The rising moon, photographed in the parking lot at St. John’s United Church of Christ, Wheeling Township, rural Faribault, on Palm Sunday. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
HEY, DIDDLE, DIDDLE, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.
Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon.
Blue moon. Harvest moon. Full moon.
Moon, moon, moon. Whether in a nursery rhyme, a children’s picture book or in a weather report, the moon has always focused our attention.
MOON MEMORIES
As a child, I found myself drawn to the full moon of harvest season. On an October evening, when extended family gathered in a small farmhouse to celebrate my bachelor Uncle Mike’s birthday, the moon shone upon the farmyard and surrounding fields. In the shadows, my cousins and I played “Starlight, Moonlight,” a nocturnal hide-and-seek, until we were called back to the farmhouse for soda pop. There we gathered around a wooden crate of bottled pop while moths beat their wings against the screen door in a desperate attempt to reach a porch light.
Light. In the deep cold of a winter evening, moonlight guided me from barn to house on my childhood farm. My boots crunched against the packed snow, my breath haloing around me, my fingertips numb from doing chores. High above, the moon hovered.
MOON WALK
On July 20, 1969, the moon morphed well beyond a literary subject or a guiding light for me. I watched Neil Armstrong step onto and walk on the moon from the comfort of Martin and Hattie Schmidt’s living room in Posen Township on the southwestern Minnesota prairie. My family was visiting them for the evening as was customary back in those days.
MOON GO-AROUND
All these moon memories rushed back on Wednesday, April 1, when Artemis II launched into space for a go-around, not a landing, on the moon. This time I sat in the comfort of my living room, watching lift-off on my flat screen color television, not a black-and-white bulky TV.
While I didn’t experience the same thrill I felt as a child witnessing the moon walk, the blasting of a rocket into space still impressed me. Such power. Such an unimaginable concept that four astronauts (including a woman) could travel into deep space, thousands and thousands and thousands of miles to the far side of the moon.
And then home. To the moon of nursery rhymes, children’s picture books, seasons and memories.
My husband, Randy, follows a paved trail through the woods at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
A WALK INTO THE WOODS of River Bend Nature Center on a near 70-degree late March Sunday afternoon in Faribault yielded glimpses of spring unfolding, ever so slowly.
Patches of greenery emerged among dried and decaying leaves layering the earth. Tightly-clenched red buds tipped some branches. Subtle signs of early spring existed, if I looked closely. And listened.
A cardinal whistled. A woodpecker hammered. Both deep in the woods, unseen, but heard.
A mallard duck swims in the Turtle Pond. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
At the Turtle Pond, I expected turtles lining logs, basking in the afternoon sunshine. But I spotted only one, slipping into the slimy water before I could even lift my camera to focus a shot. Yet, the pond did not disappoint as a lone mallard duck glided across the shallow water, stopped and stood before swimming again, on toward the floating pedestrian bridge.
A geocache, found without geocaching. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Randy and I paused in the brush near pond’s edge to examine a canister seemingly tossed on the ground. A geocache, perhaps in its proper place, perhaps not. We looked inside, then left it where found.
Lovely aspens cluster in the woods. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
I kept scanning the woods for wildflowers (too early), anything that would visually cue me to this season of spring. Finding little, I concentrated on the trees. The texture of bark, which I always find artistically fascinating. A cluster of aspens, a splash of white in the gray woods. Piles and slices of wood from trees cut down.
Signage on the interpretative center door. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
I observed a scattering of plastic bags attached to trees, collection vessels for sap that will be cooked into maple syrup. The bags proved a conversation starter with a young family who moved here from Iowa a year ago and was on their first hike at River Bend. I love meeting new people. I explained the sap collecting, welcomed them to Faribault. And then the attention quickly turned to the four-year-old, who showed me the gray stone she found, then the faded temporary tattoos laddering her left leg and then her sparkly shoes. She bubbled with joy, only frowning when her mom mentioned her cousins back in Iowa. Cousins she misses and will see at Easter.
I found the bark on the base of this tree visually interesting. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Other families and couples and singles hiked here, too, on this loveliest of March days in Minnesota. Others biked. My friend Lisa and her husband, Tom, avid bird watchers who tend bluebird houses at the nature center, warned us about deer ticks after we exchanged personal updates.
