In Pursuit of Wonder

February 16, 2016 Around 9:00am, Larry and I left his place for the sand prairie, the Kellogg – Weaver Dunes. We drove along highway 84, noting red-tail hawks. I observed the prairie on either side of us. Larry decided we would walk onto the dunes from the north, so we…

Larry walked ahead, I trailed behind, though I took fewer photos. Constantly looking around at my surroundings, including the ground, I spied a spider walking along (in January!). It was so unexpected. I called to Larry, “Look, there’s a live spider walking about!” He turned around, walked back to where…

A wall of wild rice rose up on our left, waving in the wind, golden brown in color. Trees, a woodlot, loomed on the horizon beyond it. The height of the wild rice masked the distance to the woodlot. Ahead of us was the vast, gray, frozen lake. Another forest…

“There’s a duck hunting blind. This would be a difficult place to get ducks out of.” Larry pointed out the blind, explaining how they’d use it. Tiny trees, only a few inches in diameter were bent and broken over. After lingering for only a few moments, we were on the…

January 29, 2016 Larry and I finally hiked Schmoker’s (down the channel we tried canoeing but were unsuccessful). We pulled off the road just before the bridge, walked through deep snow down the ditch. Larry’s young dog, Hank, scouting ahead of us. Cautiously, we picked our way down the bridge…

Larry said, “At least you’ll get a good story out of this.” Within feet of the shore, a log stuck out into the water from the bank. Part of it looked to be submerged in the water. Larry was holding the canoe expecting me to step into it, walk to…

We kept going into the bulrushes, there were no longer any gaps through which to pass the canoe without considerable effort. Larry still stood in the back pushing with the pole and I was trying in vain to move us forward, changing between pushing and pulling. We had reached a…

Canoeing alongside the first few wild rice plants was fantastic, almost felt like a fairy tale, to be near the legendary plant. We know it exists in lakes of central and northern Minnesota but don’t expect to see it this far south. The plant is tall, rising out of the…

There were many ring-billed gulls dancing in the air in the distance. Some perched on tiny islands. Larry pointed them out. One was flying our direction, “A ring-billed gull is heading straight for us.” It swooped off to its right before it came too close to us. As soon as…

October 5, 2015 Larry and I had planned back in March to canoe down McCarthy Lake in May so I could get a feel for the lake in the spring, not just in winter. But when May came, we weren’t able to canoe. So we tried again for the middle…