Sunflowers are drooping, like this one in the Rice County Master Gardeners’ Teaching Gardens, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
I’M BEGINNING TO FEEL this sense of urgency, as if I need to spend more time outdoors taking in the natural world. It’s not a new feeling, but rather one which rolls into my thoughts at August’s end. When the calendar flips to September, everything shifts. I see it, hear it, smell it, feel it.
A dried oak leaf floats in a pond at the teaching gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Outside my front door, massive mophead hydrangeas are drying, morphing from green to brown. Once lush phlox are less full. Maple leaves, in hues of orange and yellow, litter the lawn. All over town, trees are beginning to change color.
Golden grasses sway in the gentle wind of early evening. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Jolts of color still fill the garden. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Prolific black-eyed susans. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Crickets chirp. Cicadas buzz. School buses roll past my house. Everything is shifting. And nowhere is that more noticeable than in a garden.
This shows only a section of the teaching gardens. That’s an historic church, on the grounds of the Rice County Historical Society, in the background. The gardens are next to the RCHS museum. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
And so I encourage you, if you live in a place that will soon change to cold and colorless, to enjoy the flowers while they are still blooming, as I did recently at the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens.
A mass of coneflowers. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
A rain garden flourishes here. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
A few clematis were still blooming when I walked the gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Come, walk with me through this space with its beds of blooms, its textured perennials, its overall loveliness.
An array of flowers fill the gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
A muted hue that leans into autumn. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
The gardens include rock art, this one in the Rock Art Snake. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Or find your own garden in your place. Walk. Sit. Take it all in. And when the season shifts, when the flowers are long gone, when the trees have dropped their leaves, then remember this time, these days. Remember the beauty of it all. Remind yourself in the depths of winter how you paused to appreciate these days of summer transitioning into autumn.
The snake I found in a Faribault garden. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
AS THE BIBLICAL STORY GOES, a cunning snake tempted Eve, convincing her that she could eat fruit from a tree growing in the middle of the Garden of Eden. She believed the snake’s claim of knowledge and immortality. Turns our he manipulated her. Things did not go so well after Eve ate the forbidden fruit and shared it with Adam.
I stood atop a bench to get this photo of the long and winding Rock Snake. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Not all snakes are liars and evildoers. Some, like the one I found recently in a Faribault garden, are quite the opposite. The Rock Snake that stretches an estimated 40 feet across wood chips between a brick pathway and a rain garden in the Rice County Master Gardeners’ Teaching Gardens exudes only goodness.
The Rock Snake slithers (well, not really) past the rain garden. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
I resisted the temptation to snatch away a segment—a painted rock—of the snake. Some 220 painted stones comprise the serpent. I learned a lesson from Eve. Be strong. Don’t give in to those who would mislead you.
These painted rocks are themed to summer. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
More sunshine and flowers on the snake’s body. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
And yet more flowers bloom on the Rock Snake. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Rather, I opted to photograph and enjoy the Rock Snake with its inspiring, joyful messages, its colorful art. A posted sign invites people to add their own painted rocks, lengthening the snake designed to bring a smile.
(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
And smile I did as I followed the snake’s winding body, bending low to study the art, the words. Many of the stones were painted at the Master Gardeners’ booth during the recent Rice County Fair.
An overview of a small section of the gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Water features include a bird bath, pond and fountains. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Several benches offer a place to rest, contemplate and enjoy the gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
These gardeners, through their volunteer efforts, have created Faribault’s own Garden of Eden in a spacious area next to the conservation building and the Rice County Historical Society on the city’s north side. It’s taken years to get the garden to this lush, well-kept, welcoming space.
Swiss chard grows in the trial garden. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
I enjoy coming here, meandering among blooming flowers and plants, past the water features, pausing to examine the fairy garden. And now there’s more to see in the Rock Snake and a new bee lawn with habitat. There are trial gardens here and free seeds for the taking and benches for sitting. It is, indeed, a bit of paradise, a respite, a place to rest and contemplate and envelope one’s self in nature.