The Straight River winds through River Bend, drawing people to its banks. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Down by the Straight River, a family played along the shoreline, sunshine sparkling on water. It was so good to see all these families outside, connecting with each other and with nature, away from technology and other distractions of life.
Occasionally a train roars along the tracks that run through River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
A short train roared by across the river, a flash of yellow in the monotone woods.
Lots of people, including this family, were hiking on Sunday afternoon. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Randy and I passed another young family, two little girls clutching stuffies, a child in a stroller. The eldest ran ahead, her long hair flying. And I remembered the times we came here with our preschool grandchildren who also ran like the wind. Free. Immersed in nature.
Prairie meets sky at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Exiting the woods, we crossed the prairie, its expanse stretching, meeting the sky.
Canadian geese on the prairie. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
At prairie’s edge, a pair of geese strode across the dried grasses matted by winter’s snow and wind. Occasionally the two would stop, peck at the grass, searching for food.
I arrived at River Bend wanting to photograph signs of spring. Rather, I mostly heard spring—in a din of spring peepers, in the honk of geese, in other unidentified birds singing. And in the voice of a four-year-old, excited to be out with her parents in the woods. Playing. Searching for stones to take home.
A fitting plaque on a memorial bench. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Sometimes it takes a child to remind us of the smallest joys in life. To appreciate that which is before us rather than wishing for more.
A farm site between Owatonna and Claremont. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
UNDER AN IMMENSE SKY in the wide open countryside of rural southern Minnesota, I always feel small.
Three US Air Force T-38 Talon Thunderbird jets landmark Owatonna Degner Regional Airport along Interstate 35. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Sky and land dwarf me, impressing upon me the vastness and power of that which rises above and that which stretches around me.
On US Highway 14 just east of Owatonna, driving into early morning grayness. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
On a recent road trip to Rochester and back, the brooding sky of mid-March appeared unsettled, threatening. Cloud after cloud after cloud nearly swiped the earth while towering in a brute mass into seemingly infinity.
Heading east on highway 14, the All-Corn Clean Fuel ethanol plant by Claremont comes into view. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Only occasionally did the sun fight through the clouds that darkened the day. Gray prevailed, a visual cue of the major winter storm that would arrive the next evening.
Harnessing the wind on a farm site near Claremont. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
In the flatness of the land, a strong wind bullied across the landscape. Pushing. Shoving. Bending the will of boughs. Punching at vehicles. Fearless and unrelenting.
On the return trip to Faribault, the clouds partially broke, opening to blue skies over Claremont. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
This is March in Minnesota. One day angry and roiling. The next day calm, even warm, sunny and inviting. March marks the indecisiveness of sometimes spring, sometimes still winter.
Byron Agri Center stretches skyward. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
There’s a certain restlessness this time of year among those of us who live in this cold climate state of long winters. We are weary of cold and snow, ready for real spring, not just the calendar spring. We crave sunshine, warmth and greenery.
A view of the ethanol plant near Claremont on the return trip, when skies lightened. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
But realistically, Mother Nature has her own mind, deciding when a season reveals herself, not simply teases. I see that in the sky on this drive. The heavy morning sky, wrapped in a mass of clouds, refuses to bare herself to the sun.
A farm site about 20 minutes west of Rochester. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
And so I feel pressed upon, diminished by sky. And land.
Dwarfed by the sky, a housing development atop a hill between Rochester and Byron. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Buildings—barns and bins and houses—appear minuscule against this intimidating backdrop.
Wind turbines south of Dodge Center. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
Even wind turbines, which tower above treelines, and which I find visually unappealing, appear small-scale despite their height.
Sky and land meet in the immensity of this place. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2026)
I suppose we really are small in the immensity of the universe. A road trip between Faribault and Rochester verifies that. The immense sky and stark, wide open land stretch before me, high and wide. And I feel small, oh, so small in the all of it in the midst of March in Minnesota.
NOTE: I took these on-the-road photos on March 13 as a front seat passenger in our van. I set my 35 mm camera at a fast shutter speedand shot images.
Flowers blooming a few weeks ago in the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)
IN THIS FLEETING TIME before winter arrives, I find myself drawn to end-of-the-season blooms. And plenty remain, clinging to summer past, attaching to autumn present, but some already ceding to the inevitable cold and snow yet to come.
