Spring has blossomed quickly in the Twin Cities. Leaves have budded and opened, the grass is green, tulips are in bloom, people are out and about working in their yards and soaking up the sunshine. We even have been serenaded by the returning sound of lawn mowers. I happened upon another spring sighting yesterday when I saw a mother duck with her nine ducklings at a small pond. As she sat on the shoreline, a couple of the ducklings ventured far and wide in the pond, darting right and then left, snapping up bugs wherever they found them. Their erratic behavior made them a photographic challenge, but I found myself smiling and enjoying their playfulness and energy.
spring
Ladies weekend
A sure cure for stress is a weekend trip to a lake up north. Add in a group of wonderful friends and a cabin on a lake and everyone comes away in better spirits. It was ladies weekend on Lake Mary, south of Alexandria. We got out of our cars on Friday night, walked into the cabin and left our stress behind. From then on it was relaxing, laughing, resting, and sharing — it was decompression of the best kind. Throw in a beautiful sunset with the slightest of water ripple near the shore, a sky full of twinkling stars, a deck overlooking the lake with the warmth of the sun on our backs, and wonderful conversation; five friends found it hard to pull ourselves away today to return to the cities and our upcoming Monday.
Pasque flowers
Snow last Thursday, followed by 65 degrees and sunshine — it all provided moisture and then warmth for the early blooming wildflowers in Minnesota. Amidst a gravel prairie about 50 miles from the Twin Cities is a place where pasque flowers are abundant. And if your timing is good, the entire prairie is filled with these small diminutive flowers. Only two to five inches tall, they are hard to notice from a distance, but it becomes quite magical when you see an entire hillside covered by these flowers. With the warmth of the spring sun, and the golden colors of the late evening, we spent a wonderful few hours amongst the pasque flowers.
A rite of spring
The in-between season of spring — when we hope for the colors that were vacant in winter. Spring in Minnesota is volatile, swinging from snow to rain to warm to cold. We’ve experienced it all this past week, but we also know that spring will prevail and color will return. I was craving some of that color and resorted to store-bought tulips (since the ones in the ground are barely one-inch shoots right now). Every time I walked by the tulips I was reminded that spring will come, that warmth is around the corner, and that the Easter tradition of hope remains a part of us.
Wishing for spring
The calendar turns to March, and our wishes turn to spring. The cold and hardness of winter is still around us, but this is when we yearn for the softness of spring – for color, thawing, and green. In Minnesota, the only place to find that now is at the McNeely Conservatory in Como Park – our very own oasis of spring. These daffodils represent the hope and promise of spring to me. The yellow of sunshine, the green of new beginnings, and the softness that starts the season of spring. Soon……
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