Valerie – Page 47 – Valerie's Voice

Too Much, Too Soon!

Go away winter! We are not ready for you. 😉

The Oberg Mountain trail is one of our favorite hikes on the north shore. It’s a fairly easy 2.2 mile hike…climbing up and circling around the summit. There are eight fantastic overlooks along the loop trail. Some places look out over Lake Superior….

…other areas view the inland forest and Oberg Lake. It’s a hike that never disappoints and is always enjoyable.

Looking inland towards Oberg Lake with the colorful maples past peak.

This year as we approached the top I saw a sign posted that looked like it could be another Story Walk – like the one we discovered at Forestville State Park a few weeks ago.

However, the sign project on top of Oberg was not a storybook walk. It was referred to as a themed hike.

Along the trail several signs were posted near trees to identify them and talk about their characteristics, or tell stories about their species. The United States Department of Agriculture logo was listed on each sign so I assume it was their project, in collaboration with the Forest Service.

I’ve often thought, while hiking through the forest, that it would be helpful if all the trees and flowers and bushes and plants in the forest could all have little signs identifying themselves – so I liked the concept of this themed hike.

Although I can identify a lot of the common trees there are many more trees I do not know.

I’ve noticed these sweet, little seedlings growing next to the trail. They are soft and elegant.

I was happy to learn about these precious, little pine trees I have seen lining the hiking trails. Sign number 10 identified them as Princess Pine…a fitting title I think.

Over all there were eleven trees highlighted on this trail: White Cedar, Mountain Maple, Quaking Aspen, Beaked Hazelnut, Sugar Maple, Red Pine, Black Ash, Balsam Fir, White Spruce, Princess Pine and Paper Birch.

According to the last sign they plan to create another themed hike about a different topic…hopefully next year.

I’m thankful for these intentional ways different organizations are helping the public learn about nature, out in nature.

Snapshots from the North Shore

Here are some photos from our time up on the north shore of Lake Superior. Some stories (and more photos) will follow later, but for now I want to share some pictures of the various sunrises and some of the spectacular colors we enjoyed while up north. The beauty is indescribable.

From the top of Oberg Mountain overlooking the lake with yellows from the birch/aspens in contrast with the evergreen trees.

A lone tree in it’s glory against the fall blue sky.

Another view of the yellow and dark green combination.

Beauty along the roads close to the lake. There are maple trees inland but their colorful leaves had been blown off the trees.

Except there was an occasional maple tree in full color near the lake.

Sunrise on the third day; the sun clouded over but soon broke through.

Tamarack trees, also know as larch trees; they are deciduous trees with needles that turn yellow in autumn and fall off.

Tall red pines, mistakenly called Norway pines by the immigrants from Norway because they resembled trees back in Norway.

Dramatic morning light as it get closer to sunrise.

Finally, the sun pops up…and it melted the clouds away that morning, making way for another clear and beautiful day on the north shore.

At the Cabin

I’m delighted to be up on the north shore of Lake Superior. We are in our happy place. I’ve been anxiously waiting for our time to check in, relax and be renewed in this very special place.

The drive up was gorgeous…many golds and yellows leaves along the highway, interspersed with evergreens. The beautiful sunny sky and warm October day added to our pleasure.

We made our usual stops along the way: Canal Park in Duluth…

…Gooseberry Falls State Park for a picnic lunch, Black Beach and then Tettegouche State Park for a quick hike before arriving at our beloved rental cabin on the shores of Lake Superior.

Once we unpacked and settled in we were looking through the books at the cabin and one stood out in particular… we laughed that this book was in our cabin. The title? Outwitting Squirrels. This adds to our reading pleasure during this 2020 squirrel capturing season.

The book we found in the cabin…how appropriate for our squirrel adventures this summer.

September Sky

We have always enjoyed buckling ourselves into our car seats and taking scenic drives, heading out of town on country roads. It’s fun to see the varied landscapes in our great state.

Photo taken last week, on the outskirts of Northfield.

When the pandemic took hold we started to take more frequent rides to get us out of the house.

Last week we drove a short 20 miles loop around Northfield and were mesmerized by the sky. These dramatic photos were snapped when we quickly pulled over to the side of the road a couple of times.

The colors and lighting of these clouds are beautiful.

This particular evening we were on a road where you could see a whole lot of sky. The sky is always fun to watch. It has so many displays: blue with soft, white, fluffy clouds or clear blue with no clouds, and sometimes stormy skies with dark, angry clouds.

This is what the sky looked like when we left our house.

On our way back to town we saw this gorgeous sunset.

I’m compelled to include the photo below, taken in July 2018 (pre-pandemic) on a drive west of Northfield. It was eerie. Soon after I took the photo it began to rain. Fortunately it was not a tornado.

Story Walk

We entered Forestville State Park into the GPS system in our car and ended up on a dirt road in the middle of two tall cornfields with the system declaring we had “reached our destination!”

Following the red truck down the gravel road.

We pulled over and as we got out our map, a red pick up truck pulled up along side us and stopped. We rolled down our window and he asked, “Are you looking for the state park? “ We said, “Yes.” He said, “Follow me.” So we did. He stopped a couple miles up the road at his farm and gave us directions from there to the park. He laughed and told us he meets the nicest folks at the end of his driveway… every weekend. They find themselves where we did, in the cornfields looking for the state park.

