Spindly to abundant in one month!

It's already the 9th of July and the gardens are growing like crazy!  Just one month ago, or even less, we didn't have much hope for our garden efforts.  Two nights of frost at the beginning of June nipped several of our plants, causing us to replant peppers, some tomatoes, and some petunias.  And, yes, we covered them, and, yes, we knew we had probably planted too early.  But the month of May was so nice!

This is part of our milkweed collection for the monarchs.  A month ago we didn't see much sign of any milkweeds this year, but here they are, ready to flower!

And here is our first monarch-to-be caterpillar.  Now in a couple weeks begins the chrysalis watch.

We even have some milkweed plants that have migrated to the other side of the silo ring and are growing in the Egyptian walking onions.  And there's another caterpillar!

These petunias looked just pitiful a month ago.  All the vines and filler vines had been nipped out and it all looked pretty sad.  A couple nights ago the weather guys predicted storms--hail, wind, etc.--so I went out quick and took pictures in case the predictions came true.  They didn't!

I love those colors!

Don't you love summer?

Here is the strawberry bed Leann made out of a pallet back in May.  The plants are also supposed to be coming out the holes on the side but some of them have succumbed.  I know that in the rest of the world you have strawberries in June.  They're ready a few weeks later here.  I hear blueberries are starting to show here, too.

Our onions this year have been a lesson in waiting...waiting to see if they would recover from their waterlogged beginning.  Our neighbor orders onions for about 30 people around here from a place in Texas.  When it was time for the place in Texas to harvest the little onion plants, they were flooded out.  The plants eventually came but they weren't in quite the usual hardy condition when they arrived.  So we planted them and waited.  And watched.  And waited. And watched.  And they just stayed spindly and puny.  Every week or so I'd pull one to see if it was growing at all underneath or if it was rotting in the soil.  But there were roots and what would become the bulb was still firm.  So more waiting and watching.   And now we have these lovely onions!  And beans for dried beans on the right.  One row is Swedish brown beans!  We found the seeds on the Internet!

And here are some of the not-so-puny-anymore onions!

So much fun!  Pretty soon...beets!

Love these summer days!

Thanks to some huge geomagnetic storm that occurred on the sun yesterday, we were able to enjoy the Aurora Borealis last night, and maybe tonight, too.  The northern lights were out in the sky along with the lightning bugs near the land, so we were very entertained.  No pictures though...I've tried taking pictures of northern lights in the past, pretty unsuccessfully, so no cameras this time.

We made a quick trip to Duluth today and didn't even have a doctor's appointment or a prescription to pick up.  Yes!  But on the way home we came upon this little "gaze" of baby raccoons.  Yes, I just looked it up.  A group of raccoons is called a "gaze."  There was no sign of Mom so no idea what happened to them after we passed by.  Pretty cute though!

We got home with lots of time to mow most of the lawn.  With almost 2 acres to mow, we sometimes have to take it in stages.  If we were smart we would cut down on how much we mow, but we can't decide what to let go.  And anyway, we like it!

After mowing we took a tour of our trails in Cammie and once again, the fields of daisies got my attention.  The grass up there is growing like crazy, so we'll soon have to get that under control, too.  This time of year it's not the best idea to hike through that tall grass.  Wood ticks!  After living here for a few years I've heard of so many people who have had Lyme disease, and it really doesn't sound like a good time!  So, more to mow!

Time to go out and check the skies!  Happy summer!

The other side of the Solstice

At this time of the summer, now that it is officially summer, I feel the need to slow down the clock!  There isn't a day that goes by, no matter what season, that I don't marvel that I actually get to live up here.  But these recent days have been so beautiful--blue skies, temps 75-80˚, few mosquitoes--perfect!  I keep thinking, "if only every day could be like today."

Here's our field out in front with Jessie's horses up in the background.  At the end of May this is a field of yellow dandelions and now it's full of white daisies, yellow buttercups, and orange hawkweed.  That hawkweed is actually an invasive weed, but we like it anyway.  Soon our other neighbor will come to cut this into hay and bale it up, but for now it feels like Little House on the Prairie.

We did have some needed rain today and there were some storms to the west and south.  But that left us with a beautiful rainbow tonight and some weird cloud formation.

The last time I wrote about Quarry Beach was right after all the snow and built-up ice melted leaving very little beach.  Now a couple months later some of the beach has returned but the stretch of sandy beach is certainly not as wide as in other years.  At least the 4-foot drop has evened out so you can get down to the water.

Here's Quarry Beach in the other direction with some of the remaining rock formations that used to be the quarry.  It's a great place!

And these are two of the four geese families that are currently growing up in the marina area.  These two families are of different hatchings--one set is pretty big now and the other babies still have a hint of yellow fluff on them.  It was good to see so many this year because I don't think there were any last year.

And, yes, there was one day recently that was NOT so beautiful.  For some reason, the third Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) in June--the days of the Lions Club Fishing Contest are often TERRIBLE!  Last year it was practically snowing and the wind was howling!  Here are Brooks & John this year staffing the contest headquarters in their winter gear!  The anglers still showed up even though it was hard to see the lake sometimes because of the fog.

Beautiful days bring nice gardens, so stay tuned!

Always catching up!

I hate when I drop off the blogging train.  I get so behind!  And then there is too much to write about, but I guess I'll just get started.

Spring has definitely come, but before we get too enthusiastic about planting gardens full of flowers and vegetables, we are facing one more threatened dose of snow tomorrow night to Monday.  So far we have only planted onions and also some spinach that hasn't shown up yet.  We moved the onions to where the potatoes were last year.  Definitely didn't need that many potatoes!  But they are so fun to harvest!

On Tuesday we went to Hauser's Nursery and Orchard in Bayfield to check out their selection of plants and trees.  And what a selection!  And what a view of Lake Superior from up on that hill!  Notice the barn quilt there on the side of the barn.  Leann wants to make one of those for our very much smaller "barn."

We left there with three new trees--a Honeycrisp and two Connell Reds, a currant bush, burning bush, two forsythias, several new perennials and some herbs.  Most are all planted except the herbs and maybe I should bring them inside tonight!

Our wildlife viewing is also going into summer mode.  One of the last pictures on our wildlife camera when it was still located in the backyard aimed at the deer feeder was this cute little guy checking out the food situation.  By this time, I don't think there was anything much there that would interest him.

Also in our back yard was this pile of evidence that the bears are out of hibernation.  I have a closeup if there's any question it's from a bear...  We haven't seen any actual bears yet but someone saw a mother and three babies not far down Highway 13.  Gotta watch those bird feeders now!

So,  now I moved the camera to a spot across the field in our front yard.  There are always a lot of deer out there, so I put it there to see what else visits us in the night.  Here's another not-so-little raccoon:

And here's the back end of something dog-like.  It doesn't look straggly enough to be a coyote and it's got a pretty bushy tail so maybe a fox, but foxes are usually a little smaller.  Wolf?  Probably not...

This deer posed nicely...

And then today we have this wild species riding a different kind of "deere!"  Yes, it's mowing time again.  A sure sign of summer!