Clouds

One of the things that I enjoy taking photos of are clouds and the sky - especially during sunsets and sunrises. I'm going to work backward in time, with the first image from November 25th - the day after Thanksgiving. The sun is setting so early these days. This was at 5:22 p.m.

This picture was taken on the same day, except at 4:52 p.m. - just 30 minutes prior to the picture above. 

Even just a minute apart - at 4:51 p.m. - the clouds and sky were different shades of oranges, golds, and magentas. 

Earlier in November, on the 2nd, the sun was setting at 6:10 p.m. I like how the clouds are shades of pink.

It's hard to believe that it was only 39 days between the first photo above and this one below, taken on October 17th. It was such a warm, pleasant day with heavy cloud coverage. The sun had a hard time peeking through the clouds at 4:07 p.m.

Two days before the photo above, I took this picture on October 15th. At 6:26 p.m., there were so many clouds. In the gaps in the clouds, the orange sky can be seen. I can only imagine that if the clouds weren't there that the whole sky would be vibrant shades of orange. 

On October 6th, on my afternoon walk with the dogs, I loved seeing the clouds and the bright sun. It was just what I needed to see at about 4:50 p.m.

On another part of my walk on October 6th, the clouds covered the majority of the sky too. This photo was taken at 4:05 p.m. - about 45 minutes before the photo above. So, the clouds were definitely staying around that afternoon. 

It was interesting going back on photos I have taken over the past few months. The majority of cloud pictures I took were either on my afternoon walks with the dogs or of sunsets. Regardless of where I took the photo, seeing the image again brought me right back to that moment when I took the picture. That's one thing that I love about photography...being able to be transported in time through a photograph.

A Rainbow of Photos

On Swap-Bot, there is swap called "A Rainbow of Photos." I signed up for this and went back through my photos to see if I had one photo in each color as well as some photos of rainbows. Sure enough, I found at least one for each category. 

Here's my favorite rainbow picture taken in August 2013. This is looking west from our driveway. I'm so grateful that I was there to take the photo. I don't think I've ever one large and in a perfect position like this over our west pasture. 

August 29, 2013

RED 

June 18, 2021

This red bridge is at the Japanese garden at Normandale Community College in Bloomington. The garden is peaceful and quiet, despite being in the city. 

This is called a Taiko-bashi - a drum-shaped bridge - and its leads to the Bentendo (a hexagon-shaped building on one of the three islands in the Japanese garden's pond. 

The name "Bentendo" is a combination of two words: Benten is a gooddess of fortune and Do is a suffix used to indicate certain kinds of buildings). The Bentendo does not have a function. It's just used for accent in a Japanese garden. 

ORANGE

September 13, 2007

My husband used to grow pumpkins each year and sell them. Sophia and Olivia would help him with the planting, and they enjoyed doing that when they were younger. They especially loved seeing when the pumpkins were ready for picking!

YELLOW

January 18, 2021

When Olivia turned 18 years old, it also was her golden birthday. So, I made 18 yellow window stars. These are 11 of the 18 I made for her. They are made from kite paper, and the points are folded multiple times to create different patterns.

GREEN

August 10, 2019

This is a little frog that was on one of the shrubs in our backyard. I enjoy seeing the variety of frogs and toads we have here at the farm...especially these bright green ones.

BLUE

December 3, 2011

Olivia and Sophia are peeking out from a sculpture at Franconia Sculpture Park. We visited the park in December when there are significantly fewer people out walking and exploring the sculptures. 

INDIGO

October 31, 2021

Olivia took a PSEO class focused on digital imaging during her senior year of high school. One of the assignments was to take photos during the "blue hour." What is the blue hour? It's the time of day before sunrise and after sunset when the atmosphere has a deep, dark blue (indigo) color. 

It's not really an hour. Its exact length depends on the time of year, weather conditions, and one's latitude. When taking photographs, the most important thing is that sun has to be below the horizon and the sky can't have a lot of sunset or sunrise colors...it should be mostly blue.

VIOLET

September 4, 2015

One of many flowers in our gardens at our farm. We have 16 gardens this year - each with a different focus and types of plants (with the exception of the 4 pine trees in the front yard that all have basically the same theme and type of plants - hostas, ferns, and bleeding hearts). 

I like purple flowers a lot and have many different types. My favorite ones in the late-summer and fall are Liatris (Liatris ligulistylis). We have had so many monarchs this year - much more so than in the past. It is common to see 4-7 monarchs on one of these plants. It's just amazing!! 

The monarchs we are seeing now are the ones that will journey to Mexico. So, it is vitally important that they have nectar sources for the long flight. Hopefully, people along the migration path also have planted nectar sources for the monarchs.