A mass of brown-eyed (I think) susans. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)
Even as days grow shorter and nightfall presses dark upon the land, these flowers remain. And I delight in them wherever they stand, bend into the wind, catch the light of the morning and evening sun.
The roses are still blooming. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)
Most surprising, perhaps, are the roses that linger. I dip my nose close, expecting the heady scent of perfume, only to be disappointed. They smell ever so faint, a scent barely noticeable.
When I took this photo in late September, Monarchs flitted among zinnias. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)
Zinnias flash color, a beacon for monarchs.
Stunning sedum, absolutely beautiful in the evening light. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)
Sedum and seed heads and sunny yellow flowers all cozy together, some spent, some still determined to survive as the season shifts toward winter.
Paver pathways weave through the gardens which include benches, a water feature, rock snakes and more. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)
I feel this sense of urgency to focus my eyes on flowers, to imprint upon my memory their glorious beauty. And so I wander among the blooms and dying blooms in the Rice County Master Gardeners Teaching Gardens in Faribault.
Photographed up close or at a distance, these flowers are lovely in the evening light of autumn. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)
I love this oasis on the Rice County Fairgrounds next to the historical society. It offers a peaceful respite just off heavily-trafficked Second Avenue where vehicles rush by, their drivers seemingly unaware of the nearby gardens.
The garden includes two rock snakes, this flower stone among the many forming the serpent. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)
But I long ago discovered this spot. Perfect for a picnic. Perfect for wandering. Perfect for photographing flowers. Perfect for reflecting and learning and enjoying. I’m grateful for every volunteer who lovingly tends this garden so I can come here. Sit. Walk. Photograph. Snapshot the scene for future reference.
A grass stem glows in the light of sunset. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)
When winter comes with its wind and deep-freeze cold and snow, I will remember the pink roses, the bold brown-eyed susans, the grass glowing in the sunlight.
A coneflower seed head. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)
And when winter drags on, I will remember this place and how, when spring arrives, the perennials will resurrect and pop through the earth. I will remember, too, how seeds sown in the soil will sprout and push green shoots through the earth to leaf and blossom and bring me summer joy.
A monarch butterfly feeds on a milkweed flower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
ON A RECENT AFTERNOON, I looked up from washing dishes and out the kitchen window to see a solitary monarch butterfly flitting among milkweeds. Something as common as a butterfly remains, for me, one of summer’s simplest delights. Along with milkweeds and fireflies.
A monarch caterpillar on milkweed. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
This year I have a bumper crop of milkweed plants growing in and along flowerbeds and retaining walls. I stopped counting at 24 plants. I have no idea why the surge in milkweeds. But I am happy about their abundance given monarchs need milkweed. It is the only plant upon which the monarch lays eggs and the sole source of food for monarch caterpillars.
A crop of milkweeds in a public garden. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
My farmer dad, if he was still alive, would likely offer a different opinion about milkweeds. As children, my siblings and I walked rows of soybean fields eradicating milkweeds, thistles and the notorious cocklebur. This was called “walking beans,” a job that we hated, but was necessary to keep fields mostly weed-free without the use of chemicals.
I never considered then that I might some day appreciate milkweeds, the “weed” I pulled from the rich dark soil of southwestern Minnesota. On many a hot and humid afternoon, sweat rolled off my forehead and dirt filtered through the holes of my canvas tennis shoes while hoeing and yanking unwanted plants from Dad’s soybean fields and on my cousin John’s farm.
Today I instruct my husband not to pull or mow any milkweed plants in our Faribault yard. Randy understands their value, even if he didn’t walk beans on his childhood farm. He more than made up for that lack of field work by picking way more rocks than I ever did. Morrison County in central Minnesota sprouts a bumper crop of rocks compared to my native Redwood County, where I also picked rocks.
A milkweed about to open. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
But back to milkweeds. I love the scent of the dusty rose-colored common milkweed. So if you drive by my Faribault home or walk through River Bend Nature Center or Central Park or past Buckham Memorial Library and see me dipping my nose into a cluster of milkweed flowers, that’s why.
