As a photographer, I consider myself a visual person. My eyes are constantly moving across whatever scene is in front of me, scanning for details, for patterns, for the beauty of the scene. Yet this week I’ve been attuned to the sounds in the air as we transition from winter to spring. With temperatures above freezing throughout the whole week, we’ve been serenaded with the sweet sound of running water. The gutters and drainspouts are gurgling once again — a sound we haven’t heard since early December. The street curbs are filled with water running from the snowmelt down to the storm drains. Every house and building overhang is dripping as the snow is melted by a warmer and brighter sun. As I was walking in the neighborhood this afternoon my ears caught the sound of a group of young boys playing catch and the distant radio broadcast of a spring training baseball game. I think spring is the one season that’s announced by a cacophony of sounds, all that are welcome with the promise of warmer weather, green grass, blue skies and warm sunshine. Yes, we still have mounds of snow and the sidewalks are becoming small canals as the water melts with nowhere to run, but we have hope in this annual ritual.
spring
Spring color in bloom
It’s winter outside — the ground is covered in white, the temperature is in the teens. But this morning I walked into a breath of spring when I visited the McNeely Conservatory in Como Park. The Winter Flower Show is now on display in the Sunken Garden, and it’s colors and sights are a treat to the eyes as much as its smells and scents are wonderful to experience. The pinks of the azaleas and the pale whites and yellows of the pansies were a beautiful combination of color — soft and delicate as only spring can be. In order to create a “softer” feel to this photograph, I placed a piece of plastic wrap over my lens. It had a wonderful effect of softening the lines and making the image more about the colors and the “feel” of the colors than of the lines of the flowers. As we deal with the snow storm that’s moving through over the next three days, I’ll easily return to my photos and my memories of the smells and colors of the conservatory garden.
Spring blooms
I found the first bloom of spring in my backyard yesterday. Those of you in the upper Midwest know this has been a long and drawn out winter. But we had a delightfully warm & sunny day yesterday, allowing me to clear the marsh grass from the garden beds and do some general cleanup. It was a delight to find the tulip bulbs had emerged about an inch and half above the soil. That was reason to celebrate. But when I uncovered these beautiful little squill blooms I was delighted — our first glimpse of color since last fall. These are tiny flowers, only about two inches tall, so I didn’t see them at first. But for being so small they are certainly mighty; surviving the summer and bringing springtime joy and the promise of warmth and a renewed growing season!
Arrival of spring
I was out early this morning on a short run through my neighborhood. Last week’s cold and stillness of winter has been replaced by the activity and cacophony of spring. My breathing was accompanied by the songs of robins and cardinals and the tapping of a woodpecker, and my running was in synch with the scurrying of squirrels and the neighbors walking their dogs in the early light. Everything comes to life with the promise of spring, including the blowing of white clothes freshened by the spring breeze and warmed in the heat of the sun on the clothesline.
Looking for spring
Winter still has its hold on us here in Minnesota. We vacillate from cool to cold, cool to warm, and all the variations in-between. We have snow, it thaws, it freezes, then thaws again, leaving us in the middle of “mud season” (as a good friend of mine calls it). So when I get tired of winter and need a jolt of spring I go to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park. The current Sunken Garden display is filled with cineraria, primrose, azalea, cyclamen, foxglove and lilies. It’s a welcome visual and aromatic jolt to the winter-weary senses, and gives us the reassurance that spring can’t be too far away… maybe only another flip of the calendar page, from March to April???
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