Today’s pics made me smile – this was an early version trail cam for us, and we didn’t have the date set correctly yet. It came up in today’s pics as January 14th. Clearly not January hahaha! We will say these are our “June in January” pics of the day 😊
Enjoy!
For many years we have had white squirrels in our neighborhood. True albino. We even took pics in the beginning and sent them in to some sort of tracking site.
This pic dates back to Jan 9, 2019
And for our June in January pics today I have a few. The first is our dog mid-stride, front paw tucked, up north last June 9. WAY in the back is the outhouse. The lanterns mark the way at night 😉
This next pic will not be a view we see again. It was the very full hosta garden under the linden on June 9, 2024. Mysteriously we lost 18 hostas between fall of 2024 and spring of 2025. We shall not focus on theories, but rather, enjoy the picture, and know that the empty spaces, where the hostas were, found new occupants in 2025.
And this pic is quintessential early June (June 9, 2024) in our back townhome garden – the peach Asian lilies still in bud, a set of tulip leaves fading (one looks like it may have provided a bunny meal at one point – nothing left where the tulip bloom was), and I also remember that hosta, where a leaf looks a bit eaten, was actually from being stepped on and crushed. Stuff happens.
Enjoy!
I hope you have a good evening!
Be Blessed!
Looking the past few days at the space I have at the townhouse, what we can reasonably use at the historic cemetery, and all the seedlings, I decided I would buy a 3rd seedling box. It is on its way.
And my husband and I agreed – this is the critical mass year. This is the year daylilies need to start going up north.
Now, for newcomers, we have land up in far northern Minnesota USA. Along with black bears, bobcats, coyotes, wolves, foxes, of course deer, and a veritable plethora of small game – rabbits, grouse, some squirrels … oh, and a porcupine who seems to have moved on, thank goodness, and a woodchuck who was moved on. Plus a variety of very cool birds including owls. This earth mama, with all the tenderhearted earth and creature loving kindness just oozing out of me in our first year up there, tried a raised bed hugelculture set of gardens (money I sincerely regret spending). They were a wreck within months and such a loss by year two that we pulled them in year three and set the camper over the top of the beds when we built out our shed to cabin. And that was that. Except that I kept propagating daylilies here.
I am now solidly in year seven of this daylily propagation journey, and things are maturing to bloom all over the place. There is no more room after this year, and, truth be told, I now have 38 Molly Cowles seedlings in one seedling box, 14 Mahala Felton seedlings between two seedling boxes, and more coming up every day. We have reached our limit here, and we have perfectly good land for daylilies up north. So … I have picked out a spot on our land where we have good groundwater. I have been bringing my forced bulbs up north and planting them there for a few years. It’s just that when June comes and we are literally awash in in a sea of 4 foot tall ferns, my husband gets out the brush cutter and mows it all down there. Or we get awash in a sea of wood ticks as we walk around camp and to the outhouse. We have both gotten tick born illnesses. Not cool. So the brush cutter rules. Kind of like mouse poison rules after you spend a few sleepless nights listening to the mice skitch in the camper walls and run across your camper counter. Ugghhh.
What I need to do is get on my real world panties and get over my objection to landscape fabric, and lay a swath of it down up north and tack it to the ground and make holes for each daylily, and put a cloche over the top of each planting until we get it deer fenced, and let the leaves and pine straw and whatever wood chips and mulch I can harvest from sawing and splitting days cover the landscape fabric … and see what happens. Yep. Right here.
That’s it. Hard stop. Or I can stop propagating daylilies – and “that ain’t happenin’”. 😂
A long weekend of up north therapy is our perfect remedy to the wear and tear of everyday modern life. Mowing trails, fixing solar lights after a long very snowy winter, cleaning up fallen trees, branches, and sticks and having our first campfire of the season felt great after long hours at a desk.
My husband had been up during the previous week, but it was my first look of the season – always fun and interesting. The daffodils and grape hyacinth must be deer and bunny repellant as I see the spent daffodils flowers are intact and the grape hyacinth are blooming.
