Yellow days on the prairie

We took a quick trip to the prairie tonight and it is really yellow. The goldenrod, stiff sunflowers and maximillian sunflowers are the dominant flowers. Plus liatris aspera, silky aster and monarda togive a little purple splash.

The grass on the new prairie is taller than the jeep. It was like driving through a forest as the sunlight barely reached the windows as we drove in.

My nose and eyes are itching from the ragweed pollen. The plain, ugly, green plant produces billions of grains of pollen that float on the wind to cause hay fever in many people - including me. The poor goldenrod often gets blamed for hay fever. Its showy flowers are full of heavy yellow pollen. But the pollen is too heavy to float on the wind. All goldenrods depend on insects to carry the pollen from flower to flower.

Chokecherries

There is a bumper crop of chokecherries this year. I picked enough berries off of the tree in my yard to make 2 batches of juice. There are many more on the tree, I just picked the ones I could reach easily. I managed to boil them down and press out the juice, then add LOTS of sugar and a little Certo to the juice and boil it into jelly.
I had never done the juice part before, Mom always made the juice and I sometimes helped with the jelly. It would have been more fun with her, but it went OK. Poppy helped me find the recipes and all the supplies were still in the basement. I can handle the Hot Water Bath method of canning. We'll see if I get bold enough to take out the pressure canner this summer to preserve beans. That is a much harder process.

We planted a tree in the yard yesterday. It took us 3 days to dig the hole. I chose a spot where another tree once stood, so of course, we hit massive roots. Poppy sharpened his big chisels and brought them over. Tom and I took turns chopping the roots over several evenings. At last, the hole was big enough and the autumn blaze maple is in the ground. Sophie picked it out when we visited Morning Sky Greenery the week before.

Purple phase

The prairie has its purple robe on. Purple prairie clover, leadplant, and wild bergamot are the most prominent flowers right now and they are all purple. There are a few yellows in the mix with the early and stiff sunflowers, a few golden rods throughout and the two yellow coneflowers on the new prairie. These pictures were all taken on the original prairie. It is so beautiful after the burn this spring.

Turtle nest

When we parked the jeep on the prairie last night, I noticed a hole right next to the road. Poppy thought he saw sea shells around the edges. In the past, we have found small bones near fox dens, but sea shells would be something very new. Upon further investigation, the small white things looked more like little curls of plastic. Kind of like what you get when you peel a label off a soda bottle. I also found a ping pong ball - but it had something in it. It had a small dry rattly sound when I shook it. Oh wait - that does not make sense either... Then we realized - it had to have been a turtle nest that had been discovered by a predator. The little white things were the egg shells and the ping pong ball was a dead egg.

Poor turtles - but that is how it goes. Bad for turtles, good for the predator.

2 new species discovered!

I had not been out to the prairie for a while, so it was fun to see what was blooming. I was really excited to find 2 new plants! On the new prairie, I found Rattlesnake Master (Eryngium yuccifolium). This is growing from some of the seeds I selected for the plantings. YEAH!!

Even more exciting for me was the Spiderwort (Tradescantia) I found growing in a low area on the old prairie. I was wandering around looking for sweetgrass and found the spiderwort buds. It should bloom in a few days. I have never seen it on our prairie before, but recognize it from working in the greenhouse. It is amazing how much more I can see growing after the burn this spring.

Blooming on the "new" prairie: Bergamot, Showy tick trefoil (lots more this year in the burn area), gray headed coneflower, long-headed coneflower, echinacea, hoary vervain, white and purple prairie clover, rattlesnake master, yarrow, milkweed, early sunflower, and mountain mint. The grasses seeding are: canada wild rye, side oats gamma, and VERY TALL big bluestem.

On the "Old" prairie: Surf pea, germander, echinacea, lead plant, black eyed susan, goldenrod (in bud), Delphinium, showy tick trefoil, tradescantia, milkweed (common, swamp, and whorled), wild 4 o'clock, wolfberries, coreopsis, mountain mint, white prairie clover, (the purple is only blooming on the "new" prairie), and the beautiful native thistles.

The Chokecherries are ripe. I don't think I'll be making any jelly this year. But I did make a few jars of raspberry jam.

Our little corn fields do not look very good this year. We have 2 fields planted with corn for the deer and pheasants to eat. We did not get them tended this year and the weeds are taking over. We do plant a little sweet corn for ourselves. Hopefully some of it will fight through the weeds, escape the raccoons and deer, and make its way to our dinner table and freezer.

Deer in the garden

When we left the house this morning, we spotted a bunny in the garden. Then we noticed that the sunflower next to the bunny had no leaves on it. Could the bunnies really have eaten a 2 foot tall sunflower?
I thought it would take a deer to eat the tops off those flowers... Sure enough, there were deer tracks in our garden. Right in town! We had deer tracks once this winter in the snow, but assumed that the bitter cold led the deer to seek easy food like birdseed. Today's deer tracks were more of a surprise.
Little Tori is very sad to have lost her big sunflowers. Yup - all we have left are several 5 - 8 inch stumps with no leaves. Tori left a doll in the window tonight to warn us if the deer return.
I wonder if the deer will return and eat anything else. I have pretty low expectations for this garden. We only water and weed periodically, and when we do go out and work in it, our 'helpers' are pretty hazardous to plants. But it is fun and gets them out in the dirt.

It has been pretty cold around here lately. Highs in the 60s. Pretty strange for July. Also, there has been a lot of lake itch at the beach. We have hardly gone swimming at all.

Rain

I awoke this morning to a rare a beautiful sound - rain falling. We have not had any significant rain since the 4.5" washout in mid June.

This weekend, as we drove through central Minnesota, I saw corn in non-irrigated fields reaching up to the sky as if it was praying for rain. The usually lush leave were so thin.
I don't have to mow the lawns this week. The grass has not grown at all since last week - and it barely grew the week before that.
I hope this rain will save our local farmers. It will help my little garden too.