As summer progresses, I’m curious to see how many monarchs soar among the milkweeds in the tangled messes of plants that define my untamed flowerbeds. Thankfully our next door neighbor appreciates milkweeds also and is OK if the wind carries seeds onto his property.
Fireflies glow in the garden art honoring my nephew Justin. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I’ve already seen fireflies aplenty in our backyard, which abuts a wooded hillside. And recently, while driving home in the early dark of a summer evening, Randy and I saw hundreds of fireflies lighting up grassy road ditches. It was truly magical, reminding me of childhood sightings and of Eric Carle’s children’s picture book, The Very Lonely Firefly. I had a copy for my kids, battery included to light up firefly illustrations. And, until it stopped working, I had a solar-powered firefly garden sculpture honoring my nephew Justin, who loved light and fireflies and died at age 19 in 2001 of Hodgkins disease.
Often what we love is about much more than simply whatever we love. I see, in writing this story, that my love of milkweeds, monarchs and fireflies connects to memories. Summer memories. Farm memories. Family memories. These are the stories we carry within us, that help define who we are, whether we consider a milkweed to be a weed, or a flower.
TELL ME: What simple summer things delight you and why?
A black-eyed Susan at River Bend Nature Center, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
SUMMER, EVEN WITH ITS SOMETIMES excessive heat, humidity and storms, is a glorious season. Especially in Minnesota, when many months of the year are cold and colorless.
A view of and from the prairie at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
This time of year brings a natural world teeming with life in a landscape flush with color. It takes a walk into the woods and onto the prairie—for me at River Bend Nature Center in Faribault—to fully immerse myself in the delights of these July days.
Ripe and ripening black raspberries. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
During a recent hike on River Bend’s north side, I paused early on to sample black raspberries plucked from trailside bushes. I spotted the first ripe ones as Randy and I were about to cross a walkway bridge leading to a trail edging the Minnesota Correctional Facility, Faribault. But before I could get there, two guys on fat tire bikes barreled over the bridge, scaring me. I didn’t see them, so focused was I on picking berries.
Fat tire bikers head for a trail on River Bend’s north side. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
On the other side of the bridge, a deer stood, trapped between the double fencing of the prison. While many deer at the nature center show no concern for hikers, this one was skittish, bounding away before I could even lift my camera to shoot a picture.
Dragonflies, all in the same hue, flitted about. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
Instead, I focused on the brownish dragonfly flitting, then landing, upon a twig. Later I would spot numerous of these same-hued insects among blades of tall grasses. I find them fascinating with their gossamer wings hearkening of fairies and magic and a child’s imagination.
Sunlight plays on leaves in light and shadows. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
Backtracking across the road and into the woods, I observed unidentifiable slimy white fungi lining fallen limbs and trees. I’m always hopeful I will find an intensely bright yellow or orange mushroom like the vivid ones I saw several years ago in the woods of north central Minnesota. But I don’t think those grow in southern Minnesota. I know little about mushrooms except that I like them and buy eight ounces of baby bellas every week at the grocery store. I also know that a fairly-new business, Forest to Fork, grows a variety of mushrooms inside a former Faribault Foods plant on the north side of town.
A textured tree trunk up close. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
Also in the woods, I noticed the texture of tree trunks. Natural art. At least to me.
There, among the weave of grasses, a butterfly. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
As we looped back to a main trail, the woods began to open to swampland and then to prairie. Birds raised raucous sound, although I failed to see many. That was until I noticed and attempted to photograph a lone bird on a bush. And failed. The bird took flight. “It’s a bluebird,” Randy exclaimed. He was right given the flash of blue, the smallish size and the nearby bluebird houses. It was my first bluebird sighting. Ever. Rice County is a haven for bluebirds thanks to the efforts of Keith Radel, known as Mr. Bluebird. Keith hails from my hometown of Vesta on the southwestern Minnesota prairie. He’s placed and tended houses throughout the county for 40-plus years, tracking, counting and caring for bluebirds. On this afternoon, numerous bluebirds swooped and danced across the summer sky.
Coneflowers on the prairie. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
Nowhere does summer appear more like summer to me than in the tall grasses of swampland or among prairie wildflowers. I love the messiness of flowers tangled among grasses. I love the wide sky.