That area is perfect for a spring naturalized garden, so I am hoping it continues. Come June, the ferns start to come in and take over, but for now it is still early enough to show low growing beauty.
It was a very long very snowy winter and the deer pics on the trail cams show skinny young bucks, but there is also a very pregnant doe. Hurray! A good sight! Now we hope she delivers well, and the wolves don’t get the fawn(s). The trail cams also show a turkey, another very nice sight.
Just being in the woods and camp was wonderful. While I was out in the “yard” I heard branches cracking and down the trail a deer ran across. I think there might have been two, but by the time I looked I only saw one. And while I was out in the yard relaxing another time, here comes a big hare, right behind the outhouse, nice long stride. Treats, experienced, not caught on camera, but very nurturing. Being in the moment. Although we do know the big hare very well. It has lots of appearances on one trail cam, lots of antics 🙂
I was able to catch a pic of a new (to us) bird species – the rose-breasted grosbeak.
Looks like a couple. Thinking they were hoping for seed. Alas, last time we did that, Mr. Bear showed up after we left! A bent shepherd’s hook, a missing bird feeder, a broken solar lamp, and a battered grill handle were it’s “hey, how ya doin’?” from that visit. Thinking a hanging feeder between two trees will be needed before we try seed again. All down the road.
My husband said stats are that the average vacation property owner sells around 5 years. You know, the dream wears off and what is left is a work camp. Trying to be mindful of that as we embark on our fifth season of the up north adventure. It is a lot of work, and the romance does wear off very quickly – think heavy wood ticks this year already – but it is an awesome off grid reset.
I consider us to be fairly good at keeping the townhouse pretty free of un-needed, non-joy producing stuff. I don’t mind storing a reasonable amount of consumables (think the tp shortage of 2020), but the townhouse is too small to keep much stuff for “some day when”. And our kids have long ago moved out and years ago stopped replying to my texts with pictures, asking, “Do you want any of this?” Code for “No”.
I have a pretty low clutter threshold, and clutter above that for more than a few days really affects me. Plus, hanging on to stuff that we used to use but no longer do, while someone else may be able to use it, just seems, well … wasteful.
Our recent condensing of the stuff from the little house up north has been interesting. We kept that place very minimal (like “when are you going to decorate?” minimal), so there wasn’t a huge amount to bring back, but still … Think kitchen items, and consumables, household staples, things that go in cabinets, but now had no place to go at the townhouse. Thankfully, there was a minimal amount of furniture that needed to come back. There were also leftover renovation materials we had no plans for, like the 500 LINEAR feet of floor trim that was left over when I, on a Black Friday order early in the morning, having never done a renovation, confidently calculated we needed 3 TIMES the amount of floor trim we actually ended up using. Yes, I did get a call from our contractor saying, “That’s a lot of floor trim!”. Hahaha!!! We should have returned the unneeded trim, but we didn’t.
And then … AND THEN … there were the gardens. The precious daylily seedlings, the Blue Mouse Ears divisions, the lift and shifts, and all the trellises. Not to mention all the hand placed rocks I used for borders …
My personal challenge regarding the gardens was: Do you have a space for those to come back? Answer: I could make way for a bit – for the super struggling, deer eaten, decimated hostas that would just die up there if I leave them.
I can’t have trellises at the townhouse over 4′ and the bear(s) up north by the camper would just play with them. So the trellises stay with the new owners
As for the daylilies, the realtor assured me the new owners said they would love it if I left the daylilies, both mature and seedlings. The deer, miraculously, left the sedum and daylilies alone. In the end, I reminded myself of the joy I get from leaving a trail of my garden creations, and I decided “All but the decimated hostas should stay”. Bless the new homeowners of the little house up north with the gardens I started. Hopefully they will maintain them them far better than I ever could part-time, and enjoy them, and maybe even add on to them.
We were up at the top of Minnesota for just a couple days. When we arrived, no color. Two days later …
And the ferns are in tandem with the birch and aspens.
