Plant ID and touring SD...

Does anyone know what the plant above is? The photo on the right of the mosaic shows the entire plant - it was about 18-24 inches tall and about 12 inches wide. The blossoms were a bright fuschia pink which didn't photograph that great and the leaves were soft and fuzzy like a lamb's ear plant. I would love to have this in my garden and if it grows in SD it will grow here as well.

We spent last weekend touring rural SD on our cycles - stops included a farm winery where I was so fascinated by the above plant that I forgot to take any other photos :)

We also stopped at the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead near DeSmet, SD. Below are the cottonwood trees that Pa Ingalls planted and are still standing after all these years.
There are replicated buildings including this sod dugout house & shanties but also moved in original buildings from other area historic sites.
We rode a covered wagon...
to the school house where we attended a 1880's class with 10 or so adults and about a dozen kids. The kids participated in a spelling bee and all of us were asked to solve this riddle...

In a marble hall white as milk, lined with skin as soft as silk. Within a fountain crystal-clear, a golden apple doth appear. No doors there are to this stronghold, yet thieves break in to steal its gold.

I was the only one to figure it out and the teacher seemed a little surprised so I guess not many people do. (answer in the comments of this post if you want to guess) All the buildings are staffed by people in costume recreating customs of the era the Ingalls lived there.
There are so many things for kids to do here so if you live in driving distance and have kids that have read the books or watched the tv show - I would recommend a stop. You can even camp overnight in your rv or one of their covered wagons. At the end of a long day, one of the ponies that gave rides stuck out his tongue at me when I took his photo :)
Driving back to our campsite in Ihlen, MN we stopped for a photo opportunity I just couldn't pass up.

Mosaic Monday...seeing PINK!

I started out this PINK post with some PINK flowers currently blooming in my gardens but this post is really about the PINK X 3 that my nephew, Kyle, and his wife, Tanya, are currently seeing. You see they just had their third baby girl at the end of May a mere 5 days short of 3 years since having their first girl in 2008. Yes, that's 3 under 3 - can you imagine how tired these parents get? I hadn't had a chance to see new baby Kinley yet so last Thursday my daughter-in-law, Tammy, and I spent the afternoon with Tanya & the girls. I decided to be creative and brought them some PINK & white sister shirts that I made with my Silhouette machine.
Ketcie is the Big Sister, she just turned three and is a fun and active girl. She likes to sit by her Auntie Marsh and sing me songs but most of all she likes me to take her photo so she can see it previewed on the back of my camera. Her mommy told her not to put her hand up by her mouth so I could take a photo so of course then she had to put it by her mouth for every photo - it was a challenging game but I got lots of photos of her that day :)
Keena is the Middle Sister and the most active one. She is 19 months old and has the most expressive eyes. She likes to do everything her Big Sister was doing, but she also liked to be close to whoever was holding her baby sister. While Ketcie hung close to Auntie Marsh, Keena spent the majority of the afternoon next to Tammy who was holding Kinley.
Three week old Kinley is the new Little Sister! She is adorable and even smiled for us a few times. I only got to hold her a short time since her sisters like my attention so Tammy was happy to do the majority of the holding that afternoon.
Here is Tammy holding Kinley with her adoring sisters looking on - even though Ketcie is wearing purple I still see PINK when I look at the photos :)
Thanks Tanya for letting us spend the afternoon with you - maybe next time I'll watch the girls and you should take a nap ;)

rain, rain, go away....

When you wake up and you see water reflecting through the trees you know its not good. I took my coffee and camera outside and walked to the other side of the west grove to see the creek has overflowed into the farm fields with all the rain we have had since last Thursday.

As long as the camera was out I thought I would look for the beauty in a very wet and dripping garden. First up is the sweet william in full bloom with the honeysuckle blooming on the trellis in the back of the yellow chair. The huge yellow clematis that grew here and hid my gas tank became an accidental victim of some overzealous round-up spraying so I have transplanted a few seedlings that sprouted up in other areas of the garden.
Close ups of the dripping honeysuckle and a droplet covered lily.
Pineapple lily, feverfew, Huldine clematis, gallardia and yellow loosestrife.
Foilage covered with raindrops...
and Rebecca, Ville de Lyon & Elsa Spade clematis.
Droplets on the Betty Corning and Rooguchi clematis vines and the...
only edibles I'm growing this year...Parsley, tri-color Sage, Rosemary, Oregano & Basil. I also have regular sage, lemon basil and lemon thyme. This year I joined a CSA and look forward to receiving weekly boxes of produce. Since we had a very wet spring in this area, garden planting was late so I haven't received any produce yet but our first delivery 2 weeks ago was an herb planter of parsley, basil & oregano (which I transplanted in the ground for less watering) and two home grown dressed and frozen rock cornish hens. We had the first one on the grill for Father's Day and it was delicious as well as fed our family of six :)

mosaic Monday...

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted. It seems the older I get the faster time flies and I can hardly believe June is already 2/3 over!
I've been working on some garden projects and other little crafty projects and hope to show you some finished projects soon.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these photos of current blooms. Everything is wet as rain as been abundant here and it sounds like we are in for a stormy week ahead.

For my family that checks this daily - I'll try to be a little more faithful in posting :)

my week in recap...

Every spare moment I had this week has been spent in the gardens so I haven't had much time for blogging. In the first photo, Vanna...oops, I mean Ruger, shows things are starting to bloom and also the former arbor from the wildflower garden is in it's new home in the backyard. The one that was in this spot was damaged by the snow drift that covered it for 6 weeks. I still need to get the pavers laid inside the arbor next week.
I've decided to plant areas of the garden specifically to attract birds & butterflies. This small patch by the patio is the hummingbird garden and I've planted several varieties of salvias and agastache to attract them. The self seeders have also popped up so I've spent countless hours weeding around them in the whole garden. My aching muscles have decided that this year will probably be my last waiting for self seeders and I will put down Preen early and buy more bedding plants. I will need to start seeds indoors for the imagination verbena that I can't find anywhere as bedding plants so I count on it to self seed.
Pine Hollow has expanded as I've been finding cute things and modifying them into new housing and garden structures.
Jeff also helped me move the birdhouse clematis trellis back 4 ft to be in line with the arbor. I've been cleaning up this area of invasive plants and moved in a few favorites from the old wildflower garden. I've also moved bigger plants from the center of the garden to the back to make room for dividing the iris when they are finished blooming.
This spring the former "satellite arbor" became the "clematis house" by adding 2 more poles and 5 trellis. When the new baby clematis I planted mature it will be a beautiful mass of color. It is surrounded by Elsa Spade (blooming in the front), 3 Huldines, Jackmani, Westerplatte, Earthquake, Clair de Lune, Niobe, Etoile Rose, and Carmencita. I have this new found addiction to clematis (Thanks Susan!) and have added them all over the gardens. The ones currently blooming are listed on the left side.
The barnyard has expanded in animals and plants that I saved from the wildflower garden removal. There is a rooster, a hen, a cute little lamb and a moose on his way to becoming a steer in the front view of barn and Harley the horse, Charlotte the spider, Henny Penny the hen and Gracie the Goose in the back view.
With all the weeding, watering and garden remodeling going on I did take time to stop and smell the flowers, especially the peonies currently blooming. I wish I could bottle that scent!
We had 2 record setting heat days this week and the hot windy days made my potted plants droop but they are coming back nicely. The pots out front this year are pink/blue/white combos in honor of baby bee...will it be a boy or a girl? The pot in the center of the garden is an experiment of purple/green & orange and the patio pots are themed in orange/lime green/yellow/blue/red after some dinnerware, lanterns and a tablecloth I bought for entertaining. My sister-in-law taught me how easy it is to spray paint old pots so now I have a bright blue & orange one. The newly painted orange pot is our fresh salad garden. I saw pots filled with assorted greens at 3 different nurseries this summer with small ones starting at $15 so I started my own and added a marigold to keep the bugs away. It will be fun to have fresh lettuce all summer right next to the back door.
After taking out the wildflower garden last weekend, J has told me there will be no more expansions...BUT, I fell in love with this row of different colored chairs on my recent NY trip...if you see him, help me convince him that our yard sure would look great with these around the fire pit :)

mosaic Monday...

Sorry, for the lack of blogging lately but things have been so busy that I can't seem time to catch up. We had wonderful weather this weekend and I spent the majority of it outside working in the gardens. The iris are blooming as well as the...
shasta daisies. My pots are starting to fill out and Elsa Spaeth is the first clematis to blossom.
Did you notice anything missing in the background of the photo of the iris above?
I finally realized I cannot keep up with the weeds in all the gardens and the yard garden was the most neglected. I want to be able to have some time to enjoy our yard and not be constantly working so J helped me move the arbor to the backyard. Then while I transplanted the plants I wanted to save he did the demo.
I smile when I see the fresh gravel and not the weed patch it had become. Now I just need to get the backyard in shape and I'll show you the arbor's new home.

Love...

I have been absent from the blog while I enjoyed celebrating the love between Jamie & Jennifer in NY this past weekend. As you can see they are a beautiful couple and just being around them, one is filled with joy because they just radiate happiness and romance.
While I was gone I did a whirlwind tour of NYC (including my first subway & Amtrak rides), and spent several days in the Hudson/Catskill area. I have lots of photos to share of the trip as well as a garden that grew by leaps and bounds while I was gone so I hope to find time after catching up on work to share it all.