A Monarch, with parts of its wings missing, flies among leaves. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
And I love, too, the flitting of butterflies and moths. A flash of orange. Antenna and spindly legs. And on this afternoon, a Monarch with wings partially-eaten by a predator.
A milkweed flower beginning to open. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo July 2025)
All of this I discovered on a July afternoon at River Bend. Here I dipped my nose into deeply-scented, dusty pink milkweed flowers. Here I tasted sunshine and rain in berries. And here I honored summer in southern Minnesota. Glorious and beautiful.
This small memorial plaque honors parents and River Bend with joyful words. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
FOR YOU SHALL GO out in joy, and be led back in peace. Those words from Isaiah 55:12, printed on a memorial plaque by a tree near the River Bend Nature Center interpretative center, summarize well my feelings about this spacious public area of ponds and river, woodland and prairie in Faribault. Whenever I arrive here, I come with joyful anticipation. I always leave feeling refreshed, at peace. Nature has a way of infusing happiness while simultaneously calming the spirit.
I love the contrast of textured white bark against the bold blue sky of a sunny spring afternoon. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
After a long winter, which wasn’t particularly harsh by Minnesota standards, River Bend draws friends, families, couples, individuals and students to experience the unfolding of spring, me among them. This time of year, perhaps more than any other, I am cognizant of the natural world evolving, changing, teeming with life.
Buds unfurl as temps warm. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
In the shelter of woods, buds tip trees, unfurling with each warm and sunny day until the barren gray branches of winter morph into a canopy of green. We’re not quite there yet. But I see the greenery. I doubt there’s a green more intense than that of early spring.
Pockets of green along the Straight River bottom. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
Sunlight slices shadows onto the path to the Turtle Pond and spotlights greenery. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
Sunlight illuminates patches of grass growing among limestone. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
On recent hikes at River Bend, I noticed vivid swaths of green by the Straight River, scattered patches of green on the forest floor, tufts of greenery clinging to a rocky hillside. Green. Green. Green.
Lazy turtles on a log cause me to stop and linger. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
And sometimes turtles choose to hang out alone. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
At the Turtle Pond, I delighted in the emergence of painted turtles, a cluster of them sunning themselves on a weather-worn tree lying near pond’s edge. Others chose to sunbathe alone. I am always fascinated by these creatures. They impart a sense of serenity, perhaps giving us permission to pause and enjoy the simple things in life. Like watching lounging turtles, reminding us that life’s pace needn’t always be hurried.
A family walks along a trail near the river. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
Natural entertainment…balancing on a tree branch. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
About to load up the bikes after biking at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
I especially appreciate seeing families outdoors. Walking. Balancing on a fallen branch. Biking. Being away from the distractions of busy schedules and technology and everything that intrudes on time together outside in nature.
River Bend proves a popular place for humans and dogs. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
In the woods, we are sheltered and embraced while walking side-by-side, close to one another along narrow pathways. Conversations happen. We notice things, like squirrels scampering across dried leaves that hide as yet unseen spring wildflowers. Birds flit. The woods are beginning to awaken within our vision and hearing.
From a hilltop overlook, I view a diverse landscape of prairie and woods. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
Outside the woods on the prairie, I feel exposed but innately comfortable for I am of prairie stock. I know this wind. I know this wide sky. I know these tall grasses. This landscape would please Willa Cather, American author who wrote of the Great Plains and life thereon. In her novels, she shared a deep love of the land, of place.
That blue of pond and sky…beautiful to behold. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
At the prairie-side pond, I stop to take in water and sky and land—below, above and beyond. The deep blue of the pond, a reflection of the blue sky, contrasts sharply with the muted brown of dried pond grasses and reeds. The scene is painterly beautiful.
River Bend covers hundreds of acres and is one of Faribault’s greatest treasures. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
My time at River Bend always leaves me feeling better as I forget about worries and responsibilities, deadlines and everyday distractions.
A sizable deer population lives at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)
Upon exiting the nature center, I am offered one final gift—three deer leisurely grazing alongside the road. They hold minimal fear of humans, so comfortable are they with the many visitors here. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if the deer would rather we just move along rather than watch them with wonder, our eyes, our souls, seeking joy and peace.
