Tag Archives: nature

In Pursuit of a Dream

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My dreams and visualizations of capturing my beloved sandhill cranes, birds of such poetic flight and stoic stance, silhouetted within the glow of a beautiful full moon have been craved for years. Cravings that caved, especially along the Platte River in central Nebraska years ago when “uncooperative” cranes simply avoided a full moon high in the sky. This, I hoped, would be different.

When forecasts of a full moon were made a lovely Wisconsin marshland refuge beckoned. I was hopeful of having a large globe rising from the horizon, blazing with color … something quite different than that moment in Nebraska … with the cranes cruising through. Hope resonated from the colorful moon names all heard within moments of our arrival …   “Super” moon, “Harvest” moon and “Beaver” moon. Native American lore provides even more mental possibilities, dangling the names of a Whitefish Moon, Deer Rutting Moon and even Frost Moon for the November lunar show. How about a “Sandhill Crane Moon?” That, at least, was my hope.

With luck a beautiful glow and globe of a moon would appear on a clear night, and since we had free time, we meandered across the state to Crex Meadow Wildlife Area just across a paved road from Grantsburg, WI. This would be a sunset/sunrise affair, prime times for sandhill crane activity unless you opt for mundane images of grain field gatherings. 

Thousands of cranes traditionally stop at this 2,400 acre marshy refuge where each autumn they congregate for pre-migration safety they find within the numerous and large wetlands surrounded by miles of dike roads as they stock up for their long flight. 

Certainly there were cautionary concerns on our four hour drive, for Grantsburg and Crex Meadows is as close to the Eastern Minnesota border as we are at Listening Stones to South Dakota. My concern? Clouds. Be it eclipses, Northern Lights, comets and numerous attempts of photographing the Milky Way, cloud cover has been a lifelong photographic nemisis. Still, I made hotel reservations and convinced a neighbor to mind Joe Pye overnight so we might fulfill my dream of capturing the cranes cruising through a rising, neon bright “supermoon.” What was there to lose except time and money? 

Then something entirely unexpected occurred. After spotting a couple of singular cranes as the “golden hour” light descended upon us, I pushed the review button to check on the color, light, composition and selective focus to discover a totally blank review screen. Yes there was momentary panic. All the visible and magical buttons were pushed on the camera body. To no avail. 

We began by working a large “flowage” along the Main Dike Road where I’ve previosely captured successful images. As the golden hour light began to bask we had seen only a few cranes. Yes, an attendent in the main headquarters had suggested this as a possible location for capturing the rising moon. When you have but one chance on capturing a dream, nervousness settles in. Quickly a move was made to the nearby “Phantom Flowage” where we found an excellent, unobstructed view of the eastern horizon. Our wait for cranes was short as they began returning from the nearby stubble fields.

Since it sounded like the shutter was working I continued to focus and shoot. Memories of all those years of shooting film without instant review came to mind. Apparently I’m now fully immersed in the digital age and long past those long ago travels to many of the lower 48 states for magazine stories and corporate assignments, back when there was a certain confidence that my images were securely captured and saved on rolls of Kodachrome or Tri-X, that in the developing the creativity would magically appear. Would it again? Regardless, I would be “shootiing blind.”

Magically the upper crescent rim of the moon suddenly broke on the distant horizon and it slowly rose higher into a lush fullness. A moment of awe struck even without my loveable cranes. I was still hopefully pushing the review button. Mental notations were made to remind myself to keep the faith, that I had been in this situation hundreds of times back in my career days. 

Initially distant flocks crossed in front of the moon, and thoughts were made to capture various images just in case I might convince my artist friend, Joyce Meyer, to sandwich if I couldn’t fulfill my visualizations. Over the years she has made about a half dozen “sandwiches” for me due to my ignorance of post production technology.

In the midst of those thoughts a few cranes began flying much closer to us to land just a few hundred yards across the marsh. With no way of knowing if any had been captured silhouetted against the incredibly beautiful “supermoon”, I continued to keep shooting until complete darkness had settled in. 

About an hour before sunrise we returned to the muskrat lodge to await any early activity. As I stood outside the car waiting for light and bird movement, those “trumpets from the orchestra of evolution,” as Aldo Leopold poetically described their haunting calls, began in earnest. Within moments I was surrounded with an unforgettable experience of sound. From either side of the graveled road, and from above as a nearly invisible flocks flew over. This was truly a moment of auditory heaven.

Eventually morning broke and I could easily capture cranes landing near enough for some nice photographs. In time, though, the curtains closed as the cranes, little by little, flock by flock, lifted from the marshlands to head toward the stalk fields. After a breakfast of hearty pancakes we made the four hour drive back home to the prairie where we were greeted by an anxious dog and a deafening quiet away from those syncopated sounds from the marshes. 

After a few friendly pets I rushed to the computer to insert the card and was graciosly greeted by cranes bathed in golden light and far more images than I would have ever taken had the camera monitor worked. Eventually I worked my way through some 800 images, or about 29 and a half rolls of Kodachrome, a tedious process that produced 80-some keepers that included many of sandhills silhouetted against that gorgeous supermoon. Dreams granted many times over!

Afterglows

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Sometimes a colloquialism may come back to bless you, something I’ve been thinking about for a few days of receiving some of those blessings. First, with apologies, the back story:

Denver was the destination of a special 4-H award a few years before I was old enough to drive. Some 17 years or so later Denver was my destination after leaving a comfortable and supportive managing editor with the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald. An interesting tie between the two dailies was a fellow named Monk Tyson, who was nearing retirement with the Post.

As I traveled through the towns along the Mississippi River, and into the depths of the wooded hills of the Driftless on both sides of the river, from Galena to Prairie du Chien and places inbetween, many of the older people I met and interviewed for stories kept mentioning Monk’s name. We apparently covered the same beat at least a generation or so apart.

My blessing this past Sunday …

When I arrived in Denver for the second time I was initially given a freelance assignment by the ME John Rogers for the Post under none other than Monk Tyson. Yes, I finally would  meet the person behind an old and storied legend back in River County. Less than a week into that assignment I was called back to Denver and offered a full time position. Months later Tyson would have a massive heart attack in the parking lot across the street from the newspaper. A week or so later my assignment was changed. I would replace Monk as the “state side” reporter, meaning I had left the Driftless for the Rocky Mountains to continue working a familiar job.

Then on Monday this happened, initially seen while cooking dinner …

Eventually we would create a column called Country Roads that packaged a typically full page layout of my photojournalistic efforts along with a story. That meant I was spending most of my time outside of the office and Denver, rolling from town to town, hooking up with ranchers and even wine makers, farmers and lonesome High Plains characters with stories to tell. Everyone, as feature writer’s learn, has a story. 