It will be at least a few more weeks before we see fall color seriously arrive further south in Minnesota, but sure enough, fall is heading our way.
We spent a few days up north over the Labor Day weekend. The wildflowers are as beautiful as ever.
So, the little house up north can boast a new homeowner. She was a delight and a dream, but so much changed in such a short time – for great – that it no longer made sense. We never ever ever intended to have three places. Something had to give, and it was the little house up north.
So I am back, for now, until we find an alternative, at “what can I creatively do at the camping/hunting land up north?” Clearly some things at the townhouse need a new home.
Poor things! They are 3-4 years and they just keep getting stepped on, cut, blown, and pulled out. Time for new digs.
The “garden” up north looks like this (cringe/avert gaze at the raised bed garden area).
The good news is … the asparagus I planted 3 years ago survived!!! 😉 Even the deer left it alone. And the non-blooming iris and the forced daffodils from a “watch em grow” garden are thriving in a depression just to the left, outside of the raised bed area. We think the deer might have enough food with the dandelions, and then the wildflowers, until they can browse on new shrub growth. The bears have raspberry bushes way down the trail… WAY down the trail, and they will stay WAY down the trail. Because we don’t need them up at the campsite, at least when we’re there.
It will take some work, and some investment in something like a protective area, but I could, at least, have an area for reasonably mature seedlings that need safety and protection from their current situation.
For two years of a detour, it also feels good to have left some garden creations at the little house up north. 7 of 12 pollinator created daylily seedlings survived, and 3 of 4 Blue Mouse Ears divisions survived. Plus some more mature daylilies and the sedum divisions of course. Given some love, in a couple years it should start to fill those spaces very nicely.
Up at the camping land there is a whole lot I did not plant and I do not need to keep cultured. Of particular wonder are thousands and thousands of wildflowers.
It wasn’t always that way. If fact, the first year we owned the land, we showed up one night to a shock – the trail in and the whole campsite was wall-to-wall ferns. It had grown to 4′ tall in a few weeks. It was 1:30 in the morning. We went to bed and dealt with it the next day.
I remember back then we hadn’t even brought a mower yet. The ferns have very strong stems so we used the brush saw. That, however, was arduous, so not too long afterward, a weekend’s rental of a brush mower to work on all the trails followed. It was a dramatic difference. We were concerned for a bit that we had gone too far. But 1/2 hour after cleaning the trails, the trailcams showed deer eating again. They loved it.
The trails now are not at all fern covered. If left unmowed they are wall-to-wall wildflowers. The deer can be seen going side to side, back and forth, eating dandelions early in the season, and then wildflowers.
The ferns are still in the woods – over 4′ tall and lush.
There is no lake for me like the Big Lake (Lake Superior). She is so majestic, and her personalities are awe inspiring. Some days her water looks like diamonds. Some days she is deep blue. Some days she has striations. Some day days she is angry, and crashes up on the shore with awe inspiring power. She carries huge ships with unbelievable weight in cargo. The ship’s honks can be heard at various ports – long, strong sounds of greeting.
I grew up knowing Lake Michigan. I have been to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and lakes all over the U.S. and Europe and nothing quite awes me like Lake Superior. I can’t get her out of my system. I feel so much joy when we reach our first view of her, and I crane my neck until I can’t see her anymore when we leave.
On this day she was exceptionally beautiful and the clouds were agreeing. There is an island on the shore of Lake Superior at Grand Marais. I cannot tell you how many times we have been on the shore at Grand Marais – 40? 50? Every once in a while we traverse the island. Entering is like going into an ancient forest. It is dense. And then you come out at the lake again, with a view back to Grand Marais. It is so stunning, and awe inspiring. The rocks ARE ancient – some of the oldest in the world.
Here’s a few pics I caught of her that day.
Afterward we stopped for a couple donuts (again, incredible!) and then stopped at the co-op to get our favorite – dark chocolate covered almonds. 1 pound. Being reasonable – hahaha!
Then up the Gunflint Trail we went. But that share is for another day.
Susan's Daily Garden 