It’s full summer in Minnesota, and the world is full of things to find – triplet baby badgers (I think!) peeking out of ground pipes, rabbits everywhere, orange-winged blackbirds and goldfinches and robins, and very often a heron if you look closely in the grass around the water.

When we first moved to Minnesota from Boston, I was working in my (home) office when a doe came up to my office window. She looked at me for a while as though I were a new acquisition in a zoo, and then wandered off. I was surprised and also glad to be entertainment for the locals.

Sometimes I miss living in a city, but it wasn’t until we moved to Minnesota that I even thought of looking for wildlife on walks. My kids and I do keep our eyes open partly to know when we have to distract the dog away from the small bunnies and squirrels. And partly because the search offers gifts, always – when we look, we find so many hidden treasures.