ONE MAGICAL MOMENT TURNED INTO MULTIPLE

 My husband has been after me for a while now to feed the hummingbirds but I refused. We use to feed them in years past but I'd often forget to clean and change out their sugar water every 3 days which can be unhealthy for them so I just gave up. A few days ago I was sitting on the deck watching a single hummingbird investigate the flowers and not finding what they wanted. Suddenly the hummingbird came to within 2 inches of my head and stood there for what felt like a couple minutes just fluttering to keep itself stationary while he looked at me and then he flew off. It was such a magical moment to be that close. I took it at a sign I needed to put feeders out again. I rushed inside and made some sugar water and put out two feeders, one on the deck and one in the garden, and within seconds half a dozen hummingbirds appeared. We've never had so many at once. It's difficult to capture them in motion without the photo being blurry but I was able to snap a couple shots of two birds.

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BIRDS! BIRDS! BIRDS! I LOVE BIRDS

When I first got sick in 2018 one of the things that helped me get through the mental challenge of my illness were the birds. I've always enjoyed birds but there was a point where I couldn't even walk so I would sit out on the deck and just listen and watch them flitter around the yard. I was content in those moments. They got me through some very difficult times. The following are some photos I took of my wild bird neighbors visiting recently. 

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LAWN BE GONE!

 In 2020 we removed a large portion of our front lawn and today we have just about 1/4 left to remove before it's all gone. We filled the empty space in with 90% native plants and have been very pleased with how it turned out. 

We aren't strangers to replacing non natives with natives. When we moved into our home nearly 16 years ago our entire backyard was buckthorn. It was an extension of the forest into Alimagnet park. Our first year we hired a company to remove all the buckthorn then after that we had to deal with flooding all the time so we had the yard regraded. After the regrading we bought a large sack of native wildflower seeds and spread them all over the backside of the house and within a year we started to see native grasses, goldenrod, Joe pie weed, daisies... Today we have so many natives growing back there I've lost count. The amount of wildlife that loves to be in our yard is what makes me the most happy. Frogs, toads, turtles, fox, rabbits, deer, snakes, wasps, hornets, bumblebees, hummingbirds, butterflies... We now see so many insects that we'd never seen before planting natives. We also stopped raking up our leaves in the fall and that has caused a boom in the firefly population around us. It's truly incredible and very special. 

Some people are surprised to learn that the adults of most firefly species are in fact pollinators. 

 

The honeybee isn't a native pollinator but it's a pollinator none the less.

Beautiful Monarch butterfly.

The bumblebee has some pollen on her legs.

When we removed a portion of our lawn in 2020. We did this on both sides of our driveway.

These are the plants we put in to replace the lawn. We have mountain mint, butterfly weed, bergamot, boneset, pearly everlasting... and many more.

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HURRAY FOR BISON REINTRODUCTION IN MINNESOTA

We use to drive down to Mankato every year to see the bison herd but now the animals are much closer. Spring Lake Park Reserve has a small herd right now but there are plans to increase that number up to 500. This year a few babies were born so they are slowly working on that goal. It was wonderful to see them out there basking in the sun with their babies. 

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OUR FIRST FAWNS OF THE SEASON

After our really sad fawning season last spring I wasn't looking forward to babies this year. It's hard not to worry knowing how many people continue to let their dogs run off leash and chase the deer, but deer fawns warm my heart each time I see them. Yesterday after we got home from Northfield I sat on the deck to eat my lunch and I heard that familiar cry reverberate across my back yard. My heart instantly went into my stomach until I looked up and saw a doe on the other side of the fence. She clearly had parked her baby, as they usually do, in my yard when she went out to eat and just returned home but from the wrong direction. She was panicking to get onto our side so she could feed her baby but my neighbor attached several feet of chicken wire to the top of my fence, extending the height to about 7-8 feet. Mom was desperately pacing back and forth trying to figure out how to get over it so she did what any devoted mother would do, she tore right through it. It was quite the sight. It almost looked like she was going to lose her back legs but she made it. That had to hurt!! She went to feed baby and then suddenly there were more cries from the complete opposite side of the fence. Mom parked second fawn in another yard so she made that one wait while she fed fawn #1 and then once done she made her way over to fawn #2. 

So here is my first fawn photo of spring 2023. It's a little blurry because I rushed to take the shot before they ran out. 