Flowers are always blooming. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
A garden hose runs alongside the Rock Snake. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
A sturdy dahlia blooms. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Goodness thrives here. I experience it with my senses. My eyes take in the birds, blooms, bees, butterflies, the colorful Rock Snake. I smell the scent of blossoms. I hear water burbling in fountains, birds chirping. And if I could pluck vegetables from the trial gardens, I would assuredly taste goodness. But I won’t. I will not be tempted. Rather I will look and not touch. Leave and not take. I will leave this bit of Eden as I found it, beautiful and wondrous, a place of peace for anyone who visits.
A patch of daisies. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
RECENTLY, MY SISTER-IN-LAW Rena asked me to name my favorite flower. I immediately responded, “Daisy.” But that’s not really true, I realized the more I considered the flowers I especially like.
A time existed when my response to Rena was accurate. For a long time, daisies assuredly were my personal pick for most beloved floral. Daisies, like me, are simple, uncomplicated, down-to-earth. There’s nothing pretentious about a daisy with its circle of white petals and yellow center.
Daisies, too, were the flower of my teen years. The age of flower children and peace symbols and rebellion. Daisies, prolific, strong, reseeding on their own, spreading and blanketing the landscape.
I still like daisies a lot. The way they bend in the wind. The way they remind me of my youth. And young love.
Zinnias sourced at the Faribault Farmers’ Market. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
But, after pondering Rena’s question, I would answer differently. Zinnias. Yes, vivid, bold zinnias are my favorite flower today. Like daisies, they trace to my youth. Mom seeded rows of zinnias in her vegetable garden. They jolted color into the greenery, later adding color to our farmhouse in bouquets gathered.
Zinnias and cosmos can be easily grown by direct seeding into the soil. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Zinnias grow easily from seed. They are hardy and prolific and colorful, coming in varying sizes from small to “giant.” They make excellent, long-lasting cut flowers.
My friend Al, left, sells flowers and produce at the farmers’ market. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I transferred the zinnia bouquet from Solo cup to vase at home. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Al and Char’s zinnias up close. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
As I write, a bouquet of zinnias purchased at the Faribault Farmers’ Market graces a vintage chest of drawers in my living room. My friend Al grew them. His wife, Char, artistically arranged the stems of red, pink, orange and yellow with one green-tinted flower tossed in the colorful mix.
Randy bought them for me. For no reason. I love when he does that—spur of the moment gives me flowers. Just because. I was chatting with our friend Duane while Randy paid for sweetcorn purchased from Al along with those unexpected zinnias arranged in a red Solo cup. It was a moment when I felt loved, so loved, as if Randy had given me my daisy a day.
Monarch on the common milkweed flower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2023)
I’VE ALWAYS HELD a fascination with milkweeds. Their clusters of vanilla-scented dusty pink flowers draw me to a plant that seems more flower than weed. Unless you were my dad, who wanted the common milkweed removed from his acres of soybeans. Yes, I hoed or pulled plenty of milkweeds from the fields on my southwestern Minnesota childhood farm.
Milkweeds grow next to the conservation building at the Rice County Fairgrounds against a backdrop of identifying milkweed photos. Those include six types: common, poke, purple, butterfly, whorled and swamp. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
My thinking has shifted since then. Today I plant, rather than eradicate, milkweeds. Dad, if he was still alive, might wonder how his farm-raised daughter strayed so far from hoeing to growing.
A monarch caterpillar. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
The answer is easy. Long ago I learned the value of milkweeds to our monarch butterfly population. The butterfly lays its eggs on milkweed leaves. And milkweed is the sole source of food for monarch caterpillars. If we want the monarch population to grow, thrive and survive, we need milkweed plants. It’s that simple.
A sign at Hy-Vee grocery store explains the importance of milkweed to monarchs. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
More and more I’ve spotted milkweeds growing in public places in and around Faribault. River Bend Nature Center. Falls Creek County Park. The Rice County Master Gardeners’ Teaching Gardens. Beside the conservation building at the Rice County Fairgrounds. Even in flowerbeds at Hy-Vee grocery store.