RAINBOW 

August 21, 2018

One last photo of a rainbow. This was taken in the late summer four years ago. It's only a partial rainbow because the other part was hidden behind the clouds.  This photo was taken from the driveway - just like the rainbow photo above. 

The Top 12 Butterfly Garden Plants

This year Olivia and I are working on improving the butterfly garden in the backyard. Many years ago, when I did the art and farm camp at our farm, the garden was well-maintained and it had a little pond with tiny waterfall. The birds loved it. Having camp counselors and volunteers help with gardening made a huge difference in maintaining all the gardens.

This year, we are putting a lot of effort into the garden. I started last year and got some new perennials in it before Sophia's graduation party that was here. I had some annuals in it to add color since not a lot of perennials were blooming in late-June.

Our goal now is to add more perennial plants, with a focus on native plants that benefit butterflies, pollinators, beneficial insects, and birds - particularly early-migrating birds and hummingbirds.

There are over 700 species in the United States, with 161 species living in Minnesota. Although butterflies provide food for other animals, an equally important role is that they are pollinators. Only about ten percent of plants are self-pollinating. So, the rest of the plants depend on butterflies, bees, and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Without pollinators, many food crops, wild plants, and flowers would be at risk of dying out.

I came across a post about the top butterfly garden plants on Plant Care Today. Some of the plants were for different zones - ones that are much warmer than the one we live in. So, I eliminated those from the list. Below are the ones that we have added to our garden based on the article. The information noted is also from the article on Plant Care Today. The pictures show flowers in our garden.

  

#1 – Buddleia – Butterfly Bush

Butterfly Bush is a fast-growing, easy-to-care-for shrub attracts masses of butterflies throughout the summer with sweet smelling white, blue or purple blossoms. These bushes can grow huge, but it’s easy to control their size by just cutting them back to the ground late in the autumn or very early in the springtime.

Botanical Name: Buddleia Davidii and varieties
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with moist, well-draining soil.
Height: 10 feet
Spread: 15 feet
USDA Hardiness Zones: 5-9 (varies by type)

 

#2 – Phlox

Phlox has pretty, sweet-smelling blossoms in white, pink, lavender, salmon or red all summer long. \

Botanical Name: Phlox paniculata
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with moist, well-draining soil.
Height: 4 feet
Spread: 1 foot
USDA Hardiness Zones: 4-8

#3 – Anise Hyssop

Anise Hyssop is a beautiful, rugged, drought-tolerant plant that does very well in hot climates. It produces blue blooms toward the end of summer that are highly attractive to butterflies, yet they are also deer and rabbit resistant. The flowers are sturdy and long-lasting and make excellent cut flowers.

Botanical Name: Agastache foeniculum
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with moist, well-draining soil.
Height: 5 feet
Spread: 2 feet
USDA Hardiness Zones: 4-10

#4 – Asclepias – Butterfly Weed

Butterfly Weed (aka Milkweed) is an excellent choice if you want to attract Monarchs. Adult butterflies enjoy the flowers’ nectar and lay eggs on the leaves of the plant. Caterpillars eat the leaves and make their cocoons on the plants’ stems. The most popular variety has orange flowers, but there are many milkweed varieties.

Look for Swamp Milkweed and Annual Blood-Flower for butterflies to add variety to your milkweed patch. Not all types appeal to all butterflies, but a good mix will help ensure a meal for a wide variety of butterflies.

Botanical Name: Asclepias tuberosa
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with moist, well-draining soil.
Height: 3 feet
Spread: 1 foot
USDA Hardiness Zones: 4-9

#5 – Aster

The aromatic Aster plant is a wonderful choice to add color and attraction to your butterfly garden in the autumn. There are a variety of colors available that result in abundant blossoms in white, pink, blue, red and purple.

Botanical Name: Aster selections
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with moist, well-draining soil.
Height: 5 feet
Spread: 2 feet
USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-8
Note: Height, spread, and hardiness vary depending on the type of Aster you choose. If you are short on space, seek out Botanical Named varieties, which tend to be more compact and resist disease quite well.

#6 – Echinacea – Purple Coneflower

Purple coneflower is a hardy, pretty, useful plant that grows well in a bright, sunny butterfly garden. The plant is drought and heat tolerant and produces purplish-pink blooms all summer long; and the butterflies enjoy the nectar. The picture above is a different type of Echinacea called "Hot Papaya."

Botanical Name: Echinacea selections
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with well-draining soil.
Height: 5 feet
Spread: 2 feet
USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-9
Note: Height, spread, and hardiness vary depending on the type of Echinacea you choose.

