My Favorite Photos - August 2023

Another month passed and it feels like the majority of it was spent at work. The good thing is that many of the activities were ones that made me happy. One of the first ones of the month was Dalapalooza. We had a therapy horse at that one. 

His name was Arvid and he is a Norwegian Fjord horse. 

He was there on lunch break during a Dala horse painting class. Sophia took the class. 

Olivia did too.

At the Washington County Fair, I saw this sunflower. 

Olivia entered about a half-dozen projects. The blue Diamond-Dotz project was one of her projects. 

The girls and I played Bingo at the fair. 

The first week of August, I coordinated the first-ever Sewing Camp at the museum. In addition to sewing for half the day, the girls did other projects - like making these suet log feeders for the birds.

The girls also learned about natural dyes that the pioneers would have used. After the lesson, they created tie-dye t-shirts. They all turned out really well.

The girls also learned about bees and made rolled beeswax candles. 

The main project was a sewing and embroidery project. They made a shoulder bag.

The following week at work, the children learned about cynotype printing. I taught my daughters how to do this when I homeschooled them so it was fun to do again with other children and see how excited they were with the photography process.

The children made stuffed tomtes and a couple other projects. 

The new building signs that I had been working on since February were installed. There was a small team of volunteers and I who worked with to upgrade the signs. 

The signs are in English and Swedish since Swedish immigrants settled in Scandia in the mid- to late-1800s.

The heritage vegetable garden is doing very well now. The Washington County Master Gardens have revitalized this garden and a cereal garden.

The summer intern repainted and/or created different wooden animals that would have been typical of an 1850s-1880s farm.

There was another big event at the museum - Spelmansstamman. Some of the children from the elementary school where I worked and the camp at the museum showed up which was fun. 

There were many musicians at the event - including this older gentleman who was tuning his violin under a tree.

I enjoyed seeing different generations of fiddlers performing together. 

The event in August had a dual focus - Swedish and Ojibwe culture and music. This is Julian who did drumming and short presentations about Ojibwe culture and music. 

I liked seeing children interact with the Dala horses that we repainted and/or touched up. 

My sister and nephew attended the event. They had never been to it and really enjoyed the experience. 

Towards the end of August, Olivia moved back to college. She has her own room again this year as part of her accommodations. It feels so much more spacious than last year's room, and she has set it up well. Sophia gave some input, too, about arranging the room and helped set it up. 

Another project at work was coordinating a Tomte Community Art Show. There are 43 artists who designed and painted 48 tomtes. The artists ranged in ages from 7 to over 80 years old. 

The tomtes are all so different from one another. It's fun to see what people came up with and how some even added additional features to the wood cut-out.

On August 30th, I helped the Lions serve a meal and lemonade to students at the local elementary school. One of the students who I worked with last year (who is now going to school at the middle school) showed up. "Ms. Ann!!" I heard. Seeing him truly brightened my day.

We served food to a lot of families that evening. 

I started growing dahlias this year. This is a new one that just started blooming. 

This dahlia has bloomed constantly now for a month. There have been so many blooms on this plant.

We're seeing a lot of yellows now in the yard and pastures. There's a lot of goldenrod which I'm not a huge fan of, but the bees like it. I prefer these type of yellow  flowers.

Even these yellow flowers I like, especially when I see they benefit bees and other pollinators. 

And that wraps up August. It's been a full month. 

Nature in Black and White

For this photography swap on Swap-Bot, I chose to focus on nature in black and white. All of the images were originally taken in color, but I felt like the color detracted from the pattern and detail of the object. So, I changed them to all black and white images.

The first image is one that I took on April 28, 2019, in Seward, Alaska, of jellyfish. Watching them float and swim was mesmerizing. Inside their bell-shaped body is their mouth. They both eat and discard waste from this opening. They digest their food very quickly because they could not float if they carried a large, undigested meal around.  

To me, the black and white image shows how delicate the jellyfish are and better illustrates their bodies.

The image below is of milkweed seeds with their fluffy floss (what looks like a tail on each seed). I took this image on October 15, 2021, when opening milkweed pods and spreading the seeds. It was a beautiful fall day, slightly overcast, with a nice breeze to carry the seeds off to their new destinations. 

