Last weekend as I was driving home from Iowa to Minnesota I was reminded of the beauty of the Midwest heartland. No big looming mountains, no expansive oceans, no rugged red rocks. But there’s a vastness of the land that spreads from horizon to horizon. Here’s the area responsible for much of the food that’s delivered to our tables, and this land goes through the temperature extremes of freezing, thawing, flooding, and drought. While I was driving on the interstate I kept one eye to the western sky and the colors that were building up to sunset. As the pinks were glowing I pulled off onto a county road; the smell of soil and cool winds came wafting through the car’s open window. This one field was between seasons with some snow still clinging to the cold earth, the soil that was thawing, and the ribbons of water and puddles that were reflecting the last light of a beautiful day and sunset. So much to be thankful for in this spring season of hope and renewal!
Minnesota
Store-bought spring
Spring has been hard-to-come-by in Minnesota. Although we’ve had some warmer temperatures they seem to be interrupted with cold fronts and more snow. Desperate for spring, I decided that even store-bought color would count. Yellow and green are the colors that represent the hope and promise of spring, and these lovely yellow tulips were calling to me at the store. With some sunshine and temps in the 40’s, I took my spring bouquet outside to photograph. A little bit of filtered sunshine seemed to bring them to life. What you don’t see in this image is the white snow that still covers the ground in places. But I can look at this image and focus on the promise of spring to come.
Sentinels to winter
Winter made a comeback this week with a snowfall in the early morning hours. Fighting the slow traffic with the other commuters, I decided to get off the highway and visit a small local arboretum in Roseville – Central Park. I waited to park the car as the snow plow operator made his carefully practiced swipes of the lot, clearing the area in short time. I then had the quiet and the stillness of the park to myself. The landscape was white in all directions until I walked past a grouping of paper birch trees. Their peeling bit of color provided a contrast to all the snow. The birches and the small twigs seemed to be sentinels of winter with their watch over the cold and snow. In the distance I heard a single Canada goose honking as he took to the air, and somewhere a cardinal was welcoming the day. I then heard something I couldn’t recognize. Turning around I saw a cyclist winding his way down the path, leaving a single line of tire tracks in the fresh snow.
The tug of war between winter and spring
In the Midwest we experience a tug of war between winter and spring. The roller coaster of temperature swings, along with the snow, ice, and thawing, keep us in a limbo between the seasons. Just this past week we had enough snow melt that many things have become visible once again. The warmth of the sun melted all the snow off our yellow chairs and even caused the snow to recede enough to expose some of the lawn, albeit brown. The snow itself has lost its whiteness, instead looking pocked and littered. We navigate large puddles and potholes during the day, and track carefully across those same items covered in ice during the night and early morning hours. Soon (?) the tide will turn, and spring will win out. In the meantime, we keep coats, gloves, boots and snow shovels close by.
Waiting for spring
With moderating temperatures, we headed out for some snowshoeing last night. North of the Cities is a small Isanti County Park called Wayside Prairie County Park. We pulled into the parking lot an hour or so before sunset with the hopes of exploring this small park. We traipsed across the frozen lake, following snowmobile tracks, to the southern shoreline. This lovely little cabin was perched on the hillside, overlooking the frozen lake to the west. With its tiki torches still attached to the dock supports and the yellow lawn chair overturned at the end of the dock, it looked like the party had ended right before the start of winter. As we gazed at the sunset reflection in the window of the cabin, it was fun to dream of what this little lake is like in the middle of a warm summer, after the spring melt. We toasted the summer to come, then turned around and snowshoed back across the lake, remembering that winter will loosen its hold on us eventually.
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