Milkweeds grow among phlox. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
If you walk by my house, you’ll see stray milkweeds popping up here and there. Along a retaining wall. Among the prolific phlox in my messy flowerbeds. The husband has orders not to mow, pull or otherwise remove milkweed plants.
An unripened milkweed pod. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
This time of year, seed pods are forming on milkweeds. Perhaps it’s the writer, the poet, in me that loves the shape of those fat green pods that will eventually dry, burst open and spread seeds on wisps of white fluff carried by the wind.
Milkweeds flourish among prairie flowers in the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens, Faribault, (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Seeds wing across the landscape, just like monarchs. I remember a time when monarchs were prolific. Yes, even in rural Minnesota where I labored to get rid of milkweed plants.
I discovered milkweeds planted outside Hy-Vee. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
Naturalists, gardeners and others are working hard now to bring back the monarch population. It’s taken time, effort and education to convince people to plant milkweeds for monarchs. I don’t expect butterfly numbers will be what they once were—when monarchs flitted everywhere. But we have to start somewhere, do something. And that begins with each of us. Educating ourselves. Caring. And then deciding that milkweeds really aren’t weeds after all. They are vital to the survival of the monarch butterfly. It’s OK to plant milkweed seeds or allow nature to plant them.
Monarch on a thistle flower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I, for one, delight in watching monarchs flit about my yard. They are magical as only a butterfly can be. Delicate, yet strong. Poetically beautiful. Carrying memories and grace on their wings.
An educational sign among the flowers at the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2024)
FYI: Nerstrand Big Woods State Park is hosting a “Monarchs and Milkweeds” presentation at 10 a.m. Saturday, August 24, in the park’s amphitheater. Kathy Gillispie, who raises monarchs from eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises, will speak about her experiences with monarchs. The program is free, but a state park parking pass is needed to enter the rural Nerstrand park.
This identifying signage is posted on Kenyon’s city building. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
WHEN IT COMES to branding, everything is coming up roses in Kenyon. Literally.
Welcome to Kenyon and its Boulevard of Roses. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Roses bloom throughout the summer in the boulevard. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
So many lovely roses… (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
This community of just under 2,000 identifies itself via its Boulevard of Roses which is, indeed, a rose-filled boulevard on Minnesota State Highway 60/Gunderson Boulevard. For blocks along this heavily-traveled roadway on the west side of downtown, tree roses grow, blooming beauty into the landscape.
So many beautiful roses in assorted hues. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Whether growing individually or in clusters, these tree roses are glorious. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Traffic whizzes by on both sides as you smell/view the roses. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Recently, I stopped to smell the roses. Literally. I dipped my nose into the perfume-scented flowers, delighting in their fragrance as semi trucks and other motor vehicles blew by me only feet away. Smelling the roses here requires caution. I’ve often wished Kenyon had a public rose garden, allowing for rose viewing, and smelling, in a peaceful setting.
Even a plaque on Kenyon’s city building has the rose brand. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
But that the city has this, this Boulevard of Roses, is a gift. Back in 1962, city employee Lloyd Jystad asked to plant 10 tree roses to spruce up the boulevard. Permission granted. He cared for the rose bushes, which require burying in the ground before winter and then uncovering in the spring. From that initial request, the rose idea grew to include some 100 bushes, which are still cared for by city employees today. The Boulevard of Roses was dedicated in June 1968. That’s a long time of growing and tending roses.
Rose branding on the city liquor store. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Throughout Kenyon, roses bloom. In many ways, it’s remarkable for a community this small to have such a strong identifier. But I saw roses everywhere during a recent visit, far beyond the real ones that bloom along the highway. The red rose symbol graces many a sign in Kenyon.
A sandwich board sits outside a small business well in advance of Rose Fest. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Business branding on a shop door. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Promoting the upcoming Rose Fest car and truck show in a storefront window. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
The city also celebrates roses in August with the Kenyon Rose Fest, this year August 14-18. It’s your typical small town summer celebration with fest royalty, a parade, a car and truck show, vendor and craft market, great food, and more. Mostly, Rose Fest is about connecting people and community. It brings folks together to celebrate small town life.
