Looking up toward flowering branches and the bold blue sky of spring. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
SPRING IN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA looks a lot like colors in a new box of crayons. Sharp. Bold. Vibrant. Vivid green grass. Bold blue sky. Hot pink tree blossoms. Spring flowers bursting bright reds and yellows. These are the hues of spring.
Color everywhere… (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
The landscape is a page upon which nature colors over gray. The world explodes in color, a welcome visual delight to winter weary eyes.
Growing goslings explore the river bank. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
I can’t get enough of this, even after more than sixty years of observing the seasonal transformation during April into May. It never gets old—this morphing of the seasons. How beautiful this world around us, teeming with new growth, new life.
Goose and goslings aside ducks along river’s edge. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
Every spring I await the goslings and ducklings. They are pure fluffy cuteness. I admire from afar, keenly aware of their protective parents. I dodge goose poop, not always successfully, to get within viewing range. But I respect their space.
Beautiful scene: a mallard drake swimming on the river. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
I find myself mesmerized by waterfowl as they forage for food along the shoreline or glide through the river, water rippling a trail. Reflections trace tranquility upon the water’s surface. All is quiet and good in that peaceful scene.
A squirrel, nearly camouflaged by a tree. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
But not all is still. On land, squirrels scamper up trees, root in the ground. I never tire of their antics, amazed by their acrobatic skills, their Olympian abilities to leap with precision, climb with speed. They are really quite amazing even if sometimes a nuisance when digging up lawns and in flower pots.
A squirrel peeks over a limb on a leafing tree. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
There’s so much to appreciate in this season not only visually, but in sound, too. Chirping birds, especially raucous this time of year. Trill of peepers in ponds and wetlands. Rustle of a rabbit across dried leaves. Call of a rooster pheasant in flight. Whisper of the wind through leafing treetops.
And then the scent, oh, the distinct, earthy smell of spring. Soil. Rain. Flowers. I dip my nose into apple blossoms, their fragrance a reminder of apples to come, of apple crisp pulled from the oven, of pies baked in Grandma’s kitchen.
Lilacs are budding and flowering. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
But it is lilacs which, for me, hold the strongest scent of spring. Perhaps because of the memories connected to this flowering bush. I remember bouquets of lilacs filling my childhood farmhouse, their heavy perfume masking the odor of cow manure. The lilacs came from my bachelor uncle’s nearby farm. Mike would bring bouquets to his sister-in-law. Or my mom would drive the washboard gravel roads to pick her own. Today, my husband brings me bouquets of lilacs each May, understanding the memories and love these blossoms represent.
Bleeding hearts, one of the first flowers of spring. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2024)
This is spring in Minnesota to me. All of it. Bold. Beautiful. Bright. Me, feeling like a kid giddy with joy over a box of new crayons.
Green is slowly tipping trees, coloring the ground as we bridge into spring. This hillside scene was photographed in Falls Creek County Park, rural Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
THIS TIME OF YEAR in Minnesota—this early spring—everything appears more vibrant. At least to my winter weary eyes. My eyes, which have viewed mostly muted shades of brown and gray for too many months, can’t get enough of this landscape edging with color.
Bold blue skies blanket River Bend’s prairie, which will soon be lush with new growth. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
Intense green in buds and lush lawns, thriving with recent rains and then sunshine and warming day-time temps, layer the landscape. Sometimes the sky is such a bold blue that my eyes ache with the beauty of it all. Green against blue, the natural world a poem, a painting, a creative story.
Buds emerge against the backdrop of the creek at Falls Creek County Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
Like most Minnesotans, I find myself emerging, getting outdoors more, immersing myself in nature. Not that I don’t spend time outside in winter. But now, in late April, I’m out more often.
The Straight River twists through River Bend Nature Center, winding through Faribault to connect with the Cannon River. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
Parks and trails and the local nature center draw me into woods, along prairie, aside replenished wetlands and ponds, by rivers and creeks. Even a walk through a neighborhood to observe tulips flashing vivid red and yellow pleases me. There’s so much to take in, to delight in as this season unfolds.
