Secret Places

 Posting to City Daily Photo.  

"Under the pavement the dirt is dreaming of grass." Wendell Berry

A thought felt by city pavement everywhere.

Unless of course where water prevails. 

If you're willing, you can, uncover pockets of magic in all of our cities by keeping our senses open. Thankfully my day this week is filled with sunshine (yay no rain) and so I'm sharing a bit of my gardens and other stuff.

Little, everyday treats.

"Things like plants and sweet people and slow-burning candles and long walks and moving water. Wrap them around you. Repeat as necessary." Victoria Erickson

Imperfections are many they must exist to highlight other everyday gifts.

Swinging it's in the blood.

"Don't be afraid of the solitude that comes with raising your standards."

Ebonee Davis

Docks are made for reaching nature's views.

Be crumbled. So wild flowers will come up where you are. You have been stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender. Rumi

In-between moments, I catch

This, a tower to reach our dreams, shadows that dance, and branches singing in the wind. 

Remember this lovely flower, a Foxglove, a Dalmatian peach?

How it looks today, gifted with promising seeds!

It's amazing how quickly nature consumes human places after we turn our backs on them. Life is a hungry thing. Scott Westerfeld

Around my cottage in the woods, 

these have been my desires.

I want long blades of green rich grass 

to run barefoot through, 

and tall pines that whistle love songs through

branches that linger about like gentle arms around you 

while sipping tea as the sun sets

until this

Another possibility awaits.

"Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth."  Rumi

Believe in ordinary moments as life can be extraordinary if you let.

Enjoy your week ahead and take good care of you.

Thank you for your visits, they're a favorite part of my day.

Animal Lovers

Welcome to another

 SATURDAY'S CRITTERS 

and also posting to City Daily Photo

Animals delight our senses, and better our moods,

 as they touch our souls washing joy throughout our days 

for centuries past and yet to come.

Your tone of voice is everything. Trust me on this.

Sometimes silly, sometimes not, your outward expressions

 can make or break a day. Be a day brightener.

I want to wake up tomorrow to zero news. Nothing. Just cat videos.

Sometimes kitty, that's the wisest choice!

It's a cat thing.

"Let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings."

E.O. Wilson

It's not just another hike through the woods, swinging our camera and pulling it out here and there, it's what I call another field trip through life. Please join me. It's so therapeutic.

Guess Who? These eyes

"You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand."

E.O. Wilson

My Dash just loves life and everything in it. There hasn't been a storm yet that scares him. However his big sister, Misty is frightful even before a storm actually lands. So Tuesday in the thick of a wild and thunderous rainstorm we all got in the car and took a ride.  Face your fears we told Misty, and she did, her gaze was glued to the rainy outside. Good job Misty.

Face Your Fears and Live Loudly!

You are capable of more than you know.

A girl (Lyra) and her pup (Artemis) 

Running free!

"If I find a green meadow splashed with daisies and sit down beside a clear-running brook, I have found medicine. It soothes my hurts as well as when I sat in my mother's lap in infancy, because the Earth really is my mother, and the green meadow is her lap."

 Deepak Chopra

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.

 and There is no better high than discovery. 

E.O. Wilson

Thank you for your visits they brighten my days!

Take good care of you 

and please be safe, mask up when you know it's right.

In Tune with Urban Nature

Will carry canoe, anywhere.

Winding my way through the city where urban and nature often mingle together just around another corner. Posting to City Daily Photo.

The island is still calling to me!

All the while I roam or work these days at a moments notice I'll retreat to the island that captured my attention and isn't ready go away, not yet. Remember this photo from Mackinac Island?

Step by step across the openness of city life.

When we find solace in nature and a sense of peace away from our daily sometimes chaotic lives, we owe it to ourselves to answer that call.

On forward motion.

Endless city delights. 

It is possible, to fall in love with your city, again and again.

Nature has a way of reminding us of our smallness. Our troubles seem ephemeral and insignificant in the ancient order of the natural world.

Of course walking tours can lead to hungry tummies! 

Last time we were here while my daughter was visiting this place was closed but now I finally got to try Rosalia Pizza in Linden Hills where the Argentine chef serves up Sicilian influenced wood-fired pizzas and the thicker Fugazza-style pies common on his homeland. All beyond delicious! 

and quite entertaining.

Watching them dance along to the music is a delightful sight. 

On this 93 degree and muggy day I chose inside dining over the patio.

Just across the street one of our favorite toy stores.

 

As I wander I wonder or is it the other way around?

I dwell in possibility.  To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

For, beauty is not caused. It is. 

Emily Dickinson

It just makes things seem on course don't you think?

Find purpose in any direction.