The beautiful golden cornfields under an interesting sky.

Along our route that morning we saw colors of autumn. Yellow, red and orange leaves on the trees and stunning golden corn stalks in the fields so we didn’t mind this beautiful detour… and we did find the state park.

Once there we met up with friends. They greeted us with a campfire. We planned to do some hiking.

The park has set up a wonderful Story Walk along one park trail. I had seen this Story Walk idea in Faribault. I had checked out a few storyboards downtown. The title of the featured book in Faribault was Eric Carle’s, From Head to Toe.

(That morning in Faribault has a side story… I left our house and drove 25 minutes south to Faribault to run some errands. When I got out at my first stop I realized I had my slippers on! It was too far to go back home and change shoes so I ran my errands in my slippers!)

Back to Forestville State Park. The book featured on the Story Walk was One North Star by Phyllis Root.

Look for “Eight yellow pond lilies float, seven great blue herons…”

Each page of the book was placed behind plastic on a sign staked to the ground, spaced several hundred feet apart on the trail.

Look for “Nine mosquitoes whine, eight small cranberries…”

As you walk along the trail you stop to read another page of the story. This book is a beautifully illustrated, counting book featuring Minnesota animals and flowers. We stopped at each page to read and count. It was fun!

I enjoyed the book so much I bought a copy at the park office.

I can only imagine how much fun this Story Walk would be for children. It is engaging. We were wishing our grandchildren were along, hiking this Story Walk trail with us.

Autumn Quote

The 2020 autumnal equinox was Tuesday, marking the beginning of our fall season in Minnesota. We’ve had some enjoyable weather this week.

I’m looking forward to many more pleasant weather days and hope they linger well into this fall season, to energize us for winter.

Fall is my favorite time of year!

Beautiful Bridge Square in downtown Northfield. Photo taken 9/23/20.

LOVE

There is a new mural in town. LOVE.

A large, painted mural on 4th Street, in Northfield.

It is on 4^th street – painted on the outside wall of Domino’s Pizza, to the north.

The artist’s signature is Brett Whitacre. He’s from Illinois but I don’t know much about him, or the mural other, than “I like it.”

I like the black and white contrast to the colorful letters spelling LOVE.

It’s a beautiful and colorful addition to our charming downtown Northfield.

I’m grateful the Northfield city administrators and area residents appreciate these kinds of artistic endeavors.

Here is a link to my friend’s blog, Minnesota Prairie Roots. It has more information on the artist and the mural.

This mural is a creative reminder for us to love one another.

The Squirrel Saga Continues

After the Japanese beetles ate many leaves off our birch we could now see a huge squirrel’s nest in the treetop. It looked like a two story unit so we called it the “squirrel condo” – however we didn’t see any evidence of squirrels hanging around.

Gary has been trapping squirrels all summer. We’ve brought fourteen squirrels to what we call the “squirrel resort” – an area twelve miles from our house. The “resort” has a lot of mature trees, a meadow and a pond…everything squirrels need to rebuild their lives away from our birdfeeders!

This ladder plus an extension rod was needed to reach the huge nest.

Even though we didn’t see any signs of activity in the nest we decided to take it down. We recruited friends to help. Gary climbed up his highest extension ladder and used a twenty-foot tree trimmer extension pole to reach the nest.

He knocked the nest and much to our surprise, two little ears and a head popped up, then three squirrels scurried away from the nest. I didn’t see where the mama went (maybe she jumped to the evergreen nearby) but I was startled as one juvenile squirrel jumped to the ground and ran close to my feet! The third squirrel, a sibling, clung to a tree branch. He looked scared and confused.

Gary began swatting to loosen the nest… the lower portion first. It disengaged but got caught in the tree branches. We managed to whack it out. Next Gary went after the larger section of the nest and knocked it out of the tree right away. It fell to the ground. No traces of the condo remained. The timid squirrel kept clinging to a branch watching our every move.

The makings of a huge nest. It filled a large garbage container.

The other two squirrels must have been nearby because soon we saw the younger squirrel go back up the tree to help his brother (or sister) while the mama squirrel waited at the bottom of the tree trunk.

The mama squirrel looking up the tree at her “teenagers”. Squirrels are typically born in the spring and are on their own 8 months later…we figured the young squirrels were 6-7 months old.

Eventually the two siblings came down but only the brave one ventured away from the tree. The other squirrel climbed back up.

We continued watching as the mother squirrel led her brave, young one across the street. In the middle of the road he stopped so she picked him up by the neck and carried him the rest of the way, like a mama cat and her kitten. Once safely on the other side they both scampered through the neighbor’s front yard into the back.

The mama leading her young away from the birch tree.

We kept an eye out for mama to return for her other young’un but we never did see her. Later that day we sought out the third squirrel but couldn’t see it in the tree. She must have come back while we were not watching and showed her offspring the way to their new surroundings.

It was entertaining to watch this all unfold…and no squirrels were injured during this process.

Trapping squirrels, knocking out squirrel nests…I wonder what other squirrel adventures we’ll have?

Revived

My aloe vera plant started to show signs of distress last winter. In June I set it outside as it’s last hope.

June 16 is when I took this picture of my dying aloe vera plant.

I guess it loved the hot summer sun. It thrived, and I’m glad. Now I hope it will survive another winter indoors…

Author: Valerie