Inspirational signs are scattered throughout River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,” reads a quote from William Shakespeare printed on a memorial plaque placed on a bench at River Bend Nature Center in Faribault. I’m no Shakespearean scholar, but I interpret that to mean nature connects us.
Turtles galore lined logs at River Bend’s Turtle Pond on a recent sunny afternoon. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
That happened recently at the Turtle Pond. I paused to photograph three turtles lining a log, still as statues in the afternoon sunshine. Then a passing friend noticed and asked what I saw. And then he pulled out his cellphone to photograph. And then the photographer who was shooting senior photos on the boardwalk bridge over the pond, noticed the turtles, too. We were, in that moment, kin in nature, touched by the countless turtles perched on logs in the water.
This bridge spans a creek in Falls Creek County Park, leading to hiking trails in the woods on one end and an open grassy area on the other. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
Nature also connected me with others at Falls Creek County Park, rural Faribault. A family picnicking by the park shelter prompted memories of long ago picnics there with my growing family. I walked over to tell the young parents how happy I was to see them outdoors, grilling, enjoying the beautiful spring day with Ezra in his Spider-Man costume and Millie in her stroller. Nature makes us kin.
Wildflowers are blooming, including these at Falls Creek County Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
People simply seem nicer, kinder, more open to conversation when they’re outdoors. It’s as if the wind whispers only good words into our thoughts. It’s as if clouds disperse to reveal only sunny skies. It’s as if sounds are only those of silence or of birds, not of anger and hostility. Nature calms with her voice, her presence.
Water mesmerizes as it flows over stones in a clear-running creek at Falls Creek County Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
I love to stand aside a burbling creek, to hear water rushing over rocks. In that moment, I hear only the soothing, steady rhythm of music and none of the noise of life. Peace, sweet peace, consumes me.
Trails at Falls Creek County Park are packed dirt, narrow, rugged, uneven and sometimes blocked by fallen trees. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
The same goes for walking within nature. Trees embrace me. Wildflowers show me beauty. Dirt beneath my soles connects me to the earth, filling my soul.
On a recent afternoon at River Bend, geese searched the prairie for food. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
And then there are the creatures. The Canadian geese wandering the prairie, searching for food, their long necks bending, pilfering the dried grass while I dodge the droppings they’ve left along the pathway. They are fearless, a lesson for me in standing strong.
Deer at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
Deer gather, then high-tail away when they grow weary of me watching them. They’ve had enough, even if I haven’t.
A nesting mallard hen and drake, nearly camouflaged on a wetland pond at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
And at the pond, mallards nest. Unmoving. Determined. Heads folded into feathers. Settled there among dried stalks, water bold blue, reflecting the sky. Spring peepers sing a symphony of spring. It is a scene, a performance that holds me.
Rustic signage, which I love, marks landmarks and trails inside River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2024)
Shakespeare was right. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
In April 2018, this robin huddled in the snow. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo April 2018)
THIS TIME OF YEAR, birds sound louder, their voices amplified. Birds are marking territories, seeking mates. Or perhaps they are announcing their return to Minnesota or their survival of winter, even the mild one of 2023-2024.
A cardinal. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo April 2019)
Cardinals trill. Red-winged blackbirds and robins sing in their distinguishable voices, which I can’t quite describe. But I know them when I hear them.
Red-winged blackbird among dried cattails in a pond. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo May 2017)
When I step out my backdoor to hang laundry on the clothesline, I hear the morning birdsong, even above the drone of traffic along my busy street. When I walk at the local nature center, I hear birdsong rising from the woods, the marshes, the prairie. To hear birds singing is to hear the refrain of spring.
From the pages of a children’s picture book… Birds announce spring’s arrival in Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2019)
It’s lovely and uplifting and hopeful. And in many ways remarkable. Here are these small feathered creatures singing spring songs that captivate us with their boldness, their melody.
Soon the grass will be lush and long, like a carpet for robins and other birds. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Each spring, without fail, I find myself listening intently to birdsong as if the song is a new release. In a way, it is. A release from winter’s grip. A release to days that are warmer and greener and teeming with life. Those are the signs, the hopes, of spring in Minnesota.
