violets | Minnesota Prairie Roots

Among the wildflowers in Kaplan’s Woods May 5, 2021

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
Tags: hiking, Kaplan's Woods Park, Minnesota, nature photography, outdoors, Owatonna, parks, photography, plants, seasons, spring, spring wildflowers, travel, violets, white dwarf lilies, wildflowers, woods

Spring wildflowers at Kaplan’s Woods. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

FLOWERS OF SPRING EMERGE in the woods. Among layers of dried leaves. Among fallen limbs. Sometimes blanketing hillsides.

White trout lilies. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

A mass of white trout lilies in the woods. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

An unidentified, by me, wildflower cluster. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

Saturday morning, as Randy and I hiked through Kaplan’s Woods Park in Owatonna, I found myself searching the edges of the wood chip covered trails for wildflowers.

A sign inside the woods details the Parkway. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

I love this foot bridge which crosses the creek and leads into the woods. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

Near the creek, this solo boulder seems out of place in the woods. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

This time of year, especially, I crave flowers. They represent the shifting of seasons, of plant life erupting as the landscape transforms.

Dainty violets are among the spring wildflowers. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

The largest of the wildflowers I saw. Can anyone identify these? Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

The brightest of the flowers I spotted, this one also unknown to me. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

Green begins to fill the woods, accented by bursts of violet and yellow and white hugging the earth. Low to the ground, easily missed if you focus only on the trail ahead.

Low water. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

We have walked Kaplan’s only a few times and this visit I noticed the low water level of the creek that winds through the woods.

Hillside wildflowers. Minnesota Prairie Roots photo.

I noticed also the noise of traffic from nearby Interstate 35. Motorists en route somewhere on an incredibly warm and sunny morning in southern Minnesota. I hope that at some point they paused to appreciate the day. The sun. The trees. Maybe even the wildflowers. And the brush strokes of green tinting the landscape.

Comments (14)

Tossing the Christmas tree and welcoming spring May 6, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:46 AM
Tags: backyard, Christmas tree, composting, Faribault, flowers, hosta, Minnesota, nature, photography, raspberries, seasons, spring, the outdoors, tulips, violets, weather, winter

The remains of our dried up Christmas tree, now properly disposed of at the local composting pile.

ON WEDNESDAY EVENING we tossed the Christmas tree which has been buried under snow for, oh, about six months. Well, not quite, but winter seemed to linger into half a year.

I’m serious. As recently as this morning, we had temps in the 30s and several days ago wisps of snowflakes whirled in the sky.

But enough of that. With the official disposal of the Christmas tree at the finally-opened Faribault Compost Site, I can declare that spring has finally arrived here in southeastern Minnesota.

You don’t have to simply take my word for it. Join me on this photographic tour of my yard, where spring has clearly, finally (I hope) ousted winter.