Bright & Sharp, Blue & Vast

On Memorial Day, when I was hiking the trails in Jay Cooke State Park, I happened to glimpse a tiny shard of bright blue eggshell in a ditch alongside the path. I moved a couple wet leaves out of the way and found the rest of the shell. 

As I took a few shots, like the one below, I started thinking that this image--of the broken shell lying in the ditch--was a perfect metaphor for the end of the school year, for the end of the seniors' time at Marshall. You're leaving the nest, and learning to fly, and all that…*

Empty Robin's egg, Jay Cooke State Park, taken May 26, 2014

As you fly on to newer, bigger, and brighter places, what you're leaving behind may seem old and decayed, small and worn-out. But it's the contrast between the dull reddish-brown of the decaying leaves and the bright, greenish-blue of the empty shell, the contrast between your old realities and your new possibilities, that makes the image so eye-catching. 

Wherever you go, you leave parts of yourself behind, and let's hope that your legacy is as eye-catching and memorable as the bright blue eggshell against the wet, decaying leaves… 

Maybe your legacy has a few sharp edges, too, just like the eggshell--sharp edges that mark your struggle to break free of your past or your limitations, sharp edges that reveal how you yourself were bruised a bit by your time here… 

That's okay. The brightness and the sharpness are all part of the experience, all part of the journey of growing up and moving on from one small world to a larger new one. 

Empty robin's-egg blue chairs

I'm writing this post in my empty classroom during period 4A--all my students are off doing their Senior Projects--so it's peaceful and quiet. As I sit here, thinking about empty nests and new adventures, it strikes me that the empty bright blue chairs in my room are similar in color to the empty eggshell, so I thought I'd snap a photo. 

The two photos demonstrate the same idea, really: the exchange of one small bright blue world for another unknown world, so much more vast. I hope you will find it to be so, and I wish you well on your journey.

*Graduation season makes me sentimental; please forgive the cheesy clichés. But if I still have your attention, please also remember that "cliché" is a noun, NOT an adjective. "Clichéd" is the adjective form, if you must use it...

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Manifesto Day, Part Two

My English 12 students have now completed their manifestos, so as promised, here are the links. A number of the students were very nervous about reading their work to the class, but everybody survived! 

From 2B, here's Lane E's, Morgan F's, Charlie K's, Gamp L's Seamas L's, Christian O's, Tony P's, and Pierce R's. 

From 2A, here's Jack B's, Joe D's, Gao's, Kyle J's, Julia K's, Daniel K's, Anthony M's, Brady N's, Brooke N's,  Chris N's, Kori P's, and Tim P's. 

From 1A, here's Gabbi I's and Seamus M's. 

Some of these poems are quite brave and amazing, I think…

(If a few other students finish their work, I'll put up their links…) 

Maya Angelou

Kori P just informed me that Maya Angelou has died today. I'm pretty sure she will always be remembered as one of the most important poets of our time. I looked around on YouTube for a video to show in class, and I found that The Clinton Library has made this famous video of Dr Angelou reading her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's 1993 inauguration available for reproduction without permission. So here it is, courtesy of the William J Clinton Library:

Take-A-Look Tuesday: Beautiful Things

Our tour guide tells us about Rembrandt's Lucretia, 1666.

[Note: Be patient & let all the high-resolution photos load!]

On Friday, the 23rd, I chaperoned a field trip with Ms Vigen's and Mr Anderson's classes to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Museum. 

It was a bright, sunny day, and we spent many hours, indoors and out, looking at beautiful things. We took guided tours and also had time to roam the museums on our own. We saw lots of beautiful things.

Natasha pretending to be as scary as Mrs Karr. Photo courtesy of Kori P 

Chance encounter with Mary & Clara during our free hour in
the MIA.

I love the MIA and have been there many times. I was furiously trying to take as many shots of my favorite works as I could. Kori P took a picture of Natasha K next to my all-time favorite, Portrait of Clémentine Karr (Mrs Alphonse) by Henri Lehmann, painted in 1845.  

We ate lunch outside on the grounds of the museum, and I snapped a few pictures of the students...

Meggan reading Camus, I think...

David, holding forth on Kalamata olives...you can see Mr Anderson & his
apprentice in the background...

Beautiful things

Then, of course, the long Memorial Day weekend began, and I was off to the Munger Trail and Jay Cooke State Park. I spent one day biking and one day hiking. Both days were incredibly bright and sunny. I took lots of photos of beautiful things.

Trillium buds--most still hadn't opened...

...but this big one was fully open.

There were all sorts of little green things coming up out of the ground, including some Lady Slippers... 

 

More yellow Slipper sprouts

Yellow Slipper sprouts

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Even the big pink-and-white Showy Slipper had sprouted.

