A week ago Sunday my husband the horticulturist had to do something he didn’t want to do–though he knew he had to.  In fact, the results of his action were rather painful to us both.  He had to cut down two large red pines in our front yard–that, after taking down three towering spruce trees that stood parallel to the pines on the eve of the first snow late last fall.  Five fortysome-year-old evergreens–gone.

Their demise was at the hands of the drought in the summer of 2012.  Plant life everywhere suffered that summer.  We watered young trees, shrubs, and perennials nearly every day to keep them alive.  The sandy soil gulped up our well water with relish, only to have the wilting plants begging for more in a day or so.  But we neglected the large, older trees as we let the lawn go dormant and brown.  Surely their roots are deep enough.  Surely it will rain…soon.

Last spring the damage was evident.  The spruces were in the worst condition with only a small area of green on the top of one and a few thrusts of new growth in a feeble attempt to save its life.  But soon they were three brown towers of brittleness.  I was more hopeful for the pines–each had places of damage but also had whole branches of green needles, and we had the rain that helped return the plant world to a more normal existence.  As the summer wore on, the closest pine lost its greenness.  Maybe the other two will make it.  I held onto that until, well, until Chris got out the chainsaw last Sunday and started the cut on the middle tree.  The remaining pine is sparse, battle-worn, and has a dead leader.  But I am optimistic.

The loss of these majestic trees left a huge hole in our landscape.  Whenever I am doing dishes at the sink, the new view shakes me a little; like, wait a minute–something’s wrong, something important is definitely missing.  The mature evergreen trees were the reason we so loved our front yard, and we had great respect for all the winters and droughts they had endured.

The huge hole in the landscape is a mirror and reminder of the huge hole in the landscape of our family.  For twenty-seven years we have loved the look of our life with one, then two, then three kids. We measured our time, not with rings of growth, but by inches on the door jamb, by books read, by art projects hanging on the walls, by hours of homework, by events and concerts and games and holidays and laughs and….  Then one, then two, and now the third, our son, has left for college.  I still held onto the girls, through college and even after, as they came home for Christmas and sometimes for summer and still needed help with a few things–and then, out comes the chainsaw of real jobs with health insurance in states far away…..

We are doing something we didn’t want to do, though we know we have to do it.  It is painful for both of us.  The landscape we bought into and nurtured and loved has changed.  I still see the huge hole, but I have fleetingly admitted that I can now see certain things that I didn’t see very well before.  It opens up unexplored possibilities.  What new things can we plant and nurture and grow?  I am optimistic.

Nobody can begrudge us Minnesotans (or anyone else in the Upper Midwest or New England) some complaining about the weather.  It has been one heck of a winter–much colder than average with much higher than average snowfall.  We had 96 days of snow on the ground before it started melting.  The drifts were thigh-high, making any trekking off the shoveled path fairly impossible without snowshoes.  The ground froze so deeply that we were encouraged to let the water flow at a pencil-width stream at night to keep the service lines from freezing–and we’re still doing that.

Spring arrived twelve days ago.  We are impatient for the Spring in our minds–the green grass, flowers blooming,  leaf budding, birds singing, warm enough for no hats and mittens kind of Spring.  But we had five inches of snow last week.  We dodged the big snowfall last night that pounded the prairie north and west of here.  It is cold and windy today.  There’s snow in the forecast for Friday.  Is this Mother Nature’s ultimate April Fool’s joke?

Spring, like so many things in our lives, is a process.  We have to get to where we want to be–we can’t just arrive.  Early Spring is dirty and messy.  A winter’s worth of sand and salt and blowing debris is exposed as the snow melts.  But the snow is melting!  And the snow that does fall is so warm and full of moisture that it fairly splats on the sidewalk, and the sun is strong enough to start melting it even when below freezing.  The days are long with light compared to January, so chores can be done outside in the evening before nightfall.  We can see grass now.  A few geese are winging their way north.  I saw three huddled robins the other day.  It really is Spring!  Beautiful, messy, chilly, snowy Spring!  No fooling!

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature–the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

–Rachel Carson

Welcome to my new NorthStarNature blog!  I will be sharing pictures of nature from around my home in Central Minnesota and from places I visit.  I hope to show the beauty and wonder of nature and explore how we can learn about ourselves from Nature’s wisdom.

This old beauty of an Oak lives behind our house.  Think of how many winters and springs it has seen!  There are two levels of dilapidated boards from someone’s tree house nestled in its branches.  I can’t even fathom the number of acorns it has produced in the course of its lifetime and how many squirrels, turkeys, and deer have been nourished there.  One tree.  Many years.  Much fun.  Abundant nourishment.  Old Beauty.