In color, this image has greens, browns, and whites. It has a lot going on. However, when you remove the color from the image, the pattern of the floss and its wispiness shows better. 

Each year in March, we get rainstorms that turn to ice overnight. This image, taken on March 5, 2022, shows the layer of ice covering the woven-wire fence. Imagine this on everything - trees, buildings, the ground, and roads. It's a rather precarious drive until the sun melts the ice. I removed the color from this image because I wanted the focus to be on the icicles and the ice-wrapped wire. 

This image was one I took on April 30, 2008, of rocks at Interstate State Park in Taylors Falls. Although the rocks are slate-gray, it was better to remove the color so that the lichen (on a couple of the rocks) didn't distract from the arrangement of the rocks and the lines between them. 

On June 2, 2021, I was taking photos of the gardens and took this image of leaves with raindrops on them. When I downloaded the photos, I noticed that the leaves appeared to make an "A" - the initial of my first name. I preferred the image in black and white because there were many muted colors in the background from other flowers and plants, the green of the leaves of the "A," and the clear raindrops. The black-and-white version seemed cleaner and more focused on the image I wanted to show.  

I go either way with clouds - sometimes I like the image in color and other times I like them in black-and-white. In this case, I prefer black and white. The clouds had such dramatic shades - from the dark black to white depending on where the sun was and how big/deep the clouds were. This image was taken on August 21, 2007.

As I was taking the dogs for a walk on the afternoon of October 23, 2019, I saw this bright purple thistle with green base.  The thistle plant was huge - probably a good 4'-5' tall. This one flower stood proudly above the rest. Although I love the colors purple and green, what I wanted to focus on was all the little spikes on top and the tightly-clustered spikes below that. 

Scavenger Hunt #3

This is a swap on Swap-Bot that I'm participating in that I thought looked fun. The goal is to take five photos (from a list of ten items) and give some information about them - where did I take it, is it part of a series of photos, or whatever other information that I think is interesting. 

Another option is to use old photos that I have taken. This latter option is what I chose to do. I always enjoy going through photos that I've taken and seeing if they bring me back to when I took them.

Purple

I took this photo on June 8, 2019, in Osceola, Wisconsin. The town has a committee that does floral or natural displays along the main and side streets as a way to beautify the community and drive throughout town. One of my favorite colors is purple, so this display caught my eye.

Diamonds

On June 18, 2017, Sophia (then 16 years old) completed this diamond quilt. This was, by far, her most ambitious quilt because of the cutting and layout she needed to do to create the diamond pattern. She was very happy with how it turned out.

Keyboard

I had totally forgotten about this "learn how to type" program that I had Sophia and Olivia do as part of homeschooling. Here, on April 23, 2013, Sophia is playing a game on computer using the keyboard to learn to type.

Wheels

On June 18, 2018, the propane company came out with a Bobcat to move our tank to a new location after we had a fire that burned down our hobby shed. The propane tank was about 15 feet - at the most - from it. Thankfully, our neighbor who was a retired firefighter saw the fire (we weren't home) and turned off the tank. Things could have been quite different had he not done that. 

Flags

On May 28, 2018, Memorial Day, I visited Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Someone had put a flag in front of my parents' gravestone - as they did in front of the gravestones in the entire section. I was so touched to think that someone took time out of their day to honor my dad who served in the Korean War. 

Shopping

On March 12, 2020, the shelves at Walmart were completely stripped of paper products - toilet paper, paper towels, and napkins. Other sections of the store, likewise, were bare. It made shopping for the basics quite difficult.

Mountains

For Sophia's (homeschool) high school graduation, we took a trip to Washington (state) and Alaska. This is one of the many mountain ranges in Alaska. It was such a beautiful place to visit. We went there before she graduated since the costs increase substantially in the summer there. This was taken on April 27, 2019, on the way to Girdwood, Alaska.

Boots

Of course I could have used a photo showing a normal pair of boots, but why do that when these attractive blue plastic boots were documented on June 3, 2012? Sophia, Olivia, and Colton (their cousin) went to a dairy/creamery operation. Everyone had to wear these blue boots when they went into the creamery. 

Vintage

This was one of my favorite ornaments when I was a girl. When my parents died, my sister, brother, and I went through the ornaments and I picked this one. On December 8, 2013, the little red fawn with white fur trim was on our Christmas tree. 