A fitting name for a floral shop in Kenyon. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
I often wonder if motorists, as they drive through Kenyon in their hurry from Point A to Point B, even notice the beauty they’re passing by in the Boulevard of Roses. I’m here to say it’s worth your time to stop, exit your vehicle and smell the roses. Life is much sweeter when we slow down and appreciate the nuances of small towns like Kenyon with its Boulevard of Roses.
Roses bloom in the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens at the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
OH, HOW BEAUTIFUL the flowers that gardeners tend. Petals flash color, painting the landscape in bold and delicate hues. Flowers dip and bend in the wind like silent writers penning poetry. Flowers inspire, bring joy, carry love stories and memories.
Delicate pink flowers in a garden at the Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Flowers have always been a part of my life. From my paternal grandma’s unruly flowerbeds to my mom’s rows of colorful zinnias in the vegetable garden to my own flowers growing in a chaotic mess, I’ve delighted in blooms.
Clematis climb an arched trellis at the teaching gardens. An historic church and school, part of the Rice County Historical Society, are a lovely backdrop. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Vivid yellow lilies jolt color into Cathedral gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Another Cathedral lily. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
At one time I could identify flower parts, like those shown in this lily close-up blooming at the Cathedral. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Right now, the lilies are in full bloom. They appear a sturdy lot to me, a lesson in botany with stamens and pistils and all those parts I once learned in a long ago science class. Now I don’t care much about that, just the beauty my eyes take in as I wander among the flowers.
An inviting garden, complete with benches, graces the northside entry to the Cathedral. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Iris bloom at the Cathedral. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
For use at the teaching gardens when needed. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
I’m thankful for the volunteers who plant, weed and care for flower gardens created out of a love of gardening and out of a desire to beautify a community. It takes time, effort, commitment, and that does not go unnoticed by me.
A clump of daisies, similar to these photographed at Faribault Energy Park, grow on my boulevard. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo July 20219)
Life is full of opportunities to brighten this world. Flowers are one way. I watched the other day from my living room window as a young boy picked a daisy from an errant patch growing in the boulevard by my house. Then his mom plucked one, too, tucking a single stem into the front of her tank top. I didn’t care that they picked the daisies. I could see how happy it made them.
At the teaching gardens, flowers ladder a stem. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
The daisy, such a simple flower, blooming profusely in the grass next to a busy street. Bent by the wind and rain, as if bowing to the earth. The daisy has always been a sunny favorite of mine. Daisies were woven into my bridal bouquet, my bridesmaids’ baskets of flowers and corsages on my wedding day 42 years ago. Flowers hold love stories, memories.
Fanciful astilbe grow in the teaching gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
In bloom at the Cathedral. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Spots of purple in a Cathedral garden like a single line of poetry. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
I expect, if pressed, anyone could share a flower story. Stories of love and loss, celebration and sorrow, gratitude and healing. Flowers hold stories as much as they write them. Creativity thrives in their bold and delicate hues, in the way they grow and flourish and fade. In the way they stand or bend in the wind, like silent writers penning poetry.
Crocuses blooming on March 12. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2024)
DAYS AFTER I BRUSHED aside leaf mulch, my crocuses are in full bloom under the bold sunlight of March here in southern Minnesota.
Veins run through the cupped purple petals popping with golden centers. They are beautiful to behold. Vibrant in a landscape of brown.
Due to the unseasonably mild Minnesota winter, these crocuses are blooming weeks earlier than usual. Had I not uncovered the perennials several days ago to find a lone blossom leaning, I would have missed this explosion of color in my front yard flowerbed.
I admire crocuses, daffodils and tulips, the first brave flowers of spring. That they even survive in this harsh climate seems a miracle in itself. Crocuses store food in corms, their underground stem system.