How happy is the little stone that rambles in the road alone,

And doesn't care about careers, and exigencies never fears;

 Whose coat of elemental brown a passing universe put on:

And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, 

Fulfilling absolute decree

in casual simplicity. 

Emily Dickinson

 The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. Chris McCandless

The still, deep pond of what is familiar only bothers us when our personal spirit is ready for more. Jeanne McElvaney

Thank you for your visits.

Take good care of you!

Stay safe.

Have You Ever Heard a Peacock Sing

Posting to SATURDAY'S CRITTERS and City Daily Photo.

I have a peacock that mysteriously and frankly quite sneakily I might add just arrived here one day in July. Around the 4th of July I began noticing odd little signs. Of course I know that this peacock has a rightful home somewhere close to me, it must and with our frozen tundra of a winter not that far away, keeping our new found friend is not an option. My worry is why this lovely creature decided to move on in the first place?  I've been told it's probably searching for a mate, which is not going to be an easy task in our neighborhood.

I took this photo a few days ago, and where once in real sight was greenish has now a deep richer blue. 

Pay attention to the signs! There's usually something more than what meets your eyes. Nothing is a coincidence. 

If you find yourself asking who ate my plant, there's a reason.

These brown dead stems to the left are what remains of my once beautiful Tiger Lillies.

My first photo of this extremely skittish bird often performs its circular dance with tail feathers in full bloom if it believes you aren't near.

It's a fleeting little genius of predicting I'm in chase with camera in hand!

"The peacock has become one of my regular sources of inspiration from nature."

Matthew Williamson

Be a peacock and dance with all of your beauty.

Debasish Mridha

I actually saw so many signs before the peacock actually showed itself, but of course I had no idea it was a peacock chewing up particular flowers and plants.  

It's true peacocks enjoy eating the leaves of my pepper plant which this pepper plant grows in my children's garden. As the plant keeps growing leaves one by one they're eaten away.

Apparently another delicious meal.

It seems this peacock doesn't care for all plants and flowers.

Another sign are the many feathers everywhere.

So I'm back to doing another favorite thing from my childhood, collecting random feathers.

and what could this peacock be thinking?

"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." Walt Whitman

This photo from what I refer to as our Back 40 is the rest of our acreage butting up to our neighbor's acreage too, located to the left, right and behind us all have many places for a peacock to feel safe and right at home. 

"We need the tonic of wilderness, at the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature." Henry David Thoreau

"A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Thanks for sharing your time with me.

Take good care of you and keep your eyes open for anything!

Together as One in the Community

 Posting for City Daily Photo. My Saturday began volunteering at one of our Minneapolis Target Stores with Backpacks filled with school supplies in our "Back to School" extravaganza for some Minneapolis schools. 

Afterwards, I picked up one of my grandchildren to celebrate her 11th birthday together! A few years ago I started the tradition of one on one to celebrate them individually and of course for their birthday! Always a special treat for grandma you know!

Celebrating Communities.

TOGETHER AS ONE

theme for The Mall of America's Community Commons built especially for businesses that were displaced and impacted by the pandemic and the civil unrest of 2020.

I'm sharing a few photos from one location there, A & D Creations that also features iconic items of Minnesota.  

Backpacks for Students sponsored by Target!

Five area Target stores volunteered, I'm in the middle with two other co-workers from our store. It was an incredible gathering, music playing, kids being kids, spirits high, and the temperature high too but oh well better than a frozen tundra in January right!

and a photo of all of us that volunteered! Great looking bunch right.

Can't forget the Happy Birthday girl, Karina!

One of our birthday celebrations was at our grand Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota and some photos taken inside A& D Creations.

One of my favorite things about these places is they describe and express detailed information about things relating to Minnesota like an artsy fun-filled history lesson!

"Oh, Good Grief" it's Charlie Brown, and for Peanut fans if you're ever in the area, a collection of their statues of characters are spread around Saint Paul, Minnesota. Charles Schulz was born in Saint Paul in 1922. 

Hilarious Charlie Brown quote,

 "I fall in love with any girl who smells of library paste!" Charles Schulz

and remember this Pillsbury Doughboy tune? 

Nothing says Lovin' Like Something from the Oven!

"There is no must in art because art is free!" 

Wassily Kandinsky

"It doesn't matter how the paint is put on,

as long as something is said."

Jackson Pollock

"The world always seems brighter when you've just made something

 that wasn't there before."

Neil Gaiman

I'm feeling a bit quirky so I'm going to just leave this last quote with you because it's pure magical happiness!

"M is for magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly. You can make magic with them, and dreams, and, I hope, even a few surprises."

Neil Gaiman

Thanks for stopping in

Take good care of you!