A family of Canada geese emerge from the grass growing along the Cannon River in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
EACH SPRING I ANTICIPATE the appearance of newborn ducks and geese in the wild. There’s something about these waterfowl that appeals to me. Perhaps it’s the cuteness factor. Or maybe it’s the reassurance that, despite the ever-changing chaotic world, some things remain constant. Eggs hatch. Ducklings and goslings emerge. And the cycle of life continues.
I spotted adult mallard ducks, including these drakes and hen, but no ducklings. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
This year I was a bit late getting down to North Alexander Park in Faribault, a prime viewing spot along the Cannon River for an adaptation of Robert McCloskey’s children’s picture book, Make Way for Ducklings. The book won the Caldecott Medal in 1941 and is a beloved classic about a duck family in Boston.
Parent and baby gosling along the recreational trail in Faribault’s North Alexander Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
On the recent day I went duck and goose hunting with my camera here in Minnesota, far from Boston, I found only goslings. No ducklings. I approached with caution. I’ve learned from experience that Canada geese are aggressively protective of their young. I already hold childhood trauma from enduring vicious rooster attacks. I don’t need to add to that.
I kept my distance from the goose family, relying on my telephoto lens to take me closer. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
And so I watched and focused, thankful for my zoom lens which allowed getting close to the geese without getting close. The young ones appeared to be at teenage stage, rather than vulnerable baby stage. Thus my trust of even the youngest rated zero.
Determined goslings assert their independence. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
I was fully aware that the geese were aware of my presence. People occasionally toss bread to waterfowl here (something I wish they wouldn’t do), so they may have expected a hand-out. Not from me. I was simply there to observe and document while dodging excrement, one of the hazards of stepping into a Robert McCloskey scene.
Despite the caution, despite the need to watch my step, I will continue to delight in this annual rite of spring which draws me to the banks of the Cannon River in southern Minnesota. Far from Boston.
Our three snow removal shovels. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo December 2021)
DISCLAIMER: If you don’t want to read the words snow or winter, then stop reading. This is a post about both. But also about spring. And a book.
Three prompts led me to write on this seasonal topic. First, when I was scanning my mom’s journals recently, I came across a May 11, 1966, entry in which she wrote, “Snow on the ground.” This didn’t surprise me. Occasionally snow falls in southern Minnesota in May. While I don’t recall the 1966 snow Mom references, I do remember driving back from my native prairie once on Memorial Day weekend to see snow atop a car in New Ulm. That would be at the end of May.
Secondly, a few weeks ago, Randy asked whether he should put the snow shovels away. I encouraged him to wait. And he did, until he felt confident the possibility of snow had passed. It has. I hope.
With minimal words per page, Schroeder writes the story of a week-long snowfall. Day after day after day the snow piles high around a menagerie of animals. Rabbit, fox, bear, moose… Illustrator Sarah Jacoby’s art has a dreamy, soft quality, just like the falling snow. That both artist (from Pittsburgh) and author understand winter is clear in their work.
Eventually, the sun shines, the snow melts, the grass greens. And spring, so it seems, has arrived. But then, a last page surprise. You can probably guess what that may be. It happens here in Minnesota seemingly every year. Just when we think winter has ended…
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.
Cardinal photographed at River Bend Nature Center, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
PERHAPS HE SHOULDN’T MESS with their bird brains. That’s not Randy’s intention when he whistles back at whistling cardinals. But my husband seems to enjoy the challenge, the sport, the act of communicating with the cardinals that frequent our neighborhood.
A bird nest and hatched egg (not a cardinal’s) found in my yard. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo April 2021)
This time of year especially—which in Minnesota means weather that is spring on the calendar but yet sometimes still very much winter in reality—erupts in birdsong. Trees show just the slightest hint of green. Birds sense the shifting season, soon time to craft a nest, settle in and raise a family.
Cardinal at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Randy recognizes that this boisterous season of bird calls brings endless opportunities to practice his cardinal calls. He doesn’t really need practice, in my opinion. He’s nailed the cardinal’s whistle so well that, if I close my eyes and listen, I can’t distinguish the human from the bird, the bird from the human.