#7 – Salvia – Meadow Sage

May Night or Meadow Sage is a vigorous salvia cultivar producing abundant spikes of purple flowers throughout the summer. This heat tolerant, drought-resistant plant is easy to grow and well-loved by butterflies. There are other salvia varieties available in pink, red and orange.

Botanical Name: Salvia sylvestri
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with well-draining soil.
Height: 3 feet
Spread: 1 foot
USDA Hardiness Zones: 4-9

#8 – Lantana

Bushes of Lantana flowers abundantly throughout the summer with pretty white, cream-colored, yellow, orange, red, pink and lavender blossoms. This plant is excellent in the garden or as a container plant. It is a good choice mixed into the flower bed or trained along a border.

Botanical Name: Lantana selections
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with well-draining soil.
Height: 3 feet
Spread: 3 feet
USDA Hardiness Zones: 10. Lantana grows as an annual in cooler zones, including Minnesota

 

#9 – Zinnia

Zinnias are popular with butterflies. Available in a wide range of colors and varieties, it’s easy to create an interesting, varied garden with just a collection of pretty zinnias.

Botanical Name: Zinnia selections
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with well-draining soil.
Height: 3 feet
Spread: 1 foot
NOTE: Height and spread vary depending on the types of Zinnias you choose.
USDA Hardiness Zones: Annual

 

#10 – Eupatorium – Joe Pye Weed

Joe Pye Weed is a big, vigorously growing plant that butterflies love. Some varieties grow to be six feet tall, but there are cultivars (e.g., Little Joe) that stay smaller. The plant produces billowing clusters of dusty pink blooms late in the summer and into the autumn.

Botanical Name: Eupatorium selections
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with moist, well-draining soil.
Height: 7 feet
Spread: 3 feet
USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-9

#11 – Rudbeckia – Black-Eyed Susan

Black-Eyed Susan is a daisy-like perennial that is heat and drought resistant and lovely in bouquets. Blossoms appear late in the summer and provide a tasty meal for butterflies and bees.

Botanical Name: Rudbeckia selections
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with well-draining soil.
Height: 6 feet
Spread: 3 feet
USDA Hardiness Zones: 4-9

#12 – Coreopsis

Coreopsis has pretty yellow blossoms and deep green, fernlike foliage. The plant blooms all summer long and can be encouraged to bloom even more with vigorous deadheading. In fact, trimming it back with the hedge clippers is a good way to get it to produce blossoms in abundance.

Botanical Name: Coreopsis ‘Moonbeam’
Ideal Conditions: Choose a bright, sunny spot with well-draining soil.
Height: 18 inches
Spread: 18 inches
USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-8

P52 Photo Challenge - Playtime - Week 22

For this week's P52 challenge, the theme is "playtime." Some of my favorite memories are tied to playing outdoors - creating forts in the woods; biking; taking the rowboat out on the lake, going around the island, and "parking" the boat to play on the sandbar; and swinging on the swingset in the backyard.

Living in the country, there seems to be many opportunitites for Sophia and Olivia to play outside. Sometimes, though, it's fun to get out and explore a bit.

Yesterday, for example, we went to Rhubarb Days in Osceola, Wisconsin. Up until about a week ago, I had no idea there was such a festival.

After learning and doing some yoga in the park, we checked out the farmers market, did some of the children's activities, and then headed over to Cascade Falls. To get to the falls, there are well over 100 steps down from the street-level entry point.

Once there, the sounds change from the noise of cars to birds singing to water falling from the cliff to the creek below.

The girls played in the creek, stood in the spray from the waterfall, and explored the edges of the cliffs that were covered with moss. Sophia took off her shoes and went behind the waterfall to play.

The girls playing behind and in front of the waterfall.

We watched some butterflies sunning themselves in the light as well as a yellow butterfly who enjoyed flying around us.

It was a fun and memorable way to end the week.

Trumpeter Swans and a Nature Walk

Olivia and I went on a nature walk on Sunday morning to see a flock of trumpeter swans that were resting in a neighbor's soybean field. It was still early in the morning - before 8:00 a.m.

Once we were closer, the swans were a bit more alert, but didn't seem concerned by us watching them.

As we were watching them, we heard a trumpeting sound in the distance. The swans on the ground began trumpeting loudly. In a matter of minutes, a swan appeared overhead.

The swans kept trumpeting, encouraging it to join the flock. The swan circled overhead, and then landed. You can see it land in the picture above (on the right hand side).

As we looked at the swans, we noticed that one was a shade of gray. It's a juvenile trumpeter swan. It's the same size as an adult, but the plumage is gray. It also has a pinkish gray bill versus a black bill (it will change from gray to black as it becomes an adult).

