Sometime yesterday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. I lost my winter attitude! It was exactly the same temperature when I went to work as when I exited my building at the end of the day. I had on the same clothes, wore the same jacket. But on the way home and doing errands I was COLD. I turned up the heater in the car, rubbed my hands together and even sat on my hands at one stoplight. I’m afraid it’s going to be a long winter for me this year.
What’s your favorite way to keep warm?
There was a beautiful full moon last night-The Hunter’s Moon. It is the second full moon of autumn, and was named by the Algonquin tribes as the moon for the time to go hunting and prepare for winter. The sky was quite clear and the moon was huge as I drove home from work at 7:00. It had an orange tint. The night before last it was almost full, and there were wavy wisps of clouds in front of the moon, making it look like the perfect backdrop for a a witch on a broom.
Tell about all the books, plays, stories, poems, and music you know of that are concerned with the moon. What are your own moon stories? Why is the moon so inspiring?
My father’s extended family hails from the north woods, so even though I grew up in St. Louis, I experienced the Minnesota/Wisconsin climate from an early age. When it was time to look at colleges I announced to my parents that I would only go to a college in Minnesota or Wisconsin. When college/grad school was over for me and wasband, we hightailed it to the Twin Cities. I’ve been here every since.
This morning, I noticed it was snowing at about 8 a.m. and my mood jumped up a couple of notches just seeing it. I love snow and cold. Spring, summer and autumn are nice but winter is my season of choice. I love visiting tropical locales but I don’t think I would happy in a place that didn’t have winter.
I took pictures all morning and even though I knew that snow in mid-October wouldn’t last, I was a little wistful when it stopped around noon.
Of course, this is seriously early for snow, so I didn’t start pulling out big sweaters and coats just yet. And I still wore my zorries to the gym and the grocery store!
What is your favorite seasonal transition? Have you transitioned to your winter clothes yet?
I am always amazed at the deceitfulness of people who sell plants through catalogs and greenhouses. It is easy to be fooled into buying plants that just won’t work in your climate zone if you don’t know your flora. The most recent scam up here is the marketing of hydrangea macrophllya, a group of hydrangeas that just won’t grow here but are probably the prettiest ones for stunning shades of pink and blue. They are tempting, but it is just too cold here, and unless you are prepared to mulch pretty heavily in the winter, they just won’t do much after the first year. We have tremendous luck with hydrangea arborescens (the big, white, poofy ones) and hydrangea paniculata (ones with pointy flowers that often turn pink at the end of summer).
Hybrid tea roses were marketed for years as good to zone 4, but now are sold with the disclaimer that they are only good to zone 5. They really only do well here if you cap them with rose cones in the fall and mulch heavily. We used to have lots of tea roses, but we got pretty tired of all the fuss. We planted Morden roses from Manitoba instead. They are very cold hardy. We have a few hybrid teas in the yard that do well since we seem to have created a micro-climate in the yard with shrubs and fences that keeps temperatures a little warmer than in other parts of the yard. The pictures below show a hybrid tea we never cap or mulch that comes back every year and is a really stunner.
A couple of years ago we bought two Morden roses that were supposed to be only four feet tall at the most. One turned out to be a climbing rose that had multiple, six foot long branches. It was not labeled as a climbing rose. It was in a part of the yard that wouldn’t have supported a trellis, so it flopped around and got tangled in everything around it. It mercifully died last winter so we dug it up, providing room for one nearby that we assumed was a four feet tall rose as it had been labeled. As you can see in the next photo, it, too, is starting to act like something else.
It is a little hard to see, but the rose put out a couple of stems that were at least seven feet tall. Husband cut them off after I took the photo. I hope this was just a fluke. I just don’t know who in the plant world to trust anymore.
Who do you trust? When have you had something that didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to? When has a plant fooled you?
Three clues:
Where is VS? Give me three clues to a place you’d like to visit!
Twice on the way home I had to pull over; the rain was just too much. Made me think of the Carolinas, and of Bill Cosby’s Noah. Let’s say you get your own Ark. Enough cubits to be comfortable – size of a hotel room. You have one day to pack.
What goes with you on your Ark?
As this is published, Hurricane Florence is taking out her wrath on the southeast coast. I don’t know anyone named Florence, but I do know a Maria, a Katrina, a Sandy, a Patricia and a Rita – all big hurricanes in the last ten years. None of these folks are all that thrilled about having their name attached to a nasty hurricane. I realize that with an unusual name I probably will never have to worry about this happening to me!
What would you like to be named after you? And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest.
I scrubbed off all my temporary tattoos tonight. It’s official – the State Fair is over.
Most people I know don’t understand my love affair with the Great Minnesota Get Together and to be honest, it occasionally mystifies me a bit. But one of the things I do know is that I love getting temporary tattoos at the Fair. I got nine this year over my four days of attendance – 3 from the airbrush tattoo guy, 2 from Kemps, 2 from the AG building, 1 from the lamb building and my favorite, one of the emerald ash borer. There was a young man dressed up as an emerald ash borer at the DNR booth, trying to engage people about this new threat to ash trees and I felt sorry for him so I let him put his temporary tattoo alongside my others.
The airbrushed tattoos wear off the soonest (which is truly irritating, since they cost money) but over a week later, my free ones were still going strong. Every day last week I had to explain them at least twice a day to one or the other of my co-workers and today my book club members (my OTHER book club) wanted a full run down. It’s been my way of extending the Fair – however tentatively.
But tonight when I was closing a couple of windows (because it’s been getting chilly at night) I realized that it’s time to let this year Fair go and start dreaming of next year.
Do you have a tattoo? If you were to get one, what would you get?
It was a hot day, sunny with a bit of a breeze. The big pavilion next to Sea Salt was blocked for a family gathering and all the nearby tables, even the ones with no shade, were filled up. We had a tablecloth that we could have spread out on the ground but we thought it would end up being a re-telling of The Princess & the Pea. A little ways off we could see what looked like some empty picnic tables, in the shade no less, so we trooped over.
Minnehaha Park is heavily forested with oak trees. None of them are famous (although there are plenty of famous oak trees if you believe the internet) but they provided a nice, cool bit of shade. We settled in and then fairly quickly realized why no one else had claimed the spot.
Acorns are oak nuts; they usually contain just one seed and can take between 6 to 24 months to mature before they can sprout into an oak tree. All I can say is that the acorns in the oak trees above us were ready to go. The terminal velocity of a falling acorn from a tall 40-foot tree is 22 miles per hour. Most of the acorns didn’t hit us directly, but they made a whooping loud noise when they hit books, plates, phones and the tables themselves. Even though we stayed for a couple of hours, when we got up to leave we felt like we were fleeing from a dangerous situation.
When did you first fall in love?
First week of August, our quiet little lives will be interrupted by five visitors – Husband’s son and his fiancé, and their (combined) three girls, ages 15, 12, and 9. Though I’m pretty relaxed when having just one or two guests, I tend to get somewhat anxious with lots of company, and am trying to think ahead – prepare now so it’s a bit more manageable while they’re here. (You can also read this as: I like to be in control of things.) Since our place is just 900 sq. feet, and we would be practically on top of each other if we all tried to stay here, we’ve arranged with a friend two blocks away to sleep in her guest room – let them have the house – on the nights they are with us. (They will spend some time with other family.)
Average temps for this time of year are around 83˚ F., and we do have A/C if needed. We have enough beds, if we include futon, and bedding. I’ve deep cleaned recently, so can do a surface cleaning before A-day (A = arrival). We can stock the fridge and pantry. We have been exploring places in the area that this family might like to visit.
I’m sure there are things I could prepare ahead of time. Several of you baboons have had grandchildren – or other family members or friends – visit you, and probably have some coping mechanisms for when you have guests for more than an afternoon.
Any ideas that might help things run smoothly?
Got any visitors coming this summer or fall?
Trail Baboon 