This photo taken at 4 p.m. Friday, March 28, shows the unusually high March temperature in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo March 2025)
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AGO, the temperature registered 81 degrees on the State Bank of Faribault sign in our historic downtown. At 4 p.m. Saturday, the temp read 38 degrees. That’s a 43-degree plunge. Such is the fickle nature of weather in southern Minnesota. One day summer. The next day winter.
Let’s talk that one day of summer. The two oldest of our three grandkids were here for a sleep-over Thursday into Friday afternoon. We took full advantage of the unseasonably warm temps with lots of time outdoors. Who wants to stay indoors when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing and it feels like summer? None of us.
So out we went Friday morning, first to hang laundry on the clothesline, which didn’t interest Izzy, almost nine, and Isaac, six, quite as much as I had hoped. “We have a dryer,” Izzy informed me as she handed me clothespins. So does Grandma. But Grandma prefers hanging laundry outdoors, under the sky, under the sun, in the wind.
This looks just like the caterpillar found in our backyard on Friday morning. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
A CATERPILLAR, SQUIRRELS, BRAMBLES & A ROCK
Time outdoors led to discoveries, like the woolly caterpillar Izzy found in the backyard and which she insisted was poisonous. I insisted it was not while using a dried maple leaf and a piece of bark to move the fuzzy ball to a safe place in a flowerbed. She worried and warned that I was not to touch the poisonous caterpillar. “Izzy, it’s not poisonous,” I repeated. I’m not sure she believed me.
We noted all the holes dotting the backyard, spots where squirrels dug for hidden walnuts. Empty shells littered the dormant lawn.
The previous evening, Grandpa led Izzy and Isaac up the hill through the woods behind our house. It’s a bit of a climb past fallen branches and brambles. But they were adventurous, determined to make it to the top, to Wapacuta Park. There they found the playground equipment rather scary—Grandpa concurred—but a gigantic rock a whole lot of fun as they scampered atop it. This is the same mammoth rock their mom, aunt and uncle climbed as kids. Life come full circle.
The Fleckenstein Bluffs Park playground. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
TIME TO PLAY & TIME TO ASK SERIOUS QUESTIONS
Late Friday morning we headed to Fleckenstein Bluffs Park near downtown to a playground the kids found much more to their liking. Another rock (albeit fake) to climb, a towering climbing apparatus, musical instruments, sand diggers, mini spinning seats and more, including fossils imprinted in the fake rocks.
We spent time, too, on an overlook above the Straight River. There the grandparents had to answer questions about homelessness given the blue tent pitched alongside the river. “Why do they live in a tent?” Sometimes adults don’t have all the answers. But we tried. Izzy worried that the police were coming to arrest those living in the tent when she saw a cruiser driving down the bike trail. No, Izzy, they’re not going to arrest them.
Beavers have given up chewing on this tree along the Straight River, we discovered during a walk on Friday. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
BEAVERS, GEESE, A HERON & MEMORIES
And so we followed the Straight River Trail, noting trees chewed by beavers, a sandbar in the river, chimes on an apartment balcony clinking in the wind, a pair of geese moving from land to river, a magnificent blue heron flying low above the water…then those geese again, swimming.
Izzy stopped to pluck stones from alongside the trail, dropping them into an empty yogurt cup she’d brought with her. We walked sometimes hand-in-hand, Isaac and Grandpa well ahead of us, also clasping hands. This time together in the outdoors is the stuff of memories, of learning, of connecting with nature.
This used bookshop in Faribault is a must-stop when the grandkids visit. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
DRAGONS, TORNADOES & THE BIG WIDE WORLD
On the drive home, we stopped at Books on Central, a used bookstore run by the Rice County Area United Way. We like to take the kids there whenever they are in town. Izzy found a fantasy book about dragons she’s read, but wanted to own. And a nonfiction book about tornadoes. Isaac was looking for atlases. Jeanne, who volunteers at the bookshop, found two, as yet unprocessed, atlases in the back room. Isaac was happy, promptly sitting down to page through the books. We also chose a book for their baby cousin, Everett, in Wisconsin.
And so that was our day together. A time of laundry hanging, backyard observing, playing, walking and enveloping ourselves in nature. But above all, it was time for us as grandparents to be with our beloved grandchildren, simply enjoying an unseasonably warm late March day in southern Minnesota, “poisonous caterpillar” and all.
