Rosa's Excerpts: My Antonia by Willa Cather

'When spring came, after that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only-spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high, wind-rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfolded on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.'

-Willa Cather, 'My Antonia'

.......and for this lovely photo of the exquisitely named Saint John's Prairie, thanks goes out to the College of Saint Benedict, in St. Cloud, Minnesota. This is also the home of the Saint John's Bible, a handwritten, illuminated edition of the Bible, commissioned for the millennium and executed by calligrapher Donald Jackson. Also exquisite.....