And so I want to take a moment to celebrate this clutch of crocuses, to recognize the importance of noticing that which is right before our eyes. All too often we hurry through our days without pausing to appreciate the little things. The flush of blossoms. The bright flash of a cardinal. The scurrying of a squirrel. Today may you stop, look and see, really see, the beauty within this day.
TELL ME: What little thing are you seeing today that bring you joy?
Under a layer of leaves, I found this blooming crocus. Already, in early March. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2024)
IN TRULY UN-MINNESOTAN fashion, I have penned very little this winter about the weather. That is atypical of a life-long resident. We are, if anything, obsessed about weather in Minnesota. We take pride in our cold weather, our snow, in managing to persevere in an often harsh climate. Weather affects our lives on a daily basis.
But this winter season, our image as the Bold Cold North has significantly changed. These past four months have been primarily snow-less and unseasonably warm. Sure, we’ve had a bit of snow and some cold snaps with sub-zero temperatures. Yet nothing like we’ve come to expect.
As I write, I look out my office window to a scene devoid of snow. The temperature is 46 degrees. At 9:51 a.m. on an early March morning. Laundry is drying on the clothesline. And the sun blazes bright upon the monotone landscape.
Daffodils, too, are emerging early. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2024)
If I look closely, I see signs of spring come too soon. I need only examine my perennial flowerbeds to find spring flowers emerging from the soil. Under a layer of dried leaf mulch, I uncover a single crocus tipped on its side. I push more leaves aside revealing tender shoots of crocuses and daffodils. They need sunlight to thrive.
Tulips on the south-facing side of my house started popping weeks ago. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2024)
Tulips and irises are up, too. Too soon. Not yet blooming. I noticed tulip bulbs popping greenery already in February.
All of this is an anomaly. We should be experiencing snowstorms and school closures, hearing the scrape of snowplows, the roar of snowblowers. Kids should be skating and sledding. As much as I appreciate the lack of icy roads and sidewalks, no snow to clear and no worry about winter weather, it just doesn’t feel right.
I’ve realized that I really do like the diversity of distinct seasons in Minnesota. There’s something to be said about anticipating spring after a long hard winter, like we experienced last year with record snowfall…
The restored Security State Bank Building clock in historic downtown Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
TIME, WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG, seems to pass slowly. You’re waiting, always waiting. To turn another year older. To master a skill. To gain independence. To do whatever seems so important you wonder how you can possibly wait for another day or week or month to pass.
Now I wish time would slow down. But it can’t and it won’t and so I accept the reality of time passing, of aging, of days disappearing too quickly. Of celebrating my 50-year high school class reunion this year. Of my youngest turning thirty. Of me nudging seventy.
A street clock in historic downtown Wabasha. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
In a recent conversation with a beloved aunt, she shared that she can’t believe how old her nieces and nephews are, considering she’s only twenty-nine. I love that about Aunt Dorothy, who has always and forever declared herself on the cusp of thirty while in reality she’s closing in on ninety. I like her thinking.
(Book cover sourced online)
By happenstance, I picked up a children’s picture book at my local library a few weeks ago that focuses on time. I’m not trying to go back in time to my childhood. Rather, I enjoy books written for kids. Many hold important messages and beautiful art that resonate with me. I highly-recommend you check out recently-published children’s picture books to see how they’ve evolved over the decades into some timely masterpieces of words and art.
Among the books I selected was Time Is a Flower, written and illustrated by Julie Morstad of Vancouver, British Columbia. In her opening page, Morstad writes of time as a clock, as a calendar, in the traditional ways we consider time.
A prairie sunset in southwestern Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
But then the book unfolds, page by page, into time comparisons that are simplistic, everyday, ordinary, unremarkable. Yet remarkable in the way Morstad presents them with sparse words and bold art. If I could rip the pages from her book, I would frame her illustrations of a sunset reflected in sunglasses; a child’s long wavy locks woven with bird, butterfly and flower; and a wiggly tooth in a gaping mouth.
