Jenny's Jottings

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Growing Season

It's the time of year when my garden is producing, the tomato plants are growing out of their cages, and the vine plants are spreading beyond the garden boxes. Along the ATV trail and in the ditches, wildflowers are plentiful. I've taken some photos through the month of what I've seen.

I pick about a half of an ice cream bucket of peas most days lately

Purple clover

Mix of colors

I purposely took this photo out of focus

Dainty yellow flowers

East Coast Vacation

Barry and I dropped the kids off at Grandpa and Grandma's house and took off on an East Coast vacation. I mostly took photos with my phone, but brought out my camera by Lake George in New York, at Cape Cod, and near Baltimore.

We had fun watching some people parasailing over Lake George (the Adirondacks are in the background).

The Merry Month of May

The end of April still felt like winter, with near freezing temperatures, snow, and gale force winds on Lake Superior. Barry and I braved the weather to watch some waves in Beaver Bay and Iona's Beach.

Sprinter in April

Spring has been nearly non-existent this year. Our snow piles were just about gone last week, and then we got almost ten inches of snow again. It's hard to believe that May is only a few short days away.

Bird on a wire

Sidewalk ice

I'm surprised I found these before the kids stomped on them!

The weather has been slowly warming up, and we've been able to walk on the ATV trail where everything still looks pretty brown and dead.

Woodpeckers have been around

Marina Ice

On this first day of spring, the snow piles are slowly dwindling. We escaped the predicted 6-10" earlier this week with only a dusting, not even enough to shovel. The ice on Lake Superior changes day by day depending mostly on the wind speed and direction. I took a day last week to check out the ice at the Silver Bay Marina.

Naked branches

Ice meets open water

On the docks

I like both the shape of these icicles and the reflection in the water

The hill up to the lookout; the snow was still very deep and I sunk in past my knee more than once

Las Vegas and the Valley of Fire

As I sit here looking outside at more large piles of fresh snow, I'm grateful that Barry and I got to escape the Minnesota weather and go to Las Vegas for a few days. The weather was perfect, in the 70's (with low humidity of course) during the day and 50's at night. We went to a couple of concerts, did just a little gambling (ending up a bit ahead), had a nice Valentine's Day dinner, saw the Blue Man group, and even met up with Barry's mom and a friend who happened to be in Vegas at the same time. One of the highlights was a drive we took about 45 minutes or so outside of Las Vegas. We drove by the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, then on to the Valley of Fire. The scenery was gorgeous, unlike anything here in Minnesota.

Lake Mead

An old train tunnel

Big horn sheep

Rugged scenery

Winter in Two Harbors

When none of my kids jumped at the chance to go grocery shopping with me recently, I happily shopped alone. I brought my camera with, as it was about 10 degrees outside, certainly warmer than most of the month of January. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.