Often in my trunk was a fly rod, a box of trout flies and a kite, the latter of which I loved to sneak onto some remote mountain cliff after work where I could play with the winds in a full 360 degrees of sky and unpredictable winds. Again, after work! After an interview in those mountainous climes I would ask for either a cliff or trout stream. In the Plains, a good steakhouse!

Often times I receive a little help from my friends, the birds!

This was a time I when learned the meaning of a new colloquial phrase common to the people among the mountains. “Afterglow.” You might be having an early breakfast in a small town cafe when you would overhear someone say, “Wow, did you catch the afterglow last night?” Their meaning finally dawned on me, for you see, there is rarely a place where you can actually catch a true sunset because of the mountains, yet the ambient colors from a lowering sun would paint the top of the peaks and those towering clouds, especially those to the east, with amazing colors. For those it wasn’t about sunsets but the afterglows.

Nowadays, living in my weird sense of retirement, sunrises from my deck or sunsets through the huge plate glass kitchen window while cooking dinner are rather common. Afterwards comes the afterglows that will often fill the cloudy prairie skies with incredible colors. Rarely taken for granted, and always appreciated, it is as the late professor, dean and essayist Bill Holm would suggest, “A horizontal grandeur!” 

Back in May, above the Big Stone Moraine …

Frankly, for me at least, sunrises are seemingly more “grandeur” than those late afternoon sunsets. Oh, but the afterglows! Yes, Colorado and the other mountainous states have those moments when the afterglows are stunning, although I might suggest that the prairie skies are far from a shrinking violet as ambient colors create vistas as stunning as any view you might visualize in the mountains. Yes, they’re such a blessing!

And I almost always look eastward away from a setting sun in search of clouds and ambient colors, of softened light, of how it might blend with what a young friend calls the “rainbow sky along the horizon.” Sometimes the reflections in the wetlands adds another entirely beautiful spectrum to an image, and when you can add the turkey feet of the Big Bluestem, there is no question that you’re in a nice patch of prairie. 

And, when reflected in waters, this the Minnesota River, the pleasures are immense …

I have nothing against mountains, yet as Holm suggested, the vastness of a prairie sky can be just as humbling as it is magnificent. When those colors paint the clouds I’m often in awe. This reminder came to me again earlier this week with two incredible afterglows I was able to capture. 

Now in a more reflective period of my life, so many memories have a way of sneaking into my consciousness. Those times along the Mississippi, and those in the Plains and mountains of Colorado, offer strong moments of a wonderful past. Sometimes those moments are visual, and happen after the sun has lowered beneath the rim of the horizon and a pallet of ambient colors paint the clouds up above. No two, it seems, are ever alike, and in their own way, each individually, offers a unique vista. So thanks to all those folks in the mountains for what was then a new word, and still a reminder that sometimes the light after a sunset is often the most beautiful of all.

Along the River

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Initially I didn’t realize I needed a river. We were simply on a lazy afternoon drive with only one commitment. Yet, there seemed to be a calling, one apparently buried deeply in subconsciousness.

Yet, here we were. For thirty some years my “home river” was the Minnesota, from the headwaters at the foot of Big Stone Lake down to Mankato where it takes a serious bend to head northeasterly toward its confluence with what becomes the Mighty Mississippi. Hundreds of gneiss outcrops line the shores of the upper river, and eagles often man the riverine forestial  corridor. It’s a river that if one was blind to the murky waters it might suggest resemblance to the BWCA.

With a little time to kill before meeting up with an old friend in Granite Falls on Saturday, my car somehow ventured toward some of my old river haunts downriver, specifically to nearby Kinney’s Landing.

There would be no tag with this heron, who flew across the river away from us.

It was auspicious start for the picturesque access where we had launched our canoes so many times over so many of those years was both empty and appeared in disregard. Part of that is undoubtedly due to a summer of high water that prevented meeting up with my old fishing buddies for a bit of walleye and catfish angling. Floating the currents over many of those years to ease behind a dead fall to drop a baited hook has continued even though I have moved from the “upper” portion of the river to the headwaters an hour or so north by auto. Many overnight gravel bar camping trips happened along these waters with huge driftwood bonfires, lines on salt water rods set for all night flathead fishing while I typically did the honors of frying freshly caught catfish served with wine kept chilled in a cooler. Hey, we knew how to live.

Yes, I miss those times.

On this day the arched “church” of a tree way canopy overshadowed ample parking spaces I remembered being full so many times, and the landing itself was mired in a thick cake of mud. An old photo of the access captured on a foggy morning years ago graces my wall, a portrayal both charming and welcoming, a place where you might sit for awhile to take in the surroundings, to sniff the air and listen for feathery songs from the leafy canopy. On an otherwise warm autumn afternoon that would have been prime, such poetry was absent. 

Leaves are just beginning to turn …

After several minutes we left to take a riverine gravel that hugs the “west” bank where we played tag with a Great Blue Heron, that quickly grew tired of us and angled across the river. The heron would basically be the only bird life we would encounter until we were near the headwaters hours later, where distant swallows livened a beautiful sunset. Yet, this was a familiar stretch, a length of river my writer and fishing buddy, Tom Cherveny, and I launched to paddle upstream to the Minnesota Falls Dam, which has since been removed. 

Before the dam removal the river spread almost lake-like to create numerous islands between downtown Granite and the dam. Just below the dam we caught stringers of nice catfish. When we paddled up to the dam from Kinney’s we would ease our way back, dropping lines along the deeper holes on the east bank and below a couple of river islands. Our heron had landed just downriver of the bigger of the two tree-blessed, rocky islands.

Now, at my age, standing on the bank and gazing at the murky waters, many fond memories of those trips came to mind. Moments that brought a smile, and a calmness that has seemed to be missing of late.

We caught the sunset at a bridge just west of Odessa.

Eventually, though, we headed toward Granite where a hydro dam still exists at the apex of this small, old artistic river town. Surprisingly there were no pelicans. Roberta, my dear partner, has expressed wonder about the sudden absence of the birds especially here in our home prairie. “I think we’re going to have a bad winter,” she’ll say. Perhaps, for on some of the prairie wetlands swans that typically have a couple of signets seemed to have hatched a half dozen or more this summer.

And, it seems as if one day our robust skies populated by two oriel species, brown thrashers, a brave catbird, Red Breasted Grosbeaks, umpteen swallows and even starlings became suddenly and eerily quiet. And, empty. Now? Sparrows and a few gold finches, slowly molting into their winter colors, fight squirrels for feeder space.

