New Beginnings – The Arrival of Spring

April 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Wisconsin Woods in Spring

Wisconsin Woods in Early Spring © 2015 Bo Mackison

A few weeks into Spring by the calendar and I’m seeing the first hints of green in the woodlands. The forest floor is greening and will soon be a mass of ferns, wildflowers and green ground cover. The early spring forest floor has a brief window of time for its glory. Once the tree canopy shades the ground and the sun no longer than filter through the skeletal branches, the wildflower show will diminish. But for now, we are at the beginning.

Fern Appears

The Ferns Appear © 2015 Bo Mackison

Amidst the leaf litter from last year, green plants and ferns break through the earth and poke above the leaves. I hiked several miles through woodland and admired the hints of green while looking for the first flower of spring (not counting the garden variety flowers nor a few flowering forsythia).

First Wild Flower of Spring - April 11, 2015

First Flower of Spring – Wood Squill © 2015 Bo Mackison

The wood squill  (or Siberian squill) is one of the first of the spring-flowering bulbs to emerge in early spring.  The flower has six “petals” (actually three petals and three sepals) and is less than an inch across. These deep blue flowers will last only few weeks. This was one of the several I saw, the earliest ones to emerge, but soon the scattered parts of the forest floor will be a sea of blue.

 

 

 

 

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A Day for Celebration

May 12, 2013 by 6 Comments
Red Tulip

Red Tulip © 2013 Bo Mackison

 Celebrate the day, the hour, the minute, the moment.

Celebrate the sunshine, the blossom, the greening of the spirit.

Celebrate life and beyond.

Thanks to all the women in my life who love, live, and make a difference.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

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Walk and Wonder

May 30, 2012 by 4 Comments
Peonies in Pastels

Peonies in Pastels © 2012 Bo Mackison

Seeing form with the whole body and mind,
Hearing sound with the whole body and mind
One understands intimately.
~ Eihel Dogen

I walked the perimeter of a nearby pond this morning. I have been walking it weekdays for the last few weeks, and it is my intention to continue walking the pond path until the snow flies and the way is no longer negotiable.

I continue to be surprised by all the activity that takes place near the pond. The American Lotus are gradually emerging from the water, first as mere bits of green, now many are flat pads floating on the surface.

An egret and a blue heron – I suspect both are males – eye each other from a safe distance. I have not seen any large nests except for the geese, so I surmise those mama birds may be on the other nearby lake.

The male red-wing blackbirds are also out in force, alert and watching the passers-by for their mates and nests are in the above trees. These blackbirds are the main reason I always walk with a wide-brimmed hat for protection. After experiencing the males swoop at my head on several occasions serving me with warnings to “move on,” I keep my head covered. I do not enjoy their startling game of “scare the humans.”

Today I had to make a detour through the woods as a papa goose was giving his seven babies some play time on the path, and since he eyed me wildly and threatened me with his wide-opened beak, I gave in and turned around. I was in no mood to take on an aggressive father.

Then while passing through the trees, I saw a snapping turtle, maybe two feet long including tail, digging at the side of the trail. She was preparing to lay her eggs, and had dug a hole four or five inches deep. Since I purposely do not bring a camera on my early morning walk, I have no photographs, only the memories I stored in my mind, and a few sketches I penciled in my journal when I returned home.

I am experimenting with the camera free walk. I have well learned the habit of close observation in the last five years of carrying a camera almost everywhere, but there are times when it seems the need for a photograph interrupts a train of thought I would like to follow, or a time of quiet I am enjoying. I will try it for a month, and then choose whether to carry my camera again or continue with a camera-free hour first thing in the morning.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is spending the rest of the day in her studio, matting and framing photographs for her first summer art fair — this weekend.

(57th Street Art Fair in Hyde Park, Chicago – June 2 and 3. More info to follow)

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Contemplate the Beauty

May 24, 2012 by 5 Comments
Orange Poppy

Orange Poppy © 2012 Bo Mackison

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. ~ Rachel Carson

I am heading into a stretch of days that will be a test of my endurance. As I was looking through my notebooks of quotes, looking for a quotation to pair with this cheerful poppy, I came across the above quote by Rachel Carson.

Contemplate the beauty of the earth. There will be found reserves of strength that will endure.

Contemplate the beauty of the earth.

Contemplate the beauty.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

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Traveling East, A Spring Greening

May 1, 2012 by 12 Comments

The greening of the trees in spring rain,
see-through trees like a lacy negligee, the nesting bird
watches from the half-leafed trees.

Traveling in the Rain

Rain Travel © 2012 Bo Mackison

Calves balancing on gentle hills rub their noses in the wet grasses.
One stands wobbly, leans against its mother.
Others watch their mothers watching them, nibble a bit, suckle,
wander about the remains of last fall’s tattered harvest.

Darkest brown, Iowa’s earth, earth that dips
and dances. We’ve driven past the Kansas grasslands,
and not yet reached the prairie flat of Illinois.

See the family plot tucked tightly between
the edge of the woods and the tilled field;
Splintered posts and strands of wire mark its boundary.
Roughly hewed stones, two rows of three, the mossy inscriptions illegible.
Though one, a mother’s marker, is split in half – part upright,
part broken off and tipped into the rain-soaked grass.
The roughened quarry block, now a rest stop for crows,
splats of white the only sign of life.

Clouds hang gray, so low I yearn to stand
and push them high into the skies, high enough to punch an opening into the dim blueness
that is Midwestern sky, give sunlight to the earth.
Yet fog lingers, sky primed in deep grays.

We pass a highway sign, What Cheer, population 142. Twenty miles south.
I wish to see a town worthy of this name, but we’re on the fourth morning of steady travel.
There is no will to detour.
Tonight we sleep in the familiar ridges and valleys of our familiar bed.

First I will say hello to the house I left a hundred days ago,
walk through the rooms I know by memory, peer out the back window at the apple tree.
I’m told no blossoms remain.

Oklahoma, Gray Skies, and a White Truck

White Truck © 2012 Bo Mackison

I bought a primitive statue of a woman last summer from a stone sculptor the next booth over.
She toppled in a winter storm. My husband mentions this
as he pulls into the Save-n-Go in Dubuque for gas and coffee.

Tomorrow morning I’ll push her upright so we can watch the garden together.
We will meet, eye to eye, and reflect on the greenness of Midwest spring.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. After four days of cross-country travel, Bo is back home in the Midwest.

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