The prairie at River Bend Nature Center, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2025)
IN THE IN-BETWEEN SEASON of not exactly winter, but not quite spring here in Minnesota (although the calendar says otherwise), I feel like I’m waiting. Waiting for snowfalls to end. Waiting for the landscape to transition from drab browns and grays. Waiting for vibrant colors to appear.
My neighbor’s spring flowers. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2023)
There’s a sense of anticipation and wonder when buds form, when the first tender shoots of spring bulbs emerge from the soil, then flower. Purple crocuses. Sunny yellow daffodils. Followed by tulips and other flowers in a rainbow of hues.
Spring wildflowers at Kaplan’s Woods Park, Owatonna. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I love the beginning of spring—real spring, not the teasing warm days of early and mid-March or simply a date (March 20) on a calendar.
Spring erupts in Minnesota at Falls Creek Park, rural Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo May 2022)
I love when the landscape is flush in green, a green so vibrant that it’s almost indescribable.
Oak leaves at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2025)
The starkness of this time of year in Minnesota focuses the eye on details, like the rough bark of a tree in the woods at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2025)
Dried seedheads at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2025)
While I await the greening of the landscape, I remind myself to appreciate the natural world around me as it is now. The stubborn dried oak leaves that clung to branches through the fierce winds of winter. The rough textured bark of a tree. The dried seed heads and leaning swamp and prairie grasses. All hold the seasoned beauty of days, of weeks, of months, of time.
Animal prints in the snow in my backyard. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2025)
Seasons are not timed by a calendar date, but by the natural world. Authentic spring arrives in Minnesota on her own timetable. Often unhurried. But sometimes abrupt.
The woods at River Bend await the budding of spring. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2025)
As I await spring’s bloom and budding, I realize that the seasons of life also should not be hurried. The years pass too quickly, although we are mostly ignorant of that in our younger years. I understand that now in this advancing season of my life.
For several minutes, I watched and photographed this bald eagle soaring high above the Straight River at River Bend Nature Center. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2025)
I value the moments more, recognizing that seasons end. And seasons begin.
One of my favorite winter photos, of a farm site along Interstate 35 north of Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)
WE MINNESOTANS PRIDE ourselves on our winter hardiness. But this week is testing even the hardiest among us as temps drop into the double digit subzero range. Add the wind and it feels like -30 to -40 degrees outdoors. No wonder extreme cold warnings have been issued for our state. Exposed skin can freeze in minutes. No wonder schools are closing and shifting to e-learning.
A flowering tree, photographed in Faribault in spring. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo May 2024)
The bright sunshine fools no one. It’s an illusion of warmth. But the sunshine also reminds me that much warmer days are only months away, that winter isn’t forever, that we will get through this cold spell. We always do.
Photographed at the Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour garden in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo August 2024)
But as I wait and (mostly) shelter indoors, I find myself drawn to floral photos I took during the spring and summer. Images which visually remind me that the snow will melt, the earth will thaw and warm, seeds will grow, flowers will flourish and these frigid days of winter will be only a memory.
Coneflowers, Rice County Master Gardeners’ Teaching Gardens, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo August 2024)
It’s a bit of a psychological endeavor, this convincing myself that spring will be here “before we know it.” Some days, especially during a cold snap, that seems almost laughable. I admit, my appreciation of winter has diminished as I’ve aged. I’m not alone in feeling that way among my Baby Boomer friends, which is likely the reason many flee to warmer climates for a week, or even months, during winter. I say good for them if that’s a feasible option. It’s not for me.
Dreaming of summer days at Horseshoe Lake in the central Minnesota lakes region. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo July 2023)
So I find ways to cope. Read more. Write more. Walk indoors at the mall instead of outside. And when I do go out, bundle up, clamp a stocking cap on my head without care that it flattens my hair. Eat dark chocolate. Drink tea. Cook soups and chili. Pull out my warmest sweater to layer over a tee and flannel shirt. Connect with friends more. Remember hot summer days Up North at the cabin.
Tulips, one of the first flowers of spring in Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo May 2020)
And never forget that the flowers will unfurl in the sunshine and warmth. Bold, beautiful, vibrant blooms. Lovely. Filling my soul and spirit in a poetically beautiful way that winter can’t.
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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