As we gazed at the rush of waters below the Granite dam she asked, “Are we following the river all the way home?” Well, yes, for you pretty much do, although you’ll cross the Chippewa, the Sag and the Pomme de Terre en route. We live here in a vast river valley, one created by the Glacial River Warren in whose abandoned bed now flows the minuscule Minnesota — by glacial standards. 

Hours later, when we reached the vast expanse of the Refuge, though, we were actually back to the banks of our namesake flowage. By then the sun had lowered in the western sky, and we had ample clouds to create some beautiful ambient post sunset color. What a blessing to behold, from the river view on the edge of Odessa and into the Refuge itself, where we found reflected colorful skies in windless waters. Being along the river was actually an unexpected blessing, although one that was thoroughly needed. At least subconsciously.

A fitting conclusion to a beautiful “river day!”

You see, I fear our times, of our loss of compassion and caring for others. It seems increasingly difficult to know the feelings of old friends who are revealing personal thoughts so different than you believed we collectively shared. So on an afternoon of what I later realized was an internal discord, I came to realize just how much I needed a river. My river. A river so mistreated with siltation and chemical runoff, yet one that has followed the same channel since the breakthrough of Lake Agassiz some 10,000 years ago, waters that just keeps ambling along, sandpapering sad thoughts and sending the chaff off along in the down river currents. 

Then there was a heron, perched in the shallows, a dark crown over its grayish blueness, and there was a flow that sometimes in less flooded times offers ripples through shallows for a sense of calmness. And now on an autumn afternoon the wooded riverine banks are taking on a magical transformation of color, and on this, an evening with troublesome anxieties, when the skies came alive with such an amazing palate of color … these are times when little feels better than the comfort of being along the river.

Prairie Harmony

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A delightful hum is providing us new music here at Listening Stones Farm. It comes from near a sidewalk from four years ago, and it comes from a native prairie garden we created beside the sidewalk a year ago. Across the adjacent patio are a pair of “strip” gardens of native plants where “blanket” flowers have created a mid-summer dominance, Across the patio is our “triangle” prairie garden where compass plants have for years bullied their way to crowd out nearly everything else. Tall and rising from the square stems are the yellow blossoms.

Bees and other pollinators have come in droves to feast on the multitudes of pollen from these plantings. Before all of this color and blissful natural harmony our lawn, a boring landscaped carpet of green covered our yard. We would have a few weeks of sparkling yellow dandelions dotted with bees. That was about it other than our nearby prairie restoration.

Initially elusive, the yellow swallowtail eventually allowed some photographic moments!

Adding to these gardens are a couple of shaded pollinator plantings alongside the house where in the past we would have had an early flush of beautiful red columbines. Initially these native plants hugged the north side of the house, then I took a spade and transplanted a few inside a little space existing inside an ancient sidewalk someone years ago laid into the soil next to our solarium. I don’t know how far the sidewalk extends. When planting the shade-friendly prairie plants we purchased from the Lac qui Parle SWCD last summer I realized a lot of the sidewalk was buried beneath the lawn, and that the concrete walkway reached at least to where our rooted horseradish dominates.

We also have our terrace garden that stretches along the west side of the house that faces the county road. Huge granite boulders were plugged into the landscaped rise where various prairie natives were planted in a narrow nook of exposed soil that is separated from the lawn with landscape fabric. Like a prairie, every year is different, and like the other plantings, weeding is constant chore.

A pair of monarchs tantalized before landing near one another.

So we have bees and other buzzing pollinators completely surrounding our home. That’s the music we hear. A hum of a natural orchestra highlighted by a variety of songbirds, from wrens to a pair of yellow warblers with a catbird and mourning doves adding a sense of sweet percussion.

Yet, I’ve not even mentioned the butterflies, whose flights might be inaudible to human ears. At least mine. 

Right now we have numerous monarchs flitting around that were recently joined by a beautiful Eastern tiger yellow swallowtail. It seemed the red admirals settled in first, sneaking in quietly, along with a variety of fritillary species. Other random species have been in and out, and I’ve found it difficult to keep up with all these beautiful visitors. Dainty cabbage whites, with their little dots displayed on the wings, have sneaked in as well

A view of three of the gardens … our new one to the right planted a year ago, the “triangle” to the left with the tall compass plants, and the peeking strip garden next to the studio.

So many of the native flowers are now in bloom that our eyes feast on color from yellow to white, bright orange to glittery purple, so when you add all of these flitting, flying colorful blossoms of butterfly wings with the hum created by the variety of bees, it is all a wonder to behold.

As mentioned, we also have eight acres of grassy prairie basically surrounding our home, although since a misguided though “helpful” neighbor mistakingly mowed down a post-burn incredible flush of flowering natives years ago, some of the joy is missing. Those flowering plants have never recovered. Oh to have retained all that incredible color within the mix of both cool season and warm season prairie grasses, our prairie would be a wonder. This was an unfortunate mistake that has haunted me ever since.

Red admirals were our first butterflies in our new pollinator plot.

Hopefully we aren’t done with our pollinator efforts. A house-long narrow strip of lawn exists between the house and terrace garden that is begging to be converted. This section is barely wide enough for the mower and simply looks awkward and, well, a bit naked. This has been a transformative strip for years. Initially a couple of large bushes existed beneath the kitchen window that we pulled out to make way for blueberry bushes. Those new plantings never caught hold, and it’s been barren except for lawn grasses ever since. 

Hopefully someday one of my favored native prairie plant friends will come for a visit to offer advice for selection and placement of plants for that area. My reaching out hasn’t worked so far, although I’m still hopeful. Why? One only needs to look at our newest pollinator plantings along the sidewalk to understand why. Because of my ignorance that patch is completely backwards. Huge bushy plants are so dominate along the sidewalk that many of the smaller species have been crowded out, or are hidden in the background. Anyone with knowledge of those plants would no doubt guffaw as did a carpenter who witnessed my first attempts at hanging drywall. 

While the butterflies add joyous color, the bees and other pollinators create the hum of the orchestra.

Fortunately the butterflies and bees don’t mind, even if we humans are crowded off the sidewalk en route to my art studio. Yet, there are those moments utter joy. 

Earlier this week I took a momentary break on our newly refurbished deck with a cup of cold sun tea when I noticed the swallowtail hovering over the blossoms. Over the past weekend I had noticed it and went to fetch the camera, though when I stepped off the deck with camera in hand it lifted quickly to fly in flitting defiance to parts unknown. Now it was here, painstakingly maneuvering through the blossoms. A pair of monarchs were traipsing between the various enclaves, and I caught sight of a red admiral on the closer blossoms.