A swallowtail butterfly feeds on a zinnia. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Time is the moments, the memories. The details. Not necessarily the extraordinary. That is the message I take from Morstad’s book. Appreciate the caterpillar, not just the butterfly. Appreciate the seed, not just the flower. Value the slant of sunlight across the floor, and the shadows, too.
A princess by Roosevelt Elementary School kindergartner Ruweyda, exhibited in March 2023 at the Student Art Show, Paradise Center for the Arts, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
As I consider Time Is a Flower, I think of my dear aunt half a country away in New Jersey. Too many years have passed since I’ve seen Aunt Dorothy, so long that I can’t recall the last time we embraced. But I hold memories of her, of our time together. She was the young aunt who arrived from the Twin Cities with discarded jewelry and nail polish for me and my sisters. She was the aunt who called her husband, “My Love,” an endearing name that imprinted upon me her deep love for Uncle Robin (who died in January). She is the aunt who took me into New York City when I was a junior in college visiting her on spring break. She is the aunt who, for my entire life, has called me “My Little Princess.”
A 1950s scene in downtown Faribault honors history and the passage of time in this mural. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Yes, time passes too quickly. The clock ticks. Days on the calendar advance. Years pass.
Each spring the daffodils bloom. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
But within each day, seconds and minutes and hours remain. Time to live. Time to love. And time to remember that time is like a flower. Sprouting. Growing. Blooming. Dying. Time is a moment, until it’s a memory.
Most people no longer wear wrist watches. I still do. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
NOTE: Remember, this Sunday, March 10, time changes as we shift to daylight savings time in the U.S. We lose an hour of time as we spring forward.
Monarch on milkweed flower at the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2023)
ADMITTEDLY, A TIME EXISTED when I considered milkweeds to be, well, weeds. A weed, by definition, is an unwanted plant. And my farmer dad didn’t want milkweeds growing in his Redwood County soybean fields. So we—meaning me and my siblings—were instructed to eradicate milkweeds, cockle burrs and thistles while walking beans.
If the term “walking beans” is unfamiliar, it simply means walking between soybean rows to remove weeds either via pulling or hoeing, preferably yanking so as to assure root removal. This was a necessary, albeit unpleasant, task assigned to farm kids who labored and sweated under a hot summer sun. The reward was a clean field. And a grateful farmer father.
Occasionally, this job paid…if done for anyone other than Dad. One summer my cousin John hired my sister Lanae and I and two of our cousins to walk his beans. As the oldest among the four, I was the designated crew leader, quickly thrust into settling arguments between my two cousins. I decided then and there that I wasn’t management material.
Milkweeds flourish at River Bend Nature Center, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2023)
But back to those milkweeds. Now, some 50+ years later, my opinion about milkweeds has changed. I no longer pull them. I plant them and then allow them to go to seed. And this year I have a bumper crop growing in my flowerbeds, much to my delight.
Milkweed flowers are not only beautiful, but also smell lovely. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2023)
Milkweeds are the host plant for monarch butterfly larvae, the reason I grow this food source. I want to do my part to protect the monarch, today considered to be endangered. I’ve been rewarded with monarchs flitting among my phlox and other plants in my tangled mess of flower gardens.
The other evening, while walking in a local park, I watched two monarchs swooping and dancing in a pre-mating ritual. Their aerial acrobatics impressed me like a line of well-written poetry. In many ways, their performance was poetry. Beautiful. Creative. Mesmerizing. Connective in a way that touched my spirit.
If my farmer dad (gone 20 years) heard me describe monarchs in this context, he may just shake his head and wonder about that poet daughter of his. And he would wonder even more whether I learned anything from pulling milkweeds all those summers ago in his southwestern Minnesota soybean fields.
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FYI: You can learn about monarch butterflies and how you can help them, see caterpillars, then hike to look for monarchs during a 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday, August 19, program at the Nerstrand Big Woods State Park amphitheater. Minnesota Master Naturalist Katy Gillispie is leading the Friends of Nerstrand Big Woods State Park free “Monarchs and Milkweeds” event. A state park parking pass is required for entry to the park near Nerstrand.
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