Glass

By far, one of my favorite places we visited when we were in Seattle, Washington, was Chihuly Garden and Glass. The glasswork there - both inside and outside - was spectacular. I especially liked this boat scene with the glass orbs in and around the boat. The black floor reflected the boat and some of the orbs. I could have spent hours there looking at all the different colors and patterns of this on exhibit alone.

My Favorite Photos - October 2022

During October, my favorite photos centered around birds, flowers, spending time with my younger daughter at college, and spending time with my sister doing genealogical "field trips." 

In early October, I saw a white-throated sparrow. I like the little yellow spot on its forehead.

 

The cardinals are now coming back to the feeders. During the fall and winter, they spend more time near our home and at the feeders. They remind me of my parents who were equally overjoyed when a cardinal - or a pair - would show up at their home. 

A new type of bird showed up at our farm - a red-breasted nuthatch. Normally, we see the white-breasted nuthatches. So, this is a pleasant surprise. 

The flowers have been blooming well into October which is unusual. This one surprised me when I looked closer at it after downloading it to my laptop: the center of the flower is heart-shaped! 

On warm days during October, the sparrows love playing in the birdbath.

By the middle of the month, the bird feeders were getting lots of "customers." It's always a bit bittersweet when the goldfinches' vibrant yellow feathers change to a tannish-gray color.

 

After spending a weekend at home, I brought Olivia back to college. She is on the video/tech team and enjoys it. She took me around the auditorium. This is one of the catwalks. I found out that she is tethered when she moves across the wooden pieces to her right. What isn't quite visible in the photo is that there is a gap between each piece. She needs to re-tether herself as she moves along them to adjust the lights. 

This is another catwalk that has a lot of stage lights. Below are the first six rows of the auditorium. 

As we stood on the catwalk, this was the view down. She also works at the soundboard which is the table in the middle section. 

On the third weekend, my sister and I went to a cemetery in Minneapolis where our grandparents on our mom's side are buried. We cleaned the graves and got the grass back from them. We didn't have a lot of water. So, after the next rain, the gravestones should be a lot brighter. 

 

At the same cemetery, we visited our great-grandparents on my maternal father's side. I had never been to this marker or the graves before, so this was something new. We saw that there were three additional gravestones - two belonging to their unmarried adult children and one belonging to a married adult child. Again we cleaned off each of the gravestones which was a big task. I don't think anyone in the family had been there in decades to do that. 

While we were in the area, we stopped by the church where our parents got married in 1964. At that time, all of the portraits were in black and white. Needless to say, the church was beautiful with its stained-glass windows. We were even lucky enough to be able to see a quinceanera. The young lady looked beautiful in her pink gown with the bouquets of pink flowers lining the aisle.

Around that neighborhood, which was considered a "Tier 2" area during the riots after George Floyd's death, there are a lot of murals. This one caught my eye.

This one did too...for a more humorous reason.

Our last stop of the day was at the home where my grandma and grandpa (on my mom's side) and my mom lived starting in 1942. Our grandpa died in 1951, my mom got married and moved out to her first home with our dad in 1964, and our grandma died in 1982. So, the home was in the family for 40 years. 

We were simply going to take some photos outside of the home. After we did that and were in the car, we noticed a woman peering out behind the door. I went back and introduced myself, and told her the purpose of taking photos. 

To make a long story short, she invited us in and we were able to see the home 40 years after we last saw it! A highlight was seeing the beautiful stained glass window still at the landing on the staircase. It was such a gift that the current homeowner gave us by letting us see the home. What was so touching was the care they are taking to preserve and restore the home. All the original woodwork - since 1904 - is there. 

Our last stop of the day was seeing a duplex that my grandparents and mom lived in from 1938-1942. My mom would have been 8-12 years old at the time. I'm not sure if they lived on the first or second floor. 

Interestingly, we have passed by this home hundreds (probably thousands) of times. It wasn't until my sister and I started doing genealogical research that we were able to get the addresses of some of the homes where our ancestors lived. 

After that, I became pretty sick and have been dealing on and off with laryngitis, fever, a respiratory infection, persistent cough, and sinus issues. Lots of children at the school where I work are sick now - over 5% with the flu alone (which they need to report to the Minnesota Department of Health). So, there are no more photos from the third week of October through the end of the month.