This strip of lawn just above the terrace garden will hopefully be transformed into another vast prairie planting yet this late summer or fall.

So I fetched my camera. This time all of the butterflies were cooperative, including the moody swallowtail, and so were some bees. Our plants? They seem to bask in their respective glory, posing time after time. Eventually a round was made to each of the various gardens as a lovely calmness eased over me. With it came with the realization that over a short period of time we have created so much more than that springtime flush of dandelions, and that we can now count on hearing the hum of pollinator music over and over again, accented with our bevy of birds, creating a natural symphony as sweet and soothing as a Bach’s concerto.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? 

The Balm of Dawn

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Initially I was rather discouraged, and perhaps “rather” isn’t quite strong enough to convey my feelings. You see, I had visualized an image for a week or so after we discovered that the beautiful meadow of cone flowers in the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge had bloomed, long enough ago that many blossoms were already showing their age. Crinkled petals, some showing brownness on the edges of the delightful pink. In short, there wasn’t much time left to capture my idea.

My intentions were rather simple, for I’ve envisioned a simple softness of fog with the defusing warmth of a rising sun providing a bit of hazy backlight to this expansive meadow of pink. Summer fog, which happens frequently in the lowlands of the prairie, isn’t uncommon over the wetlands and prairie around dawn much like it does in the Boundary Waters, rivers and lakes. This meadow is just up the rise from the broad waters of the West Pool, which is a flooded basin managed for protection of waterfowl and other aquatic avians.

A Cormorant skips across the waters of the West Pool with a dawn breakfast in its beak.

Then, there’s this: It has been awhile since I’ve ventured out for pictures before dawn, somehow losing the habit of being up to greet what the late naturalist and photographer Edwin Way Teale called “nature’s finest balm.” Yes, dawn. Perhaps it’s an “age thing.” 

My dream of a foggy image is somewhat different since I’ve photographed these cone flowers religiously since moving to Listening Stones Farm a dozen years ago. After a scorching day the thought of a rising fog had me up and into the pickup about a half hour before sunrise. My intensions and excitement took an immediate hit because a dense cloud bank was covering the eastern sky. Since I was already up and headed to the Refuge, why turn back? 

Despite my disappointment I still eased from the truck with my trusty Nikon and wandered through the grasses and flowers making a few half-hearted images. Hardly anything worth remembering. My files are loaded with cone flowers from this meadow, including a really nice senior picture of the daughter of friends. Which wasn’t the point. My visualization was the point.

I could spend hours watching Black Terns ply the waters.

Perhaps Teale’s entire quote is worth noting: “For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature’s finest balm.” Taking this to heart would be my new challenge. 

After a deep breath, birds of various species were seen skimming across the still waters of the West Pool while above me Cormorants were scurrying by to their secret potholes, prehistorically shaped fishers silhouetted against the colorful, cloudy canvas of sky. Solitary Great Blue Herons made curved-neck flights across the muted skies. The skies were alive! It was then I remembered catching the gaping mouth and awkward warnings from a female Night Hawk on a distant outcrop. This didn’t have to only be about cone flowers and fog.

At the far bend of the motor trail I caught a Cormorant bounce-splashing across the surface with a small fish firmly captured in its beak. Kingbirds and a Bobolink moved across the grassy prairie trying to hide from the cameraman. Ring-billed Gulls and Black Terns provided nearly an hour of entertainment at the bend of the motor trail, playing in a nice reflected, colorful light. Terns were attempting their athletic poetry of dipping their bills into the waters as they sped across the surface. This alone can capture my attention for time on end.

Flights of White Pelicans are usually delightful to observe.

Of course, being in the refuge meant White Pelicans were around, although far fewer in numbers than the cormorants. The two fishing pals make an interesting contrast in almost all ways … color, shape and beauty of flight. They seems to ply the same spaces in search of nourishment with the Cormorants diving out of sight and the pelicans often teaming up to corner their prey. It was here at the bend of the motor trail where both frequent. Last autumn I caught hundreds of pelicans in military-like formations crossing the West Pool in murderous mayhem. Squadrons of them, numbering several across, all easing eastward across the waters. The next day there wasn’t a pelican in sight. Apparently I’d stumbled upon a last feast before migration.

Eventually it was time to move along so I drove around the last big bend toward the riverside parking lot hopeful of catching perhaps a wood duck. This portion of the Refuge is along the debris choked Minnesota River. I would find a single Pied-Billed Grebe in a limb reflection and a Green Heron that posed beautifully for me. All that remained was that protective Night Hawk.

It’s always a joy to see a Green Heron, and usually they’re more skitterish.

This was certainly a delicate mission for you don’t want to unnecessarily rile up nature, and particularly such a rare bird. We had initially spied her over the weekend when we had stopped at a flat outcrop to show a former exchange student ball cacti and were confronted by the “hissing” female. While Night Hawks are graceful and incredibly stunning in flight, hovering high in the sky before diving at nearly breakneck speeds, on land their extremely weak legs make it a challenge to move. 

She was still there and immediately flopped across the granite to defend her well hidden nest. Hastily I made about a half dozen images while standing several feet away where I hoped not to be considered a serious threat. Although I tried to be quick and unobtrusive, I had no desire to cause her unnecessary strife and tension. 

The increasingly rare Night Hawk, awkward on land, defends her nest near the outcrop.

Thanks to the various birds, including the awkward Night Hawk, my dawn foray was delightful and successful. Teale’s “balm” had worked wonders. And since my dear mother once gifted me with his “Journey Into Summer” as a teenager, here’s one last Teale passage that perhaps summed up my feelings: “Our minds, as well as our bodies, have need of the out-of-doors. Our spirits, too, need simple things, elemental things, the sun and the wind and the rain, moonlight and starlight, sunrise and mist and mossy forest trails, the perfumes of dawn and the smell of fresh-turned earth and the ancient music of wind among the trees.” 

Amen!

That Hue of Blue

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Several years ago while driving toward Blackbird Trail, that winding sweetheart of a drive through the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge near Detroit Lakes, my eye caught a lone beauty of an interesting flower that I couldn’t believe was either “native” or “wild.” Yet there stood a beautiful lone blue iris, radiating and standing tall against the greenish nearby native marshy plants … with exception of the adjacent gangly cattails.

Was this some sort of garden remnant? Did someone luckily hoist a bulb into the marsh from the graveled road? 

