Yesterday I took a morning bicycle ride on the Dundas Trail. Even though it was cloudy, it seemed like the sun was shining…
because bright sun flowers were blooming profusely on both sides of the trail.
Golden rod was already blooming yellow in a few places too, adding to the vibrant yellow color all around.
Golden Rod, a sure sign that fall is coming.
To top it off, three yellow (gold) finches flew across the trail in front of me. I didn’t capture any photos, but they are always a delight to see, and added much cheer to the already lovely, yellow scenery.
I don’t know the name of this variety of sunflower.
Also, I’m grateful for the garden club who tends to the flowers in these bicycle sculpture baskets that are on the Dundas Trail.
Here are a few photos I’ve taken over the past couple of weeks…No particular order, no particular theme…just nature showing off.
A still, quiet morning, with mist lingering over Daggett Lake.
An early morning sky.
A rainbow… a promise. The bright colors were not captured with my iPhone camera, but it has been awhile since I’ve seen a rainbow, so I kept the photo anyway.
Montgomery, Minnesota is a small town 24 miles west of the small town where I live. The population is 3,249 and it claims to be the Kolacky Capitol of the world.
Franke’s Kolacky Bakery
Franke’s Bakery made Montgomery’s kolacky’s famous. Click this link for a brief history about the bakery and its famous kolacky’s.
Montgomery seems to be a fairly active town. It celebrates its Czechoslovakian heritage with Kolacky Days every July. In the downtown area there is an Arts & Heritage Center, Hilltop Hall (a music venue), Pizzeria 201, a restaurant serving delicious pizza and other Italian offerings (but only take-out since 2020) and other small businesses, plus a few churches.
Holy Redeemer Catholic Church
Montgomery’s main street also has an interesting drug store, Herrmann Thrifty White Pharmacy, which was my destination on this particular sunny, summer day.
Years ago, I discovered a lip balm that I really liked while on vacation on the west coast. I hadn’t been able to find it for years, but came across it on a different vacation and bought another tube. I decided I still really liked it and wanted to find more. At that time, the era of websites and ordering online became doable, so I looked it up on the internet and ordered it online, for several years.
But now, the shipping charges have become more expensive than the actual product so I decided to look around for the lip balm again, in retail stores…without much luck. So I went back to the their website and found a chart of retail stores where they sell their products…which wasn’t many!
The list was short for retail stores where it is sold in the US (about 56), and only a handful of stores in Minnesota (13). But interestingly, the closest store to me, was Herrmann Thrifty White Pharmacy in Montgomery, MN. What???
Herrmann Thrifty White Pharmacy on mainstream in Montgomery.
I have been to Montgomery before, and I enjoy visiting small towns, so taking a road trip 24 miles down the road to find my beloved lip balm was exciting. I wondered if the store would have the “original” lip balm, which I like best.
Well, it did, and a lot of it! I told the clerk why I was there and she showed me the display. I told her I wouldn’t buy her out but I wanted 4 of the 6. She said she had a lot more in back and brought out a tub, half-full, of the lip balm. I laughed, and bought more. I admit, there was great satisfaction in that moment.
Herrmann Thrifty White Pharmacy (established 1884) serves as more than a drug store. It is a small variety store for the town…with gifts, kitchen supplies, greeting cards, wrapping paper, baby supplies, jewelry, even some clothing and purses. It was a lot fun to spend time in the store looking around at all the variety of wares. I added a few more things to my purchase that day…to “help support this small-town store.”
There was a sign identifying this as Mary’s prayer garden near the church.
And, I have to confess…we stopped in at Franke’s Bakery first thing upon arriving in Montgomery, to buy coffee and a pastry (no kolacky for me though). We brought our treat outside, to a nearby picnic table, next to a beautiful church, and enjoyed their grounds on this lovely morning.
On the beautiful catholic church grounds.
A huge, magnificent flower pot outside a building in Montgomery.
Our delightful day trip was fun and interesting in the small town of Montgomery, Minnesota.
Last weekend a friend and I went to delight in the peony gardens in Aspelund. I was reminded to visit this lovely acreage now, this time of year, when the peonies are in bloom.
In the background is one of the out buildings on this acreage. The peony gardens are front and center.
This year there was a lot of color, yet there were many buds to still open, which was the stage of the peonies in my garden, and that’s why I had to be reminded that the Aspelund gardens may be ready to explore.
The location is a scenic, peaceful, country setting, about twenty minutes from Northfield. There are a couple of out buildings, the wine tasting room with an attached deck and table and chairs, there are rows of grapevines, and a lot of rhubarb growing all over…and of course lots and lots of peonies.
The peonies are for sale…but you are most welcome to visit these gardens without purchasing anything.
The coral color was one of my favorites.
There is a tire swing hanging from a large, old tree and two little girls, in cute little dresses, were enjoying themselves on the swing that afternoon. It was a very nostalgic and sweet picture…that I didn’t capture on my camera.
We met up with a blogger friend of mine, and her husband, who were at the gardens the same time we were. We meandered the peonies, found chairs on the lawn since all the outdoor tables were taