the arrival of autumn...

Fall colors are showing everywhere I look these days and this is my favorite time of year. I love the sights, sounds and smells of autumn days!
Last week on a trip to visit Jayme, I checked out Jay Cooke State park for fall colors...
the trees were just beginning to turn and made a gorgeous backdrop for the rocky St. Louis river.
I'm going to visit her again this week and hope to capture many more "fall color" photos to share.
This MN map that was on a sign at Jay Cooke shows why I love the trip "up north" so much at this time of year. I live in the vicinity of where I typed the word "prairie" and my daughter lives where I typed "forest". The 4 hour trip through the 3 distinct areas is simply gorgeous and filled with color!
I hope you are enjoying this sunshine filled week as I am! Today, I am thankful for red maples - wish I had some of my own :)

mosaic Monday...scenes from the weekend

We had a wonderful weekend camping at Lac qui Parle State Park in western MN this weekend with friends. We arrived late Friday in time to enjoy a relaxing dinner watching a beautiful sunset...
Saturday morning we spotted a curious fawn...and later we took a drive to the Redlin Art Center in Watertown, SD since our friends have never been there. You can view my post from our visit last year, HERE. On our drive we spotted a pasture of buffalo grazing...
and a herd of deer enjoying a soybean snack in the late afternoon sun...
back at the campsite we were blessed with a second gorgeous sunset while ending our day around a campfire.
Pocket gophers are a huge pest in our area and the campground was no exception. Sunday morning, I watched one as he worked bringing dirt up and mounding as he extended his tunnels.
After a September that brought more rain than sunshine a beautiful week is forecast. I hope to bring you the Oct garden (since I forgot Sept) and some peeks into a beautiful MN autumn. Today, I am grateful for a relaxing weekend and bright autumn sunshine!

garden shots...

I loved how today's late evening sun shone on the pee gee hydrangeas blossoms so I ran inside to grab the camera. I was able to capture a few more shots with the golden light...
before it quickly disappeared.
It gets dark way to early for me these days!

mosaic Monday...where have I been?

It's Monday so that means it time for a few mosaics once again...though I have to admit I like a mosaic any day of the week since it allows me to post many photos as one :) It's hard to believe that I haven't posted since Sept 9th but the "garden of life" has just been busy these past 10 days - thank you to my faithful reader, Mollie, for sending me an email asking if I was okay since I hadn't posted for awhile :) What have I been up to...well, Jeff & I spent a beautiful fall weekend cycling and camping in SW Minnesota...the land of wind turbines, an unusual water tower, historic buildings and leaves just beginning to turn.

This past weekend we attended the wedding (our 6th of the summer) of our beautiful niece, Kelli and her new husband, Chris! It was such a fun time and they had so many beautiful touches from the wonderful garden ceremony to Chris's homemade wines with dinner. I have to say...his apple pie wine is the best dessert I have had in a long time! Our family as well as the other guests had a great time with their "photo corner" filled with frames and props for fun photo sessions during the reception. Great idea Kelli!
In between these fun weekends was a whirlwind trip "up north" to plant the first half of Jayme's new perennial garden which I will be finishing this week since I got rained out last week. Last, but not least was a very fun 50th birthday party for my sister-in-law, Jill, who was great and modeled some of her "gifts". I also managed to get some fun shots of my grand nephew, Benjamin, with my grandniece Ketcie, and Keena stopped eating birthday cake long enough to show me her cake crumb smile & bright blue eyes. Alexis and Ashley were too busy playing with the farm kitties to stop and take a photo for auntie Marsha :)

Later this week I have some more exciting plans that I look forward to sharing, but in the meantime I will try to capture some late fall garden photos - the garden's days of flowering are limited so I better snap away while I can :) Have a great week all!

tiny feathers...

Her little tiny feathers are all puffed up to stay warm - it is cold and windy here today :)

the eagle has landed...