Whether the birds can tell the difference, I’m uncertain. But the cardinals always answer him, which tells me Randy’s mimic of their whistle is convincing.
Barn swallow nests cling to a building at the Rice County Fairgrounds, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo March 2021)
I’ve never been much of a bird person, having grown up with rather common, plain birds like blackbirds, sparrows, robins and the detestable barn swallows. The bomb-diving swallows “attacking” me (so it seemed) as I pushed a wheelbarrow of ground feed down the barn aisle is the stuff of nightmares. Those unpleasant memories will never make me a fan of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
Only one bird on my native prairie home place could be considered anything but ordinary. It was not the cardinal; there were none. Rather we had a pair of Baltimore Orioles, which my mom adored. They were “her” birds, a bit of exotic avian beauty in her ordinary farm life world.
Cardinal at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
In my current-day ordinary town life world, the cardinal is my exotic bird. A flash of red. A sharp whistle that cuts through the street noise. And a time for me to bear witness to a conversation between man and bird.
TELL ME: Do you have a favorite bird? Any bird stories to share. I’d like to hear.
Faribo Frosty’s smile has turned to a frown. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo April 2023)
FARIBO FROSTY ISN’T RUNNING away with promises to return next winter. Instead, he’s melting in place, his once broad smile replaced by a frown.
But Faribault’s ginormous snowman, crafted by the Andy Hoisington family, may be the only one saddened by the 50 and 60-degree temps forecast for southern Minnesota beginning on Friday. I’m smiling and I expect many others are, too. It’s been an incredibly snowy winter with our seasonal snowfall total in the top three for Minnesota. This has been a forever winter.
In late February, Faribo Frosty was still smiling and making so many people smile. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo February 2023)
And even though it saddens me to see rotund, 17-foot tall Faribo Frosty slimming down and eventually melting into a puddle, I expect he really will be back. The Hoisingtons have built and maintained an over-sized snowman for 18 years, their gift to the community and a reason to smile.
Snow and blowing snow defined areas of Minnesota earlier this week. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo January 2020 used for illustration only)
I am smiling wide these days as the snow pack dwindles, revealing dormant grass. Everywhere I look, lawns are visible. Yes, snow still covers shaded areas and snow piles remain. But mostly, it’s beginning to look like spring here, which if you go by the calendar, it is. Tell that to the good Minnesotans who found themselves in yet another blizzard earlier this week.
Along the foundation on the south side of my house, tulips poked through decaying leaves even as snow fell. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo March 2019)
Here in southern Minnesota, rain, rather than snow, fell. Temps, though, stubbornly continue in the 30s with a raw wind. So winter coats are still the dress code of the day.
These tulips, a gift from blogger friend Paula (a native Minnesotan) in the Netherlands, popped color into my life in 2020. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo May 2020)
But winter is loosening its hold under pressure from the sun. Tulips and other spring perennials are popping through the soil in my yard. A few more weeks and they will blaze bold hues. And if I rooted around, I expect I would find crocuses emerging under a layer of leaf mulch.
(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo used for illustration only)
Another sure sign of spring are spring openers for the Minnesota Twins and the St. Paul Saints. The major and minor league baseball teams rescheduled their openers this week because of weather. No one really wants to sit in a stadium and watch baseball in 30-degree temps coupled with strong winds. But by the time the ball hits the glove late this afternoon (Saints) and on Friday (Twins), conditions should be comfortable, if not balmy by early April in Minnesota standards.
Crocuses emerge from leaf mulch. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo March 2021)
So, yes, I think we’ve turned the corner. Faribo Frosty will need to accept that and graciously exit while promising to return again some day…long after the crocuses are done blooming.
Trees bud at Falls Creek Park, rural Faribault, in late May 2022. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo May 2022)
TODAY, THE FIRST DAY of spring, hope springs that this long winter of too much snow will soon exit Minnesota. Most Minnesotans, including me, are weary of days marked by new snowfall that has accumulated, pushing this 2022-2023 winter season into top 10 records in our state.
