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.
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…
Buds begin to open on my backyard maple. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
AS A WRITER AND PHOTOGRAPHER, I view the natural world through a creative lens. I appreciate the nuances that comprise the whole. And right now those details are sharp, vivid and nearly visually overwhelming (in a good way) after living for too many months in a monochromatic environment.
The maple flush in unfurling leaves. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
I need only step into my yard to take in the greening of spring. Buds forming and then unfurling on the maple.
Bleeding hearts dangle, preparing to open. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Clumped, clamped buds about to open into fuchsia bleeding hearts.
A tightly-clasped fiddlehead. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Curled fiddleheads stretching, soon to unfold into fronds of ferns that wave in the wind.
My tulips are in full bloom. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Within the perimeters of my property, spring bursts in new growth. Tiny green buds line the thick wood stalks of old-fashioned hydrangea that will soon fill the spaces flanking my front steps. Red and yellow tulips jolt color into flowerbeds, among a jumbo of irises that will eventually blossom in yellow and purple, their sweet scent a reminder of my mother. Iris was her favorite flower.
Tiger lilies grow wild on my backyard hillside, here emerging from winter dormancy. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Oh, how I love these early days of May. These days when everything appears lush and intensely green. Spring green. Vibrant. It’s as if every bright green in a box of Crayola crayons colors the landscape. And when the sky is intensely blue, the greens seem even more intense.
Even my rake is green. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
These are the days when dandelions pop and grass seemingly grows as you watch. These are the days, too, of raking away the leaf remnants of last fall and cutting back dead flower stems and mentally transitioning into this season we’ve been awaiting since the first snow fell.
My neighbor’s unidentified flowers grow just around the corner of my fence, jolting color into the landscape. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
It was an undeniably long winter in Minnesota with near-record snowfall, with teases of spring (even summer) before snow fell again. We are now only finally beginning to believe that we can put away the snow shovels, shove the snowblowers into the corners of our garages, banish winter coats to the back of the closet.
The wooded hillside behind my garage and house is just beginning to fill in with green. We own the open part of this hillside. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Every day of warm temps and blue skies and new greens convinces me that this is for real. Spring has finally arrived in southern Minnesota in her poetically beautiful way. I hear it in birdsong, in the piercing whistle of a cardinal flashing red in the wooded hillside behind my house. I hear it in the rhythmic raking of dried leaves. I hear it in the roar of motorcycles flying down my street.
A raspberry vine shadows across the limestone wall Randy built many years ago from the foundation of a fallen barn. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
But mostly I see the shift of seasons in the greening of spring, of trees no longer bare, but spreading in a canopy of green. Of wild raspberries stretching across limestone wall to latch into the earth. Of hostas erupting.
My neighbor’s lovely low-lying flowers, up close. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
This marks a time of renewal, of hope, of emerging from the cocooning quiet and oppressiveness of winter into a world that feels, looks, sounds utterly and joyfully alive.
Leaves unfurling in southern Minnesota. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo May 2018.
THIS FEBRUARY MORNING, with spring still months away in Minnesota, I crave a landscape flush with color. Snow gone. Spring flowers popping. Grass greening. Trees budding.
Daffodils bloom in my front yard. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
I think we all need a glimpse of warmer, sunnier days after a wicked weather week across much of our country. I feel, especially, for the people of Texas. The unseasonably cold weather of ice and snow wrought incredible challenges with no power, broken water lines, even death. I feel for anyone living in Texas.
Crocuses blooming in my yard. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
Even though we’ve endured a lengthy stretch of subzero temps here in Minnesota, it’s just cold. Not destruction. Not heartache. We can manage and function and mentally remind ourselves that this won’t last forever. Temps are already rising.
Beautiful bleeding hearts bloom on two bushes in my backyard each spring. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
With those thoughts, I searched my files for photos of spring flowers. To brighten your day. To bring you joy. To remind you that in every season of life, we face challenges which stretch and test and grow us. But we can, and often do, come out on the other side as better people. More empathetic. More understanding. More grateful than ever for life, even if it’s sometimes hard.
These tulips were sent to me, as bulbs, from Paula in the Netherlands last spring. I later planted the bulbs in my yard and hope they erupt this spring. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2020.
We push through the difficulties, often with the support of loving family and friends, to bloom color into the world. Or at least that is my hope.
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BE ASSURED THAT MINNESOTA looks nothing like the photos above right now. Snow layers the land in a landscape devoid of color. Under the snow and decaying leaves, spring flowers await warmer days when the frozen earth opens to the sun and sky.
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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