Eventually, it was time for the trumpeter swans to leave. They all stood up (they can reach 60 inches tall) and spread their wings (they can get up to 6 1/2 feet wide). They flew south a bit as they took off, and then turned to the northwest and flew away.

Truly, it was one of the more memorable mornings. This was the second time in my life that I have seen trumpeter swans. However, this was the first time that I was able to see them so closely and for a prolonged period of time.

Olivia and I enjoyed being out in the quiet, open field. We walked over to where the trumpeter swans were after they flew off and found some feathers. Not large ones - just the small, downy feathers.

As we walked back home, we spotted many deer tracks.

We also saw some dog or coyote tracks. Not sure which one.

Eventually, we made it to the back part of the farm. The picture above is a view looking north. The red barn with white roof in the distance is the barn in the backyard. It seemed like a long walk back to Olivia.

Once we got through this pond/swampy area, it was an easier walk. We enjoyed seeing where deer had visited the farm - where they sleep or rest in the pressed-down grassy areas.

It was a wonderful way to start the morning...and one we will certainly remember for years to come.

Buy Livestock for Those in Need - 52 Weeks of Giving - Week 50

On Friday night and Saturday afternoon, Sophia and Olivia participated in a play at church (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever). All of the proceeds from ticket sales, donations, and the spaghetti dinner benefited the ELCA World Hunger Campaign.

According to the ELCA website, "ELCA World Hunger responds to hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world by addressing root causes. Through a comprehensive program of relief, development, education, and advocacy, people are connected to the resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty. Between 70-75 percent of ELCA World Hunger funds are spent internationally, and 20-25 percent are spent domestically."

As part of the ELCA World Hunger Campaign, there's a program called "Good Gifts." Basically, people can purchase items that are donated to people in need throughout the world.

The 20 children in the play set a goal of wanting to raise enough money to buy an alpaca ($175). They felt this was an ambitious - yet attainable - goal. 

This afternoon, at the end of the play, the pastor shared more about the program and the children's goal. At this point, no one knew - except the pastor - approximately how much had been raised. He shared the good news: the children had raised enough money to buy an alpaca for an individual or family in need.

Even better news: they had raised over $1,200! They could buy the alpaca, an entire farm, chicks, and even more.  The children were THRILLED! Sophia and Olivia's mouths literally dropped when they heard the amount of money that could be raised. The smiles and excitement from them - and all the children - was inspiring!

Truly, the children are going to make such a significant impact on people throughout the world because the community helped support their goal.

Here's a bit more about what the children are able to buy. The information is taken from the Good Gifts website, with links to particular items that can be purchased and donated to those in need.

A Whole Farm
A cow, a couple of goats, 10 chicks, two pigs, a duck, farming tools—plus training and marketing support—can help a family farm its way to a fresh start. With new tools and techniques, crops will grow bigger and stronger than ever before. Eggs, milk and meat from farm animals will provide enough food to eat and sell on the market, helping a family escape the cycle of hunger and poverty for good.

Alpaca

The soft fleece of an alpaca can be made into colorful clothing, bedding and rugs that are much warmer and softer than those made from sheep's wool. These products sell for a high price at the market. And since alpacas have a long life span, a family can depend on this steady source of income for 20 years or more.

Chicks

Ten little chicks make a big difference! When they are just months old, these chicks begin laying eggs, which make nutritious meals for families who are hungry. The many extra eggs are often enough to allow a family to start a small business by selling them for additional income.

Monarchs - Raising, Releasing, and Embroidering Them - Art Every Day Month - Day 26

Yesterday and today I worked on the 11th embroidered and appliqued square for the Minnesota state quilt that I'm making during Art Every Day Month.

This square shows a monarch butterfly - Minnesota's state butterfly. Minnesota adopted the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) as the official state butterfly in 2000.

There's more information about how fourth-graders began the process of designating the monarch as the state butterfly HERE. It's on page 17 of the Minnesota House of Representatives' weekly publication.

Monarch caterpillars appear to feed exclusively on milkweed, which grows throughout Minnesota. According to State Symbols USA, both caterpillars and butterflies are brilliant in color as a warning - the monarch ingests toxins from the milkweed plant which are poisonous to predators.

The male butterfly has small black dots on its lower wings - females do not.

Each year, Sophia and Olivia look for monarch caterpillars around the backyard and in the pastures. They've successfully raised and released many butterflies throughout the years.

Each fall, once the milkweed pods are ready, they release the seeds from the pods that don't open on their own.

Watching the seeds float away in the air and randomly land gives them hope that there will be new milkweed plants in other areas around the farm...and more butterflies visiting them in the future.