I am greeting the arrival of spring in Minnesota with great joy.

Bathing in Beauty

From a distance the landscape looks like a mist of spring green. The weeping willow trees are draped in a veil of yellow-green and tiny plants and flowers are beginning to bloom.

It makes me want to go out into the woods and soak in the beauty, bask in it, become it…

A circle of bloodroot flower buds at Minnehaha Falls Park.

“We do not want merely to see beauty… we want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses, and nymphs and elves.”

               ― C.S. Lewis

But I don’t need to go anywhere special to see and feel the wonder of this time of year. My own back yard is filled with magical beauty.

In just 3 days we went from bare gray trees and bushes to hazes of spring green everywhere. Daffodils are starting to bloom and I even saw a violet in bloom in our yard.

Nature seems to be singing with joy at the arrival of warm weather. This morning with my open windows, I awakened to birdsong. Ahhh….

All I can say is “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

Early this morning I went out to our yard with camera and long lens trying to capture a photo of the chickadees that have created a nest in the basswood tree stump near the back of the house. Unfortunately the chickadees were shy and left the nest as soon as I came into the yard. I sat down on the lawn and waited for 30 minutes or more but when neither parent returned to the nest. Finally I left, hoping that I had not frightened them away from the nest for good.

The photo below was the one I snapped just as I arrived in the back yard and was setting up my tripod. As you can see the chickadee was exiting from the nest quickly and I did not have the camera speed set high enough to capture the motion. I am so surprised that they were able to create a nest inside the tree trunk. Imagine how much work it was carving out that little chamber. Perhaps a woodpecker created it sometime over the winter, looking for insects. I can’t wait to examine it more closely—but I won’t do that until the chickadees have left the nest for good.

The tree stump with the nest is very close to the house and one (or both) of the chickadees is constantly protecting the territory around the nest.  When the one of the chickadees sees it’s own reflection in the nearby bathroom windows, it flies in to chase away the “intruder” and ends up bumping against the window—again and again and again. The only way to interrupt this behavior is to pull down the blinds on the windows—so the blinds in the master bathroom are down during the day until our chickadee family leaves the tree stump.

While I was waiting for the chickadees, I soaked in the sweet sounds of the birds and watched the wood ducks cruise the far side of the pond. Along with the wood ducks, painted turtles crawled up on a log at the edge of the pond to sun and the mallards basked along the shore in the grass at the edge of the pond.

A Little Bit of Heaven

This place is a little bit of heaven. Sitting here and soaking it all in makes me feel like I am bathing in beauty.

The reflection of the trees and the fresh green leaves created a wonderful impressionist painting on the pond’s surface. Seeing the colors, listening to the bird song and feeling the touch of a slight breeze on my skin fills my senses.

This season is fleeting and will be over all too soon. Now is the time to slow down and soak it in.

When was the last time you sat down in the grass somewhere in nature and bathed in beauty?

May you walk in beauty.

Impressionist Pond Reflections

So many wood ducks!