Showy Slipper just barely above groud

The Marsh Marigolds were in full bloom, as was Bellwort, so most of the flowers I saw were yellow...

Marsh Marigolds

Bellwort

...But when I looked really closely, I could see a tiny purple flower, very close to the ground...it was Wild Ginger.

Wild Ginger flower bud, shot with macro lens

Later, when I went hiking at Jay Cooke, the Wild Ginger was flowering everywhere. 

Wild Ginger flower, taken with macro lens

Wild Ginger

The flower appears at the base of the plant, just barely above the ground, and I believe it's pollinated by ants. Most folks never see these flowers--you wouldn't know they were there unless you knew where to look.

Besides the Wild Ginger, the Trout Lilies, both yellow and white, were all over the Park. At first, I thought I'd only see a few buds and those lovely mottled leaves, but then I turned a corner, and the flowers were blooming by the hundreds. 

Yellow Trout Lily bud

As the flowers open, the petals curl up and back toward the stem...

Yellow Trout Lily, half open

Yellow Trout Lily, fully open, with bug on top...

As pretty as the Yellow Lilies were, I think my favorites were the White Trout Lilies.

White Trout Lily, macro lens shot

I wish I had taken more shots of the leaves because they really are beautiful. 

Although the larger Trillium grandiflora dominates the Munger Trail, the Nodding Trillium (trillium cernuum) is most plentiful at Jay Cooke. They were just starting to bloom, and I never got a good shot of the flower, only of the bud, so I'll have to go back soon and try again. And there were, of course, lots of ferns coming up all over. 

Nodding Trillium bud

Fiddlehead macro shot, edited with Snapseed

But perhaps my best find was this mushroom below, a Devil's Urn. I've never seen one before, and it was really cool. I figure Jack B, who liked my photo of the dead puffballs in my last post, would like this, too. Some folks might think it's ugly, but I don't. It had a spiderweb inside it, which had collected little dust particles and maybe some spores.

Devil's Urn fungus

So, after a long weekend of seeing beautiful things in museums and in parks, I came home to my little orchid collection, where my Phalaenopsis was blooming (for the third time).

Phalaenopsis, backlit by the morning sun

I also received an email telling me that one of my Lady Slipper photos from last year had been chosen for the "Photo of the Week" feature on the American Orchid Society website. 

My photo on the AOS website

I was pretty excited, since this is the second time one of my photos has been chosen.  Here's the full size view below.

In a normal spring, these Slippers would have started blooming on the Munger Trail (where I took this photo) and in Jay Cooke State Park over the Memorial Day weekend. This year, they'll bloom a bit later, in June, and then in July the Showy Slippers will bloom. There are lots of beautiful things ahead...

Take-A-Look-Tuesday: The Start of Spring Ephemeral Season

[I was originally planning to make this a "Wordless Wednesday" post, but I have a hard time being wordless, and I really wanted to post this before Wednesday. --So, I'm calling it a "Take-A-Look Tuesday" post! This is my 60th post, by the way!]

On Sunday, the 18th, I biked along the Munger Trail from Duluth to Jay Cooke State Park. It was my longest ride of the season so far (I was on the Trail for 6 hours, not because it takes that long to get from Duluth to Jay Cooke, but because I stop constantly to take photos--like 300 photos! As Ms Durant says, I have a problem...). It was a lovely day, and the spring ephemerals were beginning to bloom. Hepatica was everywhere I looked! 

Hepatica, Munger Trail, May 18, 2014.

There's a really nice bridge over the river. I hadn't ever biked that far before, so I didn't even know it was there. It looked fairly new. 

Bridge over St Louis River

The view from the bridge was pretty spectacular: the water levels are really high from all the snow-melt.

View of St Louis River from the bridge.

Among the flowers I saw, Bloodroot was a nice surprise. The flowers only last a couple days, so I was in the right place at the right time to see them. The flowers rise up out of the ground before their leaves are fully outspread.

Bloodroot

The Marsh Marigolds were almost ready to bloom--look at those nice, fat buds! Every drainage ditch I passed seemed full of them.

Marsh Marigolds ready to pop open.

I saw lots of ferns sprouting up out of the ground. Many different kinds of ferns grow along the Trail. I'm not exactly sure what kind these are (one could easily spend a whole season just learning to identify the various kinds--maybe one day I'll do that).

Ferns

It's almost true that every time I bike the Trail I see something I haven't seen before: this time, it was Ramps or Wild Garlic. They were all over the place, often in large groups. It took me half of my ride to figure out what they were, as I'd never seen them before and didn't think they grew around here--when I got back home, I was able to identify them with more certainty. They're easy to spot because there's not much greenery yet. Soon they'll be hard to see when the rest of the undergrowth catches up with them.

Ramps

I also saw several large clusters of dead Puffball mushrooms. 