After returning home a little research confirmed the identification, noting that Minnesota actually has two closely related “Blueflags” or native blue irises with territories divided on a loose geographic border drawn horizontally across the state from our largest city. Iris versicolor is the northern and predominant species from the Twin Cities up into Canada while Iris virginica similarly reaches from the Twin Cities south toward the Texas coast. 

According to the scientific explanation the upstate species is typically more richly pigmented on the outer sepal edges, fading lighter towards the “throat” with veins prominently tinted toward a faded greenish yellow. While microscopic characteristics might cause a botanist to giggle, the northern iris is typically a darker blue than its faded cousin. There! Science has spoken. 

Now here is a bit of poetry, thanks to Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” — “Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat’s ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they’d not long since been rooted out.” 

Science, or blown glass like a pastel splash of velvity water, these beauties stand awash in the nearby greenery of Tamerac, catching a wandering eye like a thin metal washer drawn instantly to a demanding magnet.

While we had a free day and a will of once again hopefully capturing blooms of both the yellow and showey ladyslippers that bless this northern refuge, I also held hope that we might catch the wild blue of irises in bloom. All three wild flowers came through splendidly along with a host of other colorful wild flora. We were blessed. 

Not so much by the fauna, however. Not one songbird, including the fluttering and shy warblers, allowed me a moment. While the swans were cooperative, we had some near misses along the way: a grouse with three chicks slithered like spies deep into the trail grasses before scooting out to escape my hungry lens into the dense woods. This was just moments before I caught sight of a beaver in my rear-view mirror tugging a six foot willow branch by the clamp of his teeth while charging across the motor trail in a beaverish waddle. Like the spy-like grouse, it dragged the branch through the dense woody underbrush while successfully remaining obscured by the leafy branches. We then came over a rise to find a bald eagle posed perfectly on a branch of a dead tree. I quickly raised the camera although apparently not rapidly enough. My image was of the perfectly weathered grayish branch, a bunch of blue sky and the feet and butt of the rising raptor. Ah, but those wild irises!

It was in the midst of all that commotion that we finally came across the irises. In three distinct locations, each marshy, each different and distinct from the other. On our last sighting a broad curved broad grassy looking leaf of a plant would have made a nice arc over two near perfect younger blossoms. Without hip boots, though, my idea of making an image with a composition of the plants beneath the arc of leaf simply didn’t work. A thought of wading into the marsh with the hordes of mosquitoes was as much of a deterrent as was the possibility of sinking knee deep into the muck. Even laying onto the gravel didn’t provide the angle I envisioned. It was what it was. Welcome to nature. And those were the last of the dozens of irises we came across.

Our first batch was quite numerous, and I actually let out an exclamation of delight when they initially came into view. Time had played a role in their aging, however, with spent blossoms hanging blackish along with those struggling to grasp their fading beauty. What can one do when faced with these situations in nature? You simply do what you can. Between this incredible array of blossoms and those arching above the arc, we found another set that hadn’t aged so distinctly. Being partially shaded, it seemed, might have helped. This batch allowed me to play with light and depth of field, those tools of our odd trade. Perhaps too much time was spent attempting to create a bit of art from such a wonderful blessing of nature.

Yes, it was delightful to once again see the rich blues of the irises, along with the white and pink of the showeys. Those vivid colors of the yellow ladyslippers and the bright crimson of the columbines added joy as well. My partner, Roberta, suggested on our way home that I was smiling. Internally there was certainly a sense of peace and joy, that those six hours of drive time had been well worth the effort. 

Sometimes these seasons I photograph, be they birds, trees, prairie grasses or native flowers, help me check off a mental list. Do I need more images of wild turkeys fluffed in sexual desire, or the first poking of pasque flowers through dormant grasses after another long and dreary winter, or of those lady slippers I chase from the prairie to the northern woods as was the reason for this drive, or even the pastel waters of little black cat’s ears in the sun? As a naturalist and photographer, though, these are seasons of life, of nature, of the knowledge that for one more year all is surviving nicely in the natural world. Myself included. So yes, I was smiling! 

Flirting With Destiny

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Was destiny in the cards? Serendipity? On a morning when I felt it best I be out of the house I ended up in familiar digs, leaving a favored fishing spot to raise my camera once again in nature. Funny how that works. This venture began with an eye toward an eagle’s nest near the Marsh Lake dam, one I’ve photographed a few times over the past several weeks. This is a haunting setting, a nest built high within the branches of a weathered and whitened row of cottonwoods alongside the wetland. Weathered and whitened cottonwoods line both sides of the slough.

Although the rain hampered the vision somewhat it was still easy to see the eaglets that are now perhaps as large as their parents. Both were hopping on the gigantic wooded nest, stretching their broad wings high and wide. Briefly I wondered if one would actually take flight. Across the wetland the parents were perched side by side keeping eyes on the youngsters across the way.

Swallows were buzzing around, and I loved the old log and its reflection. Would a swallow do a dip? Yes! `Stark and simple.

Then it was to the dam itself where I quickly became engrossed in trying to capture Black Terns dipping their beaks into the surface of the Minnesota River. A few weeks ago at the Sand Lake NWR I just missed capturing a swallow doing the same. In the midst of working the terns a glance skyward caught a huge pod of white pelicans gliding gracefully overhead toward Marsh Lake. Trying to capture an image from inside the cab of the pickup tested my recent lack of yoga. 

An umbrella of densely packed clouds were joined by rain pelting the windshield as I headed up the rise toward the fish-bone-surfaced gravel road. A quick glance across the lake revealed a vast horizon of acres of deep green vegetation stretching across the formerly carp infested shallow waters. A shrouded haze stretched across the vegetated waters as my thoughts turned to capturing a long string of gliding pelicans, their white bodies and black wing tips easing across this plain of aquatic flora, contrasting with the green foliage and bluish haze.

It was author Shiva Negi in his “Freedom of Life” who suggested that intention determines destiny. Would this be the time and place?

A sunset over the headwaters of the Minnesota River was blessed by two swallows, an anxious wait since the sun was sinking quickly.

While holding that thought I tucked tail and headed past the eagles toward down the county gravel. Thanks to my dear partner, Roberta, and her desire for “new roads,” I took a left at the “T” thinking I might be closer to the highway home than if I took my normal route. It was a dead end, so I maneuvered the pickup around and headed back toward the Marsh Lake road. Does intention determine destiny? There it was again, so I turned back onto the dam road to see if perhaps another pod of pelicans might glide across the lake toward the island they inhabit. That mix of stark green and bluish haze was just too strong to pass up. After  arriving at the dam, I backed the truck down the pathway on the dike and eased the window down to wait.

Within moments another long and sweeping pod of pelicans came easing across the windshield, stretching long across the horizon just as I had imagined. And, yes, they were headed up the lake in a near perfect composition. Destiny? Serendipity? Nature in perfect symmetry and harmony; an image that spoke of natural poetry!

Serendipity, for this was simply a beautiful surprise finding the swallows so perfectly placed!

Moments later, as I was heading home, thoughts of how various species of birds have blessed my images over the years by inexplicably turning mundane landscapes toward a higher level. Each time, I recalled, it was a matter of melding the natural composition with the help of some natural avian enhancement. Over the years I’ve had great help from swallows. Twice near the headwaters of the Minnesota River, and again on a foggy morning over Stoney Creek just east of Ortonville. 

Two old photojournalism adages came to mind: Animals, be they human, birds or otherwise, are creatures of habit, so if they do something once they most likely will do so again; and, always be prepared by planning your image around available light and composition. Those pelicans were a case in point, but so was focusing on a floating log believing a swallow would once again dip to sip nearby. Could I await the cruising swallows during a beautiful and calm sunset at the headwaters of the Minnesota River?

Serendipity? I believe this differs from destiny because it is typically just blind luck. Which brings me to the sweet swallows that somehow miraculously appeared in my Stoney Creek image. It wasn’t until I was back home processing a morning shoot that I actually noticed two swallows perfectly situated within the image. Even without their help, the composition, lighting, snaky fog hovering over the bend of this shallow creek would have made a fine image. That pair of swallows took it to another level. Pure luck!

Destiny? As if Negi was correct on his definition of the word, the pelicans appeared to ease across the Marsh Lake horizon!

That, I believe, is the difference between the two. There isn’t much you can do about serendipity while destiny requires knowledge, patience and a will to succeed. Certainly there is some luck involved. Would another pod of pelicans come back over Marsh Lake that morning? Having seen two different pods fly in that direction gave me hope that another on might come through. I was more than willing to wait awhile, and truthfully, it was less than a minute after I’d parked. This was one time when patience wasn’t needed. I knew the image I wanted and had placed myself in position if and when it might happen. 

Just as Negi had proposed. My intentions had won out resulting in a pleasing image. No, this wasn’t the first time where my feathered friends have helped me create an image that I’d mentally conceived, and I can’t thank Mother Nature enough for all these gifts and blessings she has granted me through the years. Certainly I’ll take serendipity when offered, yet I’ll opt for destiny when intensions are warranted. 

Hope Within Mourning

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This wasn’t an intentional gathering of us “brothers from different mothers,” although we were together to honor the passing of a special woman we considered as one of the “mothers” of our shared advocacy and love of a muddy and polluted Minnesota River. We stood in the commons area of the church, some in our jeans and worn, aged shirts probably scanned an hour beforehand to see if they were stain free. 

Several moments into our mutual greetings and acknowledgments of our few fishing stories, Audrey Arner, another long time clean river advocate, walked up to suggest,  “Guys, this is like old home week.” Indeed, we were a familiar bunch, had been for years. All around us were so many others who have been part of the advocacy.

Among them was Butch Halterman, a long time “river rat” who was well respected as a Montevideo senior high science teacher for his unrelenting knowledge, spirit and resolve; a man who for several years escorted groups of high schoolers in canoes from the headwaters all the way to its confluence with the Mississippi. 

An overview of the siltation from both Hawk Creek and Yellow Medicine rivers that have choked off the original channel to the right, leaving a deep siltation between that and the new channel to the left.

There was Ron Hanson, who has written a few tough songs he must be persuaded to play, who lives alone in the nearby prairie where he grows some impressive long-thorned cactus plants. A narrow but simple path snakes through the rooms and narrow hallway past the seemingly hundreds of evil looking cacti, and a dire warning that this isn’t a place to bend over emerging from a bath.

Up from New Ulm was Scott Sparlin, who was instrumental in organizing a clean river group called the Coalition for a Clean Minnesota River. Butch, Ron and I had at one point served on the board of a sister river cleanup non-profit called Clean Up the Minnesota River (CURE). Noticeably absent on this day of mourning was its long time CURE leader back in the day, Patrick Moore, who recently had moved to Montana with his wife to be close to the families of their two daughters and grandchildren. 

Back in the “old days” when dozens of canoes and kayaks were on the prairie rivers in May.

Our church gathering was to honor the late Shirley Werhspann, wife of Del. Collectively they were as responsible and as active with the Minnesota River cleanup efforts as the rest of us. Moore actually credited Del as the muse for creating CURE, initially under the auspices of the Land Stewardship Project. All this organizing came in conjunction with a ten-point action agenda to save a threatened river offered by then Gov. Arne Carlson. It was a heady and strong effort for more than 20 years.

“I no longer feel apart of the river,” Butch admitted, although he still has a cabin of sorts and a landing just downriver from Preen’s Landing. Yes, he still fishes both in the open currents and on the ice. “Used to be a brotherhood, a family of us, and we were all on the river. No more.” 

Nowadays, not so much. Perhaps age is part of it, moves another. So has the politics and change in the direction of CURE. “It’s now electric cars,” he laments. “Not so much about the river.” 

An evening of catfishing on a bend of the Minnesota River.

Indeed, not much has improved since all this started back in the early 1990s. Indeed, the river seems to face even greater threats. At Skalbakken County Park, for one example, standing in the picnic shelter back then would have seen the river channel ripe against the tree-lined north bank to the far right of the shelter. Heavy boulder riprap was peppered along the bank beneath the shelter to protect the park from being washed away by the incoming flow. Thanks to some extremely wet years, patterned tiling and an insistence on flushing spring melt from fields of commodity crops, the channel is now to the far left as siltation several feet deep has closed off the original channel. Between the former and present channels, this thick “island” of silt now has emerging willows and prairie weeds sprouting. Further down river the increase of flow has sliced a new channel through the riverine prairie, speeding waters past many of the former serpentine bends to create shallow oxbows.  

So much change, so rapidly, that Heraclitus’ statement, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man” rings both too close and truthful. Yes, the river has changed and so have we, as we, individually, enter the last one percent of humanity. In a few words, “We’ve grown old.”

“River rat” buddy, Tom Kalahar, fishing on a Minnesota River sandbar.

There we stood, the group of us along with some other grayed river advocates, awaiting an official mourning of a woman known as an “animal whisperer” and forceful advocate of a cleaner river and environment. Our little group had met numerous times in her kitchen talking river politics over her delicious home baked cookies, of how to better our efforts and how to remain strong while surrounded by a seemingly uncaring and unbending agricultural community. At one point she worked on Congressman David Minge’s statewide staff working as a local organizer and scheduler. Shirley was as strong politically as she was so kind hearted to us, and to her horses and other pets. For years she and Del ran a boarding kennel that was highly praised thanks to her tender and loving care.