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NATURE FIND

My daughter and I were enjoying a walk on this beautiful day in Minnesota when we stumbled upon a pretty large owl pellet, about golf ball size. This is the first time we've found one in the wild. She dissected a few back when she was in elementary school and when I homeschooled my youngest I ordered some owl pellets for her to dissect but we've never located one outdoors. It was fun digging through to see what little bones we could find.  

Have you ever found an owl pellet in nature?

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MUSHROOM FORAGING

Today my daughter and I took a class on identifying edible vs toxic mushrooms in the wild. Since I was little I always wanted to know which mushrooms I could and couldn't eat but no matter how many times friends with mushroom knowledge would point out an edible mushroom I just didn't trust it. 

Growing up my mother was a wealth of knowledge when it came to edible and medicinal plants but not when it came to mushrooms. She had this long list of stories she'd share with us about people she knew or had read about who had died eating the wrong one and died so we were told to admire fungi from afar. As an adult that warning was ingrained in my head but I know it's silly, sort of, so I decided to take a class.

Will I be eating wild mushrooms now? Um... not likely.  If I do I'll stick to a select 2-3, but I definitely won't be branching out to all that's available. It was fun to explore in the woods with our guide and talk about mushrooms though. Even if I never eat one my daughter and I learned a lot. 

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WONDERFUL SURPRISES IN THE GARDEN

A few years ago we decided to remove the majority of our grass in the front yard to make room for pollinator gardens. We removed about 1/2 of the lawn and planted numerous Minnesota natives to feed butterflies and bees. In our backyard we added several native trees to help feed the birds. Immediately we started seeing the benefits of both. The birds come to the trees to nibble on the fruits and the pollinators visit the flowers for pollen and nectar, but this year we were surprised to find this...

While I was up in Northern MN at our cabin a few years back I found a plant growing wild down the road and thought it was interesting. I looked it up to find it's name and whether it was native to the area or not. It's called pearly everlasting and it is a native to MN so I decided to plant it in my front yard. I ordered 3 plants from a local native wildflower nursery and put them in. Two years later (today) I noticed they had spread quite a bit. Three small plants that took up a total of a foot space had now spread to about 4 ft around. I thought that was exciting since I want all of my plants to spread. I went out a couple days ago to water and discovered what looked like dying pearly everlasting. I thought maybe it had some type of fungus or mite since it was covered in a white powdery substance with black flecks and it looked like it had little cobwebs all over the top. I started pulling back the webs and was surprised to find caterpillars inside. By the time I was done counting I found over 2 dozen caterpillars. I rushed to my resources to find out what they were and it turns out we created a home for the American Lady and Painted Lady butterfly larvae. 

The pearly everlasting is a host plant. The caterpillars live as individuals in nests made of leaves and silk. Here are some photos of what I found.

This is EXACTLY what we wanted to achieve when we removed our lawn. In our front yard we have three sections with native wildflowers that feed the local pollinators. It's very exciting to see the fruits of our labor. 

We also found that the butterfly milkweed we planted is covered in Monarch caterpillars. I didn't expect this. I assumed Monarchs would only lay their eggs on the common milkweed. Here are a few photos of what we found on the butterfly milkweed. 

Now I know that the Monarch will lay her eggs on all 9 species of milkweed but the common milkweed usually has the highest number of eggs. 

We have a lot of common milkweed growing so off to the garden store I go to get more butterfly milkweed. 

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2016 EARLY SUMMER PLANT WALK

This past weekend my oldest daughter and I attended another herbal workshop.  This time the location was a beautiful farm in North Central, MN and it was the perfect spot since there was a great variety of wild edibles and medicinals spread over the property, even this beauty… truly growing wild, there were just two plants on the 38 acres.

I think my daughter had the most fun hanging out with the chickens 

While I was busy eating wild foods

We talked about many plants including the a variety of uses for Solomon's Seal

and Black Medick

There wasn't a boring minute while Lise Wolff talked

I really can never get enough of these plant walks.  Lise Wolff is like an herbal encyclopedia that I wish I could just put on a shelf and open when needed.  How she mentally files away so much detail about medicinal and edible plants I will never know.

It truly was a great day!

For anyone who lives in MN and may be interested in these workshops, here is a link to Lise Wolff's website .  Her classes are not always posted on her site but if you sign up for emails she'll definitely send you one when a workshop or class is scheduled.

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