Asparagus, one of my favorite spring vegetables. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
But now, with the official start of a new season on March 20—the season of new life, the season of planting and budding and greening—I feel a mental shift. Psychologically, my mind can envision a landscape shifting from colorless monochrome to vivid greens. I can feel the warmth of warmer days yet to come. I can smell the scent of dirt released, breaking from winter’s grip. I can hear the singsong chatter of returning birds. I can taste asparagus spears snapped from the soil.
A bud beginning to open in late April 2020. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo April 2020)
All of this is yet to come. I understand that. A date on a calendar doesn’t mean spring in Minnesota. That season is realistically weeks away. April can still bring inches of snow.
Crocuses, always the first flower of spring in my flowerbeds. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo March 2021)
But we are edging toward spring. I feel that in temps sometimes reaching just past 40 degrees. I feel it in the warmth of the sun, shining brighter, bolder, longer. I see dwindling snow packs and exposed patches of grass. I hear spring in vehicles splashing through puddles rather than crunching across snow. I see spring, too, in the endless potholes pocking roadways.
The first line in my winning poem, posted roadside in 2011. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2011)
On this first day of spring, I am reminded of a poem I penned in 2011, a poem which splashed across four billboards along a road just off Interstate 94 in Fergus Falls in west central Minnesota. To this day, publication of that poem remains an especially rewarding experience for me as a poet.
Billboard number two of my spring-themed poem. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo June 2011)
I submitted the poem to the now-defunct Roadside Poetry Project’s spring competition. Poems changed out seasonally in this Fergus Falls Area College Foundation funded contest. It was a bit of a challenge writing a spring-themed poem, as I recall. Not because of the theme, but rather the rules—four lines only with a 20-character-per-line limit. But, as a writer, it’s good to be challenged.
Line three of my Roadside Poetry Project spring poem. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo June 2011)
I suppose you could say the same about Minnesota weather. It’s good to be challenged by an especially snowy winter so we appreciate spring’s arrival even more. Yes, that’s a positive perspective—a way to mentally and psychologically talk myself into enduring perhaps six more weeks of winter in this official season of spring.
The last of four billboards featuring my Roadside Poetry spring poem. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo June 2011)
NOTE: I intentionally omitted any pictures showing snow/winter.
Geese atop a nest at River Bend. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 15, 2022)
Opportunities abound to observe newly-hatched spring waterfowl in my Minnesota community of Faribault, where two rivers run through—the Straight and the Cannon—and assorted ponds dot the landscape.
New signage graces the entrance to the nature center in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
One of two mallards I saw. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 15, 2022)
An obviously human-made nest in the pond. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
On a recent stop at River Bend Nature Center, I expected to see goslings and ducklings. But I didn’t. Instead, I saw two adult ducks in the grass aside the road upon entering the center. And then I spotted two grown geese atop a nest and a lone goose cruising the nearby pond. I need to check other locales, like the Cannon River in North Alexander Park. Ducks and geese are prolific there to the point of being a nuisance. I always watch where I step.
Sky and water come together. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
Despite the absence of sighting newborn waterfowl at River Bend, I found other scenes to focus my interest. I especially appreciated the sky, a patchwork of blue and white with clouds seemingly suspended overhead.
Pond close-up. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
And below, in the pond, those skies reflected on the water, among dried and greening grasses.
This sign at River Bend points to an actual spring, not a reference to the season. I love these kitschy homemade signs scattered throughout the nature center. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
This time in May, especially with a late spring, seasons mix. Textures and remnants of autumn remain, contrasting with the greening of spring.
Just inside the entrance a short distance is the waterfall, between the road and the Minnesota State Correctional Facility, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
A short walk to the nearby waterfall yielded disappointment. With the recent rains, I expected water to be rushing over the rock ledges. Rather, there was barely a trickle. The same went for the spring, just off the parking lot near the nature center entrance. No water flowed.
A goose swims alone in the pond. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
But back in the pond, the three geese I watched seemed comfortably settled. Soon, I expect, they will make way for goslings (not ducklings).
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