Minge, it should be noted, helped craft perhaps the strongest soil conservation program along with Iowa Senator, Tom Harkin, called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program that placed nearly a million acres of vulnerable farm land into perpetual retirement. He was also on the original CURE board of directors.

A closeup image of clean water from a protected tributary as it enters the muddy Minnesota River.

In time we ambled in for her last rites, taking seats, singing hymns and offering prayers. Later, in the church basement over a lunch of a tatter-tot hotdish, our conversations continued. Among them came the offerings of new promise, of a river wide conference scheduled in Mankato, where the muddy and polluted river takes a severe turn northeast toward the confluence with the Mississippi. Like in the past, the “old” Butch, Audrey and Richard Handeen were all encouraging us to once again to join together with Scott and the downriver folks to inspire change and better conservation efforts — some 35 or so years since the first such efforts.

While the effort is hopeful, is there still enough fight and resolve to make a difference? Perhaps Scott Sparlin has a new youthful grouping than we found in the church that morning. In the old days, when we were young, those resolves weren’t even a consideration. We simply made up our minds and took to the river, in canoes, in meetings, gatherings at various county parks, and group paddles on not just the “mother river” but also the five tributaries. We fought with protests and in the courts, and we took our battle to St. Paul. We worked with other down river groups all the way to Lake Pepin on the Mississippi.

An evening moment on a quiet bend of the Minnesota River.

Back home on the rivers, my late wife, Sharon Yedo White, one of our exchange students (Luise “Lucy” Hille of Germany) and I all earned our “Prairie Paddlers” patch then granted by CURE — a colorful cloth patch signifying that we had successfully paddled all six of the upper prairie rivers.

Those were the days. On a single weekend in May we would gather in dozens of canoes and kayaks to paddle the rivers, then in September we would close the paddling season with a relaxed fall trip just as the leaves would be coloring, which they seem to do earlier close to the river, when the air would be a bit crisp with the approaching waters reflecting a blueness and sense of clarity we all hoped would someday be normal. Back when the river was a part of each of us. Now, perhaps, a new hope will emerge.

On Thursday, June 12, the 17th Annual  Minnesota River Congress will meet at the Kato Ballroom in Mankato starting at 6 p.m. Sparlin continues the batttle as the facilitator of the event, which besides two strong panels will feature Joseph Barisonzi, Minnesota state vice president of the Izaak Walton League, as a speaker. His topic: “The River Can’t Wait.” Barisonzi also is curator of the chapter’s Kouba Gallery in Bloomington, MN, where my current exhibit, “Haunted by Waters” is now on display — a fitting coincidence. 

Grasping Joy

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Can someone find joy in the South Dakota mudflats? It was Dutch theologian Henri J.M. Nouwen who suggested that joy doesn’t simply happen, rather that is it is something we must choose. Or, find. This thought surfaced recently and caused me to think of what in nature could give me joy. Nature is where I typically turn when that spark of joy is necessary for soothing the soul. 

This thought happened to occur in the midst of a conversation about American Avocets I was having with our head librarian, Jason Frank, who is a dedicated birder and naturalist when he’s away from the stacks. We were chatting about my inability to find one of my favorite shorebirds when he suggested the mudflats around Sand Lake NWR about two hours west in NE South Dakota. With an empty afternoon ahead of us, we headed west.

First came the Avocets, which we found in a flooded field depression not far from Houghton just a few miles from the Sand Lake Refuge. That pair would be the first of a beautiful handful of shorebirds that would occupy our afternoon, and yes, all contributed to blissful joy.

Ah, an American Avocet — our target in the search for joy!

Yet, it was the Avocets that drew us across the prairielands. I’d been missing them. Literally. Earlier this spring there was a brief gathering at the Big Stone NWR where Frank had spotted and photographed a flock he found wading alongside the river. Knowing my love, he had alerted me the following afternoon with his photographs and pinpointed where they were wading. I rushed to the Refuge only to find a locked gate and smoke rising from the thousands of acres of prairie grassland. A spring burn was underway, and continued for the next day or two … just enough time for the flock to fly elsewhere.

Refuge biologist Brandon Semel noted a week or so later that we are actually on the very eastern edge of their natural territories. This was after I had spent a few trips searching the area wetlands where I’d photographed them last summer. Which led me to this more recent conversation with Frank. Like, “Where can I find Avocets?”

Nearly all the flats had sandpipers.

My attraction to these beautiful waders is a strange love story. Back when I was in a forgettable career stretch with a Minneapolis-based ad agency, I found a piece of cottonwood at the studio of a wood artist friend, procured a few wood carving tools and went to work whittling away both wood and ad agency aggravation — whittling away the late night hours when I should have been sleeping. It was during this hobby moment I came upon photographs of this brown-headed beauty of a shorebird with the thin, upcurved bill. My carving was of a rather non-nondescript assemblage of a shorebird and nowhere close to an Avocet. One slip of the knife would have quickly made their narrowest of bills another shaving.

The sandpipers continued to fly first one way, then back.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago while on the annual Salt Lake Birder’s Tour that I saw my first real life Avocet, thanks to Lac qui Parle SWCD manager Rhyan Schicker. Just before the annual kickoff breakfast she told me there were several wading in a flooded farm field just east of Marietta, home of the annual birding mecca. I rushed out and there they were, even more beautiful in person than in the guide books and magazines. I returned over the next few days for more photographs. Then, the next couple of summers they hovered around here, particularly near some mudflats up by Barry, MN. Not this year, though. We’ve had no rain so the lowlands are bone dry.

Frank suggested the Sand Lake possibility. Over the years this interesting refuge has yielded some nice images, although many hours of stalking the “teapot” flying Woodcocks went sorely unfulfilled. Although our little afternoon foray started with a bit of disappointment when we discovered a formerly quite active Blue Heron rookery abandoned. Finding the Avocets turned the tide. Fortunately no highway patrol came upon us, and that the motorists who whizzed by were so understanding and kind. We had parked as close to the road ditch as possible with my lens sticking out the window, yet half the car was still in the road.

Finding this Black-necked Stilt was an unexpected joy!

Our luck and joy would continue. As we came upon the eastern edge of the Sand Lake Refuge we found different flocks of Sandpipers, each being skitterish and prone for quick flights and returns. Then we happened upon a solitary Black-necked Stilt. Far more common to the American Southwest, the guidebook offers only a pencil thin width of territory this far east. We were in it. Joy!