J asked if I wanted to ride with him tonight to go estimate a job because it was in an area where we usually see lots of deer. I grabbed my camera and off we went. We did see one small buck but he was so fast I couldn't get the camera focused before he disappeared in a grove. However, we both were pleasantly surprised to see a bald eagle fly off some road kill and land on a small rock pile.
He stayed while we creeped closer with the pickup allowing me to get some great shots.


Soon he had enough and flew low over they road and finally landed in a snag in a nearby grove. Of course, it was on the driver's side of the pickup so these last 3 shots are compliments of J :)

mosaic Monday...garden scenes

I went out with the camera this morning hoping to get a photo of the white-lined sphinx moth but he was way too fast and camera shy for me. So instead I shot a few photos of colors that were grabbing my attention - the clematis is for Rebecca after she commented on my "Marsha" gentian. It would be a beautiful namesake flower for you. It is one of my favorite clematis (zone 4-10) and though I bought mine at a local nursery it is online and instock at several places including Bluestone Perennials.

While my garden is mostly filled with birds these days we spent the weekend with Jayme and Scott and this little fellow is one of 3 very frequent visitors to their yard. I spied him 3 times on Saturday and once on Sunday. We created a flower garden space for them that I will transplant flowers from my garden to hers next week - I wonder if they will gets lots of blooming enjoyment from it or if it will become a giant salad buffet for their hooved friends.

Does anyone know what the plant on the lower right is? My husband brought me 4 different types of plants from a homeowner on one of his job sites - I received jack-in-the pulpit, ajuga, some unidentified spring bulbs and this plant. She told him I would love them but I don't like things in the backyard that spread so the ajuga is planted under the trees by the barn. If this is a spreader I would like to know so I can move it as well.

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha...

If you watched tv during the Brady Bunch years like I did, then you are probably familiar with the phrase "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha..." - I have heard it said to me MANY times over the years. So when plant browsing online last winter I discovered a plant with the cultivar name "Marsha" that was hardy to zone 4 - I knew I needed to add it to Marsha's Garden.

May I introduce Marsha (Gentian 'Marsha"). I purchased my 2 plants online from Mason Hollow Nursery but they no longer show it on their website. I found the info on the link above at Nature Hills Nursery where it is also out of stock. - I guess us "Marsha's" are quite popular!
Marsha, Marsha, Marcia...is part of my daily google reader updates of the blogs I follow...
Marsha - Marsha's Mpressions
Marsha - Marsha's Garden Blog
and Marcia - Blessedmom's Simple Home - a mom of six who is one of my faithful commenters even when I do not always have time to comment on her wonderful blog.
Check them out they are all wonderful blogs. I am told most often that when people google my blog they are often directed to the "other Marsha's Garden" :)

In honor of the "blue" of my Marsha genetian I'm posting two of this morning's bluejay visitors. This one is quite normal looking...
and this one is currently molting making for a pretty sad looking bird.


Have a great holiday weekend!

monarch migration continued...

Today is another one of those rainy, gray days so I didn't go outside with my coffee for my morning garden walk. In fact, I didn't even look out the windows in the backyard as I usually do because I needed to get in the office and prepare for a meeting. Around 1 p.m. I saw a hummingbird fly past the office window and remembered I needed to fill their feeders so I took a break and did so. In the garden I noticed quite a large number of monarchs flying around and then I looked at the pine tree in the garden and saw this...
I ran inside to grab the camera and found monarchs in all the evergreen trees.
I walked the perimeter of the yard and the trees all looked like this - small bunches of monarchs scattered over the whole tree.

Sometimes there were bigger groups of them making great photos.
There were many in the crabapple tree as well but not in groups - only singles here and there...
but most of them preferred the evergreen trees.



Some of them were harder to spot because they blended in with the hanging pinecones...
and many were flying in our gray skies.
The sun is peaking out as I am posting this and more are visiting the garden...
how I regret not going outside first thing this morning to see if there were masses in one tree like last week. This is the first time I have seen large bunches of migrating monarchs more than once. It usually is a one time, one day event - or else I am just missing them like I almost did today :)

Today, I am thankful that I remembered to feed the hummingbirds so that I was able to see this many monarchs visiting all at once a second time this season.