Treasure of the North Woods.

So my parents, Linus and I went on a pleasant walk yesterday through the neighborhood woods and marshlands, just taking in the extraordinary light the northern hemisphere gets in the evening. I was sorta run-down yesterday, and didn't really want to go at first, but I put on my comfy flannel and tromped out anyway.

As we were walking along through one particularly wooded path by a swamp, my mom and I started identifying a good slew of wildflowers, from sticky geraniums to creeping charlie, columbine and dandelions. But as I looked down at one little flowering plant, I stopped. It didn't look like a geranium, although out of the corner of your eye, it looked about the same color. I called my mom over, and we both noticed it looked rather like a wild orchid. Neither of us were sure, though, so we continued strolling and decided to look it up when we got home.

And sure enough, it was an orchid, or a "Showy Orchis", to be exact.

Orchids are definitely not the most common flowers in Minnesota marshlands, but if you go to the right places, there's a better chance of seeing one. Typically, it can take around 15 years for one to bloom and produce seeds, so seeing one is a treat indeed.

So in the end, it was a very worthwhile stroll.