Between the Stilt and the Sandpipers we were enjoying all the offerings as we crept along the shallow waters. When Sandpipers can wade without the water touching their bellies, they’re wading in quite shallow waters. With the taller birds like the Stilt and Avocets it’s difficult to judge the depths. So we merrily wiled away the afternoon before we happened upon pair of White-faced Ibis further down the road. 

As a final capture were the White-Faced Ibis, sharing a mudflat with a sandpiper.

With our past years of wet spring weather the Ibis seemed fairly comfortable around our area of Minnesota. On that Salt Lake tour a few years ago numerous Ibis were seen at several sites, their bills, unlike the Avocets curved  downward. They flew in mini-V formations from one standing water site to another. This  year? Not a single sighting until we happened upon them in the Dakota mudflats, where they meandered thoroughly unconcerned with the odd guy with the long bazooka of a lens sticking through the car window. Nor was the solitary Sandpiper keeping them company.

Perhaps it would have made wonderful sense to stick around until sunset. However we decided to move on toward home and leave the birds behind in their shallow mudflats. We had been greeted by an Avocet prelude and given benediction by the Ibis, which might mean very little to many. For us sitting in our car on this roadside nave, there was a thorough sense of joy within the high skies of this prairieland “cathedral.” As Nouwen had suggested in his writing, we had chosen our sense of joy and had gone to find it.

Oaken Moments

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Two women stood in front of a canvas I’d titled “Oaken Umbrella.” They conversed somewhat secretly it seemed, sometimes raising fingers to perhaps camouflage their conversation. Other Meander customers were coming forth with credit cards offered and various images in hand. 

After glimpsing the two leave the image, then return, time after time, again speaking in huddled conference, I finally found a moment to chat with them. “Would you like to take it down to move it into better light?” I offered.

No, said one. “We love this but it’s more than we can spend,” said the other.

I briefly remembered the moment the picture was taken. This beautiful oak was on the Griffin Land on a hillside overlooking Lake Gilchrist, with its wide and staunch limbs stretching protectively wide to encompass the undergrowth along with thoughts and memories of this and other proud and stately oaks. It was much like the Heath Gunn poem of “The Spreading Oak” … broad and thick, and handsome trunk, supports the mighty branches, arching, spanning, spreading as if like Medieval lances … “

This image, Oaken Umbrella, served as a memorial for a woman who embraced oak trees.

That is the thing about oak trees, which my partner, Roberta, refers to as “Halloween Trees” thanks to the often ghostly looking stark limbs that seem to jut from the trunks, limbs that are quite visible about now as the late fall has denuded many of the trees. Gnarly and stately trunks of especially the older trees, some dating more than a century in age, offer forms of visual poetry that nearly always grasps my eye.

About 11 years ago the Bonanza portion of Big Stone Lake State Park was introduced to me by a young woman friend, a night when a full moon beckoned in the sky far above the hillside prairie of the park. There, standing all alone away from a small oaken savanna in an abbreviated ravine, was an oak I’ve since photographed numerous times. By now the tree is an old friend, one you feel you should reach out to now and then just to see how things are going.

There it stood, a “Halloween Tree,” the grasses golden in the prairie beyond.

Stoic and strong, standing in the text of time, there isn’t much of a shared conversation. Yet, even one-sided I can feel the strength and independence of the lone oak. A few years ago a devastating derecho came in off Big Stone Lake to raise havoc with many of the aged-old oaks both along the lakeside and there in the ravines of the prairie hillside. All that damage is still quite visible as most was left in place thanks to this being a “natural act of nature.” Yet, this single oak suffered no damage.

Just a few days ago we were ambling through the Bonanza searching for possible deer images when the afterglow of the prairie sunset painted an incredible orangish blaze in the grasses beyond the limbs of yet another old oak nearby. Roberta’s “Halloween” look of the old limbs snaked poetically from the trunk, somewhat silhouetted against the vivid color of the late sun-kissed prairie grasses that provided a splendid background. 

Emerging leaves from the staunch limbs on trees in a small oak savanna during a Master Naturalist hike near Redwing caught my eye.

Oaks have long sought my eye. Where I was raised in the hilly northeastern portion of Missouri,  the oaks on our farm were as dynamic to me as the shagbark hickories, and both were so unique and visually beautiful. Sometimes I would stop my horse to rein in that picturesque beauty, or if I was on a tractor mowing the hillsides, I would momentarily stop in awe. Now deep into retirement I still find an excuse to drive back onto the land now farmed by my nephew just to soak in the views of those old trees once again. And yes, most still grace those grassy hillsides all these years later.

On a Thanksgiving weekend evening a few years back, one of those old oak trees defied its  forestal surroundings with broad shouldered limbs defining its existence, limbs emerging from the dabbing of purplish leaves all around. My camera was raised to record this moment of late afternoon beauty. 

Back on the family farm in Missouri, this old oak stood apart from its forestal surrounding.

It didn’t take much imagination for me to close my eyes and have a running mental “film” rush though my memory of dozens of other encounters with various oak trees besides this one on the Griffin Land. Not long after my introduction to forest bathing a few years ago, that mix of nature with meditative breathing and awareness, i was on a Master Naturalist field trip in a Driftless forest near Redwing, MN, when I realized I was standing beneath an incredible theatre of oaken beauty. Leaning against a trunk and looking upwards into the branches and twigs, small immature leaves were starting to break from the buds. Almost involuntarily my breathing slowed and the meditation and kinship eased over me. 

Yes, I lifted the camera to take a few images of the canopy, and moments later trying to catch up with the rest of the tour, I found myself turning to gaze back at what was now stoic and strong old friends, taking different pictures of the oaks from various angles, even from a distant hill where the leader had taken us. I wasn’t a very attentive student, I’m afraid, although my guess was that the guide would have thoroughly understood.

The Bonanza ravines provide a home to small oak savannas that draw me in.

So the two women were back at the canvas of the Griffen oak when one said, “We looked through all your matted prints for a smaller one, something closer to our budget and couldn’t find one.”

“You see,” added the other woman, “a few months ago a dear friend of ours died of MS, and to her there was nothing more beautiful and meaningful than an old oak tree. Like this one. We were considering this as a memorial tribute to her.”

I asked if they had a few moments, that I would run down to my workbench and make them a print. As much as they seemed pleased with the gesture, there was a sense of kinship with someone I didn’t know who must have understood the lure of the beauty of such strong, stately and beautiful trees … the oaks.