Cooled off over the past few days, highs in the 70's yesterday with overnight lows pitching down into the 50's. Tomatoes are begining to grow, and the watermelon vine has just flowered.

Garden Report

Wildlife Spotted:

• American Toad
• Baltimore Oriole
• Black-capped Chickadee
• Blue Jay
• Canadian Goose
• Chorus Frog
• Cottontail Rabbit
• Crow, Common
• Goldfinch
• Gray Catbird
• Gray Squirrel
• Green Frog
• Hairy Woodpecker
• Loon, Common
• Mallard Duck
• Mourning Dove
• Northern Cardinal
• Nuthatch
• Pileated Woodpecker
• Red Squirrel
• Red-bellied Woodpecker
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Robin, American
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak
• Ruby-throated Hummingbird
• Sandhill Crane
• Tree Swallow
• Virginia Opossum
• Wood Frog

Wildflowers In Bloom:

• Butterfly weed
• Early Meadowrue
• Harebell
• Marsh Mallow
• Spiderwort
• Swamp Milkweed
• Woodland Sunflower

First frogs of the year take up residence in the pond. A pair of juvenile green frogs migrated from one of the local ponds or seasonal wetlands to bask in the shade of a potted cypress in the feeder pool.


Swamp Milkweed is just about ready to pop. I can't say enough about this native perrenial. The colorful flowers draw butterflies, bees, and other pollinators, the large leaves give shelter to tree frogs, the sap is the requisite of the monarch caterpillar, which is rapidly losing ground due to habitat loss and the destruction of what most people see as a simple weed. While its deep tap roots make it difficult to transplant and nearly impossible to divide, it's easilly propagated from seed and needs very little care besides the occasional watering during the dry season.

Just behind the Swamp Milkweed are its asclepias cousins Common Milkweed and Butterfly weed. Both are very beneficial to both the butterfly population, and in specific to the monarch population. Marsh mallow is coming up like mad, only to be eaten by deer and a seemingly exploding cottontail population. Have had to put a mesh fence around the vegetable garden just to keep them out (they have the wooded lot and the 30'X12' native garden all to themselves).

Has been in the 80's this past week, with only a few very light spots of drizzle. Hopefully we don't have a draught this summer as we did last year.

Spiderwort in bloom

Likely one of the most eccentric flowers in our pond garden, the grass-like leaves of the Western Spiderwort can make it easy to confuse with crabgrass when it sprouts from the ground. It grows quite tall in the right conditions (ours is just under a yard tall) and are a haven for pollinators, including native and imported bee species.

Common to much of the midwest, Spiderwort is extremely resilient, and has been known to spring up on lawns between mowings in areas in which it grows native. It has the peculiar nickname "Cow Slobber" for the gooey quality of its sap. The entire above-ground portion of the plant is edible, and the leaves and stems are often added to stews or even (so I've heard) juices. The flowers are actually very short lived, each blooming for only one day, but a single stem can produce around 20 blossoms.

Temperatures have been warmer lately, holding in the high 70's and low 80's, with moderate to high humidity. Last of the Columbine have gone to seed and Tomatoes are growing in the vegetable garden.

Harebell blooms along the retaining wall

With its distinctive flowers, shaped (in my opinion) like one of those tasteless bonnets they make babies wear in Easter photos, perched atop grassy stems, Harebell is a hard one to miss. It is a widespread flower, predominant in both North America and Europe, where they are known as Witch's thimbles on one hand and dedicated to St Dominic on the other. It is one of the many flowers attractive to hummingbirds (they generally go for purples, blues, and reds), and a variety of pollinating insects.

Harebell is an extremely hardy flower, growing quite well in a variety of lighting conditions, and in both nutrient-rich and poor soils. I have heard that most harebells do not do well in damp soils, but I have seen the Minnesotan varieties growing quite well in seasonal wetlands (those growing next to our pond do quite well). They are fickle when it comes to flowering. I've seen one specimen bloom for only a week in June, while another (not eight inches away) may explode with blooms from late Spring to early Autumn.

Weather's taken a turn in the last week, pitching up into the mid-upper 80's with the sort of humidity that makes just about any shirt feel a few sizes too small.