Dead Puffballs

As I said, Hepatica was everywhere, in large clusters, mostly the white kind. I've been trying really hard to learn to take better photos of white flowers because soon the Trilliums will be blooming. I used my new iPhone polarizing filter for this shot, and it helped cut some of the glare from the sun. 

More Hepatica

This photo below shows one of the few Trillium buds I saw. Most of the Trilliums had just recently popped out of the ground. I'm hoping to see a few flowers this coming weekend. You can see how strong the morning sunlight is--I took this photo shortly after 8 am, and even with the polarizing filter, and some editing, the glare is pretty strong.

Trillium bud

I really like this shot below. I was perched rather precariously on a steep hillside, trying to shoot some blue Hepatica, but I took a shot of this white one while I was there. I didn't think it would turn out, but it did.

Hepatica

This (below) is what many of the Trillium plants looked like. I like the way the leaves are spiraled up around the bud.

Trillium, newly sprouted

For a few weeks now, I've been taking photos of a deer carcass in the woods about 20 feet off the Trail. I saw it while checking on a patch of Hepatica, of course. There's not much left of it. Back when there was still quite a bit of snow in the woods, I had seen a lame doe on the Trail, and I wonder if this is her. 

Deer leg: taken a week ago. It's still there.

I also wonder what kind of critter killed this deer:  Wolf? Coyote? 

Some of the dead doe's fur, glistening with morning dew, taken a week ago.

What's left of her is beautiful in its own way...

Her jaw, also taken a week ago.

You never know what you'll see…you have to keep your eyes open. There's always so much to look at, down low and up high. 

Porcupine, taken a week ago.

This porcupine came down from the treetop and crossed the path right in front of me: I thought I was filming him, but when I got home, I realized I must not have pressed the start button! All I got were a few stills while he was up in the tree.

Spider on Mullein leaf from a week ago.

I have to admit, my eyes are usually focused on the ground...

Blue Hepatica, also taken a week ago.

If you don't look now, and in the coming weeks, you'll miss a lot of beauty. I can't wait until next weekend! 

Manifesto Day, Part One

Hepatica buds in the early morning light on Munger trail. 

Toward the end of each year in my AP class, and then usually a bit later in my English 12 classes, I have students read a selection of contemporary American poetry, including a number of poems that are, essentially, manifestos. 

We discuss them, and then I ask the students to write their own poetic manifestos. They are often a bit nervous about this assignment, as there are almost no guidelines, no limits. They also have to read them aloud to the class on the due date, no excuses, no exceptions. (They practice in small groups first, and then read them to the whole class.) It's always pretty intense and emotional. 

Someone usually starts crying while reading or while listening, and before long almost everybody's tear-ducts are working a bit harder than usual. 

Morning dew on mullein leaves, Munger Trail.

At the best of times, people really say what they want to say, not what they think others want to hear. This year, I asked the students to post their manifestos on their blogs as well, so here are some links from the AP class:  Mary B, Meggan G, Cara H, Natasha K, Jake K, Calvin K, Catherine M, Asher N, Ian P, Erin P, Gunnar R, and Maddie S. (Stay tuned for links to English 12 manifestos!)

Another First: A Rap Version of Sonnet 18

This year's class has been more creative (or at least more musical) than previous classes, and so I'm hoping that next year's class will continue this upward trend.  This year, finally (I've been trying to get a group of students to do this for a long time), a group of seniors decided to rap their sonnet. The video below, which shows a practice session in the cafeteria, is my favorite version (look at Addison's moves!).



Later, when the group performed at lunch, they were a bit more restrained, as you can see below. (I prefer the practice session!)

How to Keep Your Blog

[Note: this strategy isn't working for everybody. The Tech folks will keep trying to figure out how you can keep your blogs, so stay tuned.]

I mentioned the other day that you can keep your blog even after you graduate, and even after your school email disappears or ceases to work. Here are the directions. 

1. Make sure you have a gmail account that is not associated with school. Go into your blogger settings under "Basic" and in the "Blog Authors" section, click on the "+Add authors" link.


2. Then, add that other email as an author. You have to click the "Invite authors" tab--that will send an email invitation to that email.

3. Go into that other email account, and accept the invitation. It might actually take awhile for the invitation to be sent to your email, so be patient.

 

4. Once you accept the email, then that new email address should show up in your "Blog authors" list. When that happens, then you can edit the "Admin" status of the authors, to make that new email address the administrator of your blog.  Once you do that, then you can maintain control of and access to your blog indefinitely, via that email address.  

This is what the complete process looks like. Thanks to Pierce for the image! 

When you reach this stage, or at least after graduation, it might be a good idea to make your school email address only an author and no longer an administrator.  

You can also export your blog into another blogging platform by using the "export" function in the settings.  That feature will create an XML file of all your blog content which you can then import into another blogging service.

I hope this helps!