As I write this, I hear the cicadas tuning their instruments. It’s a one-note symphony from their section of the orchestra, the irrefutable signal that summer is coming to an end. It’s sharp, emanating invisibly from the trees, cutting across all the other sounds of the day. People that study these things say that the male cicada is trying to attract females. This may be true, but the we know the real words to their song:
I tell of the air turning cooler at night I tell of the swans beginning their flight I tell of the leaves soon changing and falling I tell of the winter nights soon to come calling…
They cannot help what they sing and we cannot help knowing what is to come when they sing it: the sharp hues of autumn, the beauty of burning gold.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Deleting will come in the morning.
P.S. If the photo(s) on my posts look distorted, it has to do with a setting on your phone. It’s easiest just to view the post on my blog, rather than reading the email that delivered it to you. There is a way for you to navigate to my blog from the email and I’m confident you’ll find it.
To clarify, the word “mostly” modifies the word “garden,” not the word “edibles.” Glad to clear that up for you. But some things that are from the garden aren’t edible. And some things that are edible aren’t from the garden. It’s basically a free-for-all with the word “mostly” now.
I’m going to try to use a WordPress feature that I don’t usually use (a way to put photos and text side by side) because (a) nothing about technology comes intuitively to me, and (b) it’s different and I’m change-averse. Glad to clear that up for you, too.
These days I’ve been busy in the kitchen pottering about making things from what we’ve been growing.
While going through my mother’s things after her death, I came across a beautifully intricate pencil drawing of Olcott Hall in Duluth. Olcott Hall was the music conservatory of the Duluth’s State Teacher’s College (now UMD) when my parents were there. It was donated to the college in 1941, having been the private home of the Olcott family originally.
I spent some time admiring the drawing and saw that my mom had written on the back that the artist, Nan Yager, had been an acquaintance of hers since junior high band – a flutist, I believe. I put my digital servants to work finding out more about the artist and learned her married name, where she was living when she died, the names of her two adult children and where they were living. Wouldn’t the old-fashioned gumshoes have loved the internet? I suppose our current day detectives make much use of it.
It will not surprise you to learn that water fountains attract toads the way lights attract moths. At night when it’s quiet we can hear the hum of frogs and toads making their nighttime music. It seems sometimes like they’re everywhere around us, but in truth, we don’t see them very often. So today was a banner day, a two-toad rescue day.
I could see from our window upstairs that two of the little fellas had jumped into our “pond” and discovered (as they all do) that they couldn’t get out again. Toads have died in our fountain before and they probably will again, but not this day. The Lord had appointed unto me this small task of stewardship and I was not going to neglect it.
Other than insects, the only other victims that have fallen prey to our fountain have been mice, probably two of them over all the years. Would I rescue a mouse if it was still swimming along instead of belly up? Gosh, that’s a hard question. I hope I never have to answer it.
In other yard-related news, the deer have expressed a great delight in the hollyhock salad bar we’ve set out for them. We had protected our two hollyhocks for awhile, but there seemed to be no point in keeping them caged up, so the cages came off and the deer said, “Thank you very much!” I don’t think hollyhocks are destined to be a part of our perennial garden, sadly.
I also took the cage off of our sunflower this morning. Will it suffer the same fate as the hollyhocks tonight? I took a parting photo just in case. If we remember we’ll put some deer scram over and around it to see if that helps. If not, that’s the way the sunflower gets eaten, I guess. Next year we plan to put black-eyed Susans and purple coneflowers in that spot. We want to have the kind of garden that says to any deer that are passing by, “Keep going – there’s nothing to eat here.”
If this blog post doesn’t survive the night, that’s the way the post gets deleted, I guess.
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I’m going to admit that this is rather clumsy watercolor work. It looked better in my mind than in the actual execution of the idea.
Whenever I read the phrase “Be of good courage,” in the Bible, it reminds of Aslan. In the form of an albatross, he whispered the words, “Courage, dear heart,” to Lucy when the the ship Dawn Treader was stuck in a terrible place. I like to think that Jesus would say the same to me when I am in need. “Courage, dear heart.”
Blog posts are meant to be deleted in the morning. Courage, dear post.
In our continuing quest to visit one attraction in Minnesota per month in 2024, we made our way to the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth for the month of July. If you’d like to check out previous Minnesota Meanderings, here you go: Spam Museum, Bell Museum of Natural History, Como Park Zoo and Conservatory and Fort Snelling.
Our daughter and son-in-law were visiting in July, so we obliged them to go to Duluth with us to visit the Great Lakes Aquarium. ‘Twas raining heavily as we left town, but about halfway there, the sky wiped the tears from its face and said, “You should go to Tobie’s for rolls and pastries,” which we did. If you haven’t heard that same thing on the way to Duluth, you just haven’t been listening.
The Great Lakes Aquarium is situated right on Lake Superior, or at least a bay of it, not too far from the Aerial Bridge as you come into town from the south.
How many photos of coneflowers will my readers be able to tolerate? This is a question I pondered while trying to decide how many to share here. Only you can answer that question, really, but I decided upon seven.
Seven is quite a significant number in the Bible, of course – one source that I consulted claimed that there are over 700 appearances of the number seven throughout the Old and New Testaments. It symbolizes completion or perfection.
I set before you a complete and perfect set of coneflower photos: not too few, not too many. And I’ve thrown in a few with a red admiral butterfly as well. Or perhaps I should give credit where credit is due: the Lord saw me out there with my camera and in His kindness sent a butterfly for good measure. Positively extravagant!
Ahh…they’re a feast for the eyes, aren’t they?
I’ve heard from at least one person that her comments are not making their way to my blog – is anyone else having that problem? Let me know, please. I love getting your comments and it pains me to think that I might be missing any. I will always respond if you comment. Always – even if it’s only an emoji. But usually with words.
I’ll delete this seven times at seven in the morning on the seventh of the month. That ought to do it.
I just can’t stoppy Talkin’ ‘bout the poppy Neat on its feet Pink with a wink Still on the hill Wide as the tide Soft and aloft Free as a bee. Not flippy Nor floppy. Not hippy Nor hoppy. Not slippy Nor sloppy. I just can’t stoppy Talkin’ ‘bout the poppy!
I give fair warning to delete this in the morning.
Do you ever take time in your life to sit and think? No podcasts, no radio, no books or audiobooks, no music…just the silence and you. I’ve been doing that while sitting on our bench in the garden lately. It’s quite nourishing. Give it a try! What, you don’t have a garden? Here ya go. Pretend you’re sitting on a bench looking at these garden glories and think about the One who made them. It’s bound to be fruitful for you.
Have you ever deleted a blog post without any background noise? I’m going to give it a try.
Lynniebeemuseoday 