A forthcoming elegy for lost friends
Last August, I posted a goodbye poem/letter breaking up with a friend who had hurt me profoundly years ago. Tonight, I found out that she had died.
Arts @ MIA filmstrip
I’m having more fun with the simple video editor that comes with my laptop, another result of which is a filmstrip video of photos I took last year at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA).
Sculpture garden filmstrip
Creating a filmstrip-style video of the photos I took of a heron was so easy that I’ve done it again, this time of the pictures I took of the Harrison Sculpture Garden at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.
Flowers in the arboretum
My spouse and I took our first trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum since The Before Times recently. At a native wildflower garden, we encountered a yellow lady’s slipper and a very-late-blooming white trillium.
A little nature filmstrip
My spouse and I have started doing the mile-long walk around Wirth Lake in a park shared by the City of Minneapolis and suburb Golden Valley once a week to try to shed some pandemic pounds. At the start of one of our walks, we lucked out on this water bird sighting.
A black-ish iris blooms
The photo on the left is a picture of iris variety “Before the Storm” in bloom in my yard from a few years ago. The iris on the right is called “Midnight Oil”; I took this picture of it blooming only a few weeks ago.
Wildlife in the urban garden
I’ve written in a previous blog how much I love dragonflies. This year, I caught a great photo of a similar brown dragonfly sitting on a stake I’ve used to mark where I planted some stonecrop that I moved from my shady front yard to the full sun of my backyard.
Athena Persephoni Publications Summer/Winter Sale
Along with participating in Smashwords’ annual Summer/Winter Sale, Athena Persephoni Publications is also putting the print versions of Cultural Etiquette: a Guide for the Well-Intentioned by Amoja Three Rivers and my own Secret Insurrection: Stories from a Novel of a Future Time on sale for the month of July.
Native garden beauties
Two wildflower plants native to this part of the world have bloomed in my garden: wild geranium and Canada violet.
Black squirrel in Nebraska
In the Before Times, I recorded this video of a jet-black squirrel in the parking lot of a senior community in Lincoln, Nebraska.
White squirrel in the ’burbs
On the way to a curbside giveaway in a Minneapolis suburb, I saw a white squirrel among a group of ducks. I pulled over, got out my smartphone and tried to creep up on the squirrel to take a video.
Rainbow goddesses rising
Iris is the goddess of the rainbow, and she lends her name to a family of flowers prized for their colorful beauty.
Violet of a different color
One of the violets of a color other than purple that I collected and planted last year has bloomed. It’s mostly white with a light blue tint on the inside of its petals. This is my first success in adding color diversity to my front yard violet ground cover.
More early bloomers
There’s more early bloomers happening in my garden, including grape hyacinths and violets.
A native wildflower blooms
The latest bloom from my garden is the native wildflower hepatica.
My poem won a contest!
I am one of six winners of the Environmental (In)justice in Mni Sóta Maḳoce (Minnesota) Storytelling Contest presented by the University of St. Thomas Sustainable Communities Partnership and the Saint Paul Almanac.
Spring’s trying to be sprung
A photo of the first flower of the year in my garden heralds hope for spring.
I see fire…
I’ve been missing in action for so long because I couldn’t bring myself to blog after another innocent Black man’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department.
“Poll: Which one of these erotica stories would you most want to read?”
I am emerging from my sabbatical from social media and serious online activity to post about this great article and fun poll on the blog of Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Vol. 6 editor Sinclair Sexsmith.
Wishing I could celebrate…
Wishing I could celebrate my latest publication on Melissa Fondakowski’s blog Unfit to Print, but I’m still hurting over the death of my longtime colleague from the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, editor-journalist-activist Mel Reeves. Still, I’m grateful for the publication and for Melissa heaping such great praise upon me.