Garden Report:

Wildlife Spotted:

• American Toad


• Baltimore Oriole


• Black-capped Chickadee


• Blue Jay


• Cedar Waxwing


• Chorus Frog


• Cottontail Rabbit


• Crow, Common


• Goldfinch


• Grackle, Common


• Gray Catbird


• Gray Squirrel


• Hairy Woodpecker


• Loon, Common


• Mallard Duck


• Mourning Dove


• Northern Cardinal


• Nuthatch


• Pileated Woodpecker


• Purple Finch


• Red-bellied Woodpecker


• Red Squirrel


• Red-winged Blackbird


• Robin, American


• Ruby-throated Hummingbird


• Sandhill Crane


• Tree Swallow


• Virginia Opossum


• Wood Frog

Natives in Bloom:

• Aborted Buttercup


• Blue-flag Iris


• Canada Anemone


• Columbine


• False Indigo


• Harebell


• Prairie Ninebark


• Spiderwort


• Prairie Smoke


• Swamp Buttercup

The Hjordis, a 50' gaff-rigged Schooner owned by the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN. The name is taken from a Norse goddess who allegedly sharpened warrior's swords between her breasts. The Hjordis, as related to us by Captain Ben, had an interesting history of its own, having spent time in both the Great Lakes and the Caribbean.

Sorry things have been quiet for a bit. Took the North House Folk School's one-day Craft of Sail course aboard the Hjordis in Grand Marais, MN. Fascinating course; have been a fan of nautical history and nautical historical fiction from Homer to Melville and Patrick O'Brian, but you don't get a real feel for the art and science of sailing until you're out on the water, at the wheel or tending the rigging. Had an awesome day of it with just enough wind to make things interesting. Pulled back into harbor just as a sudden storm hit.

While the Great Lakes may not get as many age of sail buffs as the Mediterranean or Trafalgar, Superior was once host to the largest sail-borne fishing fleet in the world. In Moby Dick, several of the Pequod's fictional hands were Great Lake fisherman, and Melville himself made mention of their prowess and seamanship. The truth is that Great Lake seamanship can take more skill than ocean sailing, not only because the winds are less predictable and there's far more lee shore to be had, but because waves, as cited by our captain, are typically more severe. Rollers that, on the Atlantic may be three feet high and three seconds from peak to peak, would likely be the same height, but one second across on Superior.

The Hjordis tacking in Grand Marais Harbor.

The sustainability and almost nonexistent carbon footprint of sailing is an awesome thing; the ability to spend days on the water, to even travel around the world, without burning a single drop of petroleum seems a romantic fiction in this post-industrial age, but perhaps, as evidenced by the adoption of kite-powered shipping vessels, old things will become new again.

Grand Marais was awesome; the Summer solstice festival was getting underway just as we left, and the town was packed.

Came back to find our first pinkish-green strawberry vanished; likely the victim of a bird or the cottontail we've seen hanging around our backyard. That's fine, really as we've put a small mesh cover around the remaining strawberries.

Harebell are blossoming, and the non-native in the yard have responded to the sprays, giving us hope that, with care, we won't have to stray much further from our ordinarily organic ways.

Prairie Ninebark, a native shrub, in bloom

Saw a Kildeer in Roseville this morning, picking through wrappers in a hotel parking lot. The last Kildeer I can remember seeing was years back in Stillwater. It was March or April, the snow had gone from all but the thickest stretches of the forest, and the ice had receded several feet out (still probably an inch or more thick in the middle), exposing a sandy shoreline littered with fish and waterborne insects that had been killed as the ice moved in. The kildeer was hopping along, here and there nabbing a dragonfly larva (fat and green, like a raw olive), or pecking at the ribs of a dead sunfish. It took off when it saw me, piping its distinguishing cry as it wheeled over the ice.

It's not the first time I've spotted what would typically be distinguised as rural wildlife in Minneapolis's very urbanized suburb. I remember once doing a double-take as what I thought was a dog ran along the train tracks that cross County Road C. It was a red fox with a cottontail rabbit in its mouth.

Four strawberries by last count between two plants. The last of the Wild Geranium went out of bloom last night, and the Harebell and Monkey Flower look just about ready to pop.

Canada Anemone in bloom

Canada Anemone is a species common in wet forests and seasonal wetlands. They have multiple white blooms per plant and large, serrated leaves. Natives were aware of its medicinal properties, and often used it to stop bleeding and treat bug bites and other conditions.

Loons could be heard in the house with the windows closed this morning. Baltimore Oriole and American Robin were seen drinking from the pond, and Prairie Ninebark has started to bloom in the front yard.