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.

the prize winner of central MN...

IS ME! A huge thank you to Trish from Off Camera with Trish Van Pilsum! My Minnesota readers will recognize her - she's been visiting in our living rooms via the tv for years (Please, all my readers with teenage kids need to watch her "Room to Live" video HERE now!). She has a wonderful blog that I have enjoyed following as well.
How cool is it that I won my first blog giveaway on this post by Trish showing photos and asking readers to guess where she was. It was easy for me since we had just been up to the north shore and the indian paintbrush was in full bloom as well as waves crashing to shore. A couple of days later she announced on this post that I was the winner and would be receiving a coffee mug from a wonderful gallery, Waters of Superior, in Duluth's Canal Park. Jayme and I will have to check it out on our next shopping trip.

When my package arrived my first thought was "this is kind of a big box for a coffee mug" and then I noticed it had been opened by the USPS with a note included that it was inspected to insure that it was media mail. This was no longer sounding like a coffee mug and once I got below the packaging material it was looking a lot more like a beautifully wrapped coffee table book.
I opened the envelope to reveal a notecard with the store's logo...
with a wonderful message from Trish.
At this point - I "ripped" into the wrapping to reveal the biggest surprise - it was a beautiful book of North Shore photography by Craig Blacklock who is one of the best known Minnesota photographers around. I've already spent hours pouring over the photos and studying his composition so that I can practice my photography skills on trips up north. I can't wait to spend some time relaxing with the included DVD set to music.The photography is stunning and Jayme & I have shot many of these same scenes including the ice piles...
and the beautiful fall colors.
I've even spent time photographing the sunrise over Lake Superior including this post.
This last photo really needs to be enjoyed because just last month the famous Tettegouche State Park arch collapsed as seen here.
I really should have photographed my new book on the coffee table and not the carpet but Hey, I was just to excited to show it off :)

I'll do the early Sept garden walks tomorrow as it has been a busy week. Yesterday, I traveled to NW MN to have a girls' day with my two nieces, Rachel & Emily, and we played photo shoot - aren't they beautiful?

They do buckle their seatbelts immediately entering my car but I hope Emily shows all her friends the "room to live" video as well.