Early Spring Carver Park Reserve

Cycle of Life

It’s maple syrup time in Minnesota. The pails and bags are hung on the sugar maple trees to collect the sweet sap to boil down into maple syrup. Our recent warm days have melted almost all the winter snow and I am hoping for a gentle slide into spring with no returns of the winter snow and cold.

Collecting sugar maple sap for maple syrup

Signs of our early spring

Today I got out to Carver Park Reserve for a long walk in the woods. There was a group of school kids spending the day at the park and I could hear their shouts and laughter as I began my walk. Slowly the sounds of their play faded as I moved further from the nature center where they were spending their day.

Heated spring air
In tiny waves of an inch or two –
Above wintery grass.

— Matsuo Basho

As I walked and relaxed into the silence of the woods, bird calls punctuated the silence along with the soft sounds of a gentle breeze rustling the marsh cattails. The trails were wet but walkable. In spots I picked my way through puddles or snow remnants.

Bright blue skies with reddish oak leaves

It was a day that I spent alternating between sky gazing at the brilliant blue skies shining through the tree limbs (and some persistent oak leaves still remaining from last year) and looking down at the remnants of last year’s leaves and plants. Frequent patches of bright green moss brightened the brown and gold palette of the woodland floor.

There is nothing I like better than walking alone in the woods. I enter a state of peaceful presence and bask in the beauty all around me. This time of year I can feel the woodlands awakening. Soon the geese and ducks will return, spring wildflowers will emerge and bloom, and spring peepers will begin their spring mating song.

Fresh spring!
The world is only Nine days old –
These fields and mountains!

— Matsuo Basho

While it will be some time before the greens of later spring and summer appear, this is a perfect time to get out and enjoy seeing the first days of spring.

May you walk in beauty.

Looking across the marsh

Tree bark, stick and leaves

Moss

Cattails blowing in the wind

Lone tree trunk

Edge of the marsh

Acorn Path

Last remnants of snow

Bright green moss

Ribbon tied on tree