods was mentioned as a must see. So, on a recent Sunday afternoon drive we headed for Ellendale, MN a small-town south of Northfield.
The banner for Lerberg’s Foods in Ellendale, Minnesota.
It was easy to find the food market in this small town of about 760. Right there on the main street, on the corner…with the banner indicating Lersberg’s Foods, Est. 1901.
We walked in and immediately felt like we stepped back in time…
Narrow aisles, full of merchandise.
The store was well-stocked and clean, small with narrow aisles and beautiful wooden floors, and one check-out counter.
I was trying to be inconspicuous while taking this photo of the moose-head, with the faded photo of the hunter underneath…
Oh, and there is a moose head displayed on the wall. Apparently, it’s been there a long while, and has become a trademark of the store. There was a faded photo hanging underneath the moose head, of the man (Mr. Lerberg???) who shot the moose and it looked quite old.
The old-fashioned corner grocery store in Ellendale, Minnesota.
We took our time and meandered the three aisles and picked out some groceries to buy in support of the old-time market. Several people said hi or some other nice comment…It was a fun place to visit and worth the drive to see it.
Afterwards we drove the backroads to Owatonna and walked in Kaplan Woods Park.
As we walked along the river trail the other morning, we heard an unusual number of birds singing. The sound ramped up as we got closer to the hundreds of birds we could not see (except for a few in the treetops) but it sounded like a huge choir of birds, and not the normal bird songs one hears in the spring. Loud chirping was more like it. We took notice.
As we walked through this moment, we passed some walkers and they commented on the sound from the birds. I recognized one of the walkers as the orchestra conductor at St. Olaf College…I said to him as we passed, “I think the birds need a conductor.” His group also commented on the number of birds there must be to make loud “music” like that.
Gary and I continued on and all at once there was silence!
Not one bird sound. They all stopped at the exact same moment…for about five seconds.
Silence.
Then, just as quickly as they stopped, the birds resumed their singing again, loudly again. We looked at each other and Gary quipped, “They must have had to turn the page.” I laughed.
The conductor said he’d love to see all the birds take off at once. That would be a sight to see.
I do love birds…to watch them at the feeders and see them in nature, to admire their unique beauty and hear their sweet songs.
Recently, in my writing session, I learned about a new (to me) writing pattern… syllables crescendo up and then decrescendo back down. In my poem that follows, I started with two syllables in the first line, and worked up to seven syllables, then repeated seven, and worked back down to two.
The house my dad built in northeast Minneapolis, where I grew up.
The prompt: Describe a day in the life of your childhood.
Get up.
Eat breakfast.
Do a few chores.
Go outside and play.
The neighborhood gang waits.
Play until it’s time for lunch,
then go out to play some more.
Go inside for supper.
Go out until dusk.
Then in, once more
Go to bed.
Repeat.
Obviously, this is exaggerated, but I do look back with fondness and gratefulness for my childhood. Which was so very different than my husband’s, who grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. His was a happy childhood, too.
My friend wrote a story about ants, which prompted a memory from my childhood involving ants. I grew up in northeast Minneapolis. Across the street from me lived my two best friends: Donna and Diane. This story, and many childhood memories, involve them. I don’t have many pictures of the three of us…but I found a couple pictures from Christmastime with the three of us and my brother.
This photo was taken in 1958 of my brother, Donna, Diane and me (L to R).
Here’s my story: Ants
I don’t remember whose idea it was to sneak treats up to the cabin, but we thought it would be a fun thing to do. My “partners in crime” were my best friends at the time, two sisters who lived across the street from me, Donna and Diane. Our parents were good friends…they met when there was a surge of families moving into a new neighborhood in Northeast Minneapolis, in the early 1950’s.
We moved into the house my dad built when I was six months old, and I grew up there, with the same neighbors for the most part. There was a huge gang of kids in the neighborhood. And it was a fun place to grow up. I didn’t move out of the house my dad built, until after high school.
My parents had a large group of friends (with young families) that connected on a regular basis. They had coffee together, played bridge together, went camping together and rented cabins at the same resorts together. It was a family of friends. And Donna and Diane’s family, as well as mine, were a part of this group from the beginning.
Donna, Diane and I played together daily. We played outside, we had overnights, we played dress up, we played games, we had fun together, we grew up together. So, going up to a lake resort was a common outing for us. I now understand what a privilege it was to go to the resorts…but I guess since our family didn’t have a cabin – yet my parents wanted the cabin experience – the next best thing was to rent one.
As our parents planned another trip, we three girls planned our own shenanigans. I’m pretty sure we had enough to eat on these weekend get-aways, and probably more than enough snacks, so why we thought we needed to buy more snacks to sneak up to the cabin on this trip is a mystery. I know, at the time, we thought we were so clever and sneaky.
We must have pooled our allowance to get money to buy a few treats…maybe chips and cookies …I don’t remember anything other than the watermelon. And it was a half watermelon. Cut and wrapped in saran wrap. That’s a hard thing to sneak into a car, but we were determined.
When we got home from our grocery shopping excursion, we needed to hide the goods until the next morning when we were to leave for the cabin. So…we hid the snacks, including the half watermelon, in the bushes in Donna and Diane’s backyard. It made sense at the time…
Until the next morning when we took our pillows along to retrieve our treats and hide them in our pillow cases. What we discovered was a half watermelon, full, blackened even, with ANTS!
And we were so surprised!!! Little did we know the ants would show up. We learned a lesson that day…do not leave watermelon outside overnight under a bush – or anywhere!!! It’s a fun childhood memory.
This photo was taken in 1969…me, Diane, Donna and my brother (L to R).
Unfortunately, all of our respective parents have died, so we cannot get their take on this story.
Time for spring cleaning
It is a lot of hard work,
But satisfying.
When it’s done, I’m glad.
But, there is always more to do.
For now, it’s enough.
As spring emerges~
It’s time for new adventures.
Wonder what they’ll be?
A clown with many faces.
As we were spring cleaning last week, I brought down a clown that sits on a high shelf, to dust it off. As I was dusting it, I was transported down memory lane.
This clown was from my mom’s collection. She had quite a fun collection. I wish I had taken a photo of all the different clowns she had at one time. Whenever I see a clown figurine, I think of her. She died in 2009.
I kept one of her clowns. It’s a wonderful clown, with masks that can be put on and off its face. Not only is the clown a nice remembrance of my mother, but also, it evokes fond memories from when we would go visit her when my boys were little. They would always ask grandma if they could change out the masks on that clown. She would say “yes”, and they boys would carefully put on a new mask.
After cleaning up the clown, we put it back up on the shelf, where it stands tall (ready to perform for us I think) until the next time.
We went to the world premiere production of Something Happened in Our Town at the Children’s Theatre, in Minneapolis. It was a play written for children to address racism and police shootings, particularly of black men. It was produced to help parents address these difficult subjects with their own children. It is based on a book by the same title, and it was well done.
The stage is set for the play.
The playwright, Cheryl L. West, states in the program, “In a time of reckoning in our country, this work is a call to action, to facilitate the much-needed discussion about inclusion, compassion, and what it really means to be peace makers in our homes, schools, and communities. Hopefully, this story will move us one step closer to healing our racial divide.”
The program.
The young actors did an awesome job. We stayed after the play for a Q&A session, and learned how mature and wise they were, and how much they learned by putting on this production. There were psychologists in attendance at rehearsals, so when there were some difficult scenes someone was there to help the performers process them. I was grateful our church acquired tickets and encouraged us to attend this event. It was worthwhile.
March 27th was the last performance of this play here in Minneapolis. It will be interesting to see what happens next…will other theaters pick up on this play and produce in other places in the country?
Apparently for two years before the 2020 pandemic, Bachman’s sponsored a spring flower show at the Galleria. I didn’t know about it at the time. Now, two years later, after the pandemic, Bachman’s is once again, sponsoring another flower show: AFloral Experience at Galleria ~Sugar Coated.
A Floral Experience at Galleria.
We happened upon it by accident. We were going out to dinner at the Good Earth in the Galleria, after an interesting play at the Children’s Theatre. We noticed there were a lot of flowers in the mall as we walked toward the restaurant.
Beautiful blooming daffodils adds to the honeycomb display.
Blooming cupcakes.
The hostess at Good Earth then informed us the Bachman’s spring flower show was opening the next day!
Ice cream cones: must be strawberry flavor.
After dinner we decided to walk around the indoor mall, and we saw a preview of the bright and beautiful show. It was all set up, and ready for the debut.
Colorful skittles…blooming lillies..
It was fun to see so much color. It was wonderful to see blooming flowers.
Cotton candy clouds create indoor showers.
Silver beads hanging from clouds represent April Showers.
The theme was “Sugar Coated” and it was colorful, delightful…and not crowded (as it probably would be the very next day when the show opened).
A giant gummy bear.
Hydrangea trees…
The show runs from March 27 through April 10, 2022.
Lollipops.
Colorful candy sticks.
Hyacinths about to bloom, set with deep blues and whites, create a stunning display. In a near-by display some of the hyacinths were blooming and smelled so fragrant.
It was a “sweet” surprise, and a great ending to our fun day in the cities.
I always thought it would be fun to be at safely tucked into a cabin on Lake Superior during a November gale. At a previous cabin we rented years ago, the owners had recorded, on VHS, a November storm that we could watch while staying at the cabin. It was always intriguing to see how incredibly high those waves came slamming into the cliffs at that resort.
Snow falling on our rented cabin on Lake Superior.
A touch of sunshine the first day.
We just came back from a couple days on the north shore, safely tucked into a cabin on Lake Superior during a March snowstorm. The waves came slamming into the rocky shore sending up sprays of water into the air.
The lake was full of white caps and the waves coming to shore were huge. Not like a November gale, but still a memorable snowstorm for us.
We managed to get in a hike that morning before the predicted storm. It was fun to walk along the lake, through trees, and we were delighted to find little gnomes along the trail. Three times we came upon these little trolls, cheering us on.
Once back in our cabin we settled in for the rest of the day, and the storm. It was cozy. The snow started falling and the wind was whipping and churning up the lake as we sat indoors, by a nice crackling fire and watched it unfold through the large patio doors overlooking the lake. The amount of snow that fell was not what was predicted, but the wind was wicked, and the lake turbulent.
The warm, crackling fire.
Last year when were we up at this same resort on the north shore in March, the temperatures were in the 50’s and 60’s. This year the temps were in the 30’s with wind chill temps even lower. But no matter what, Lake Superior is my happy place and it was great to be on the shore once again.
Snow falling on an old, picturesque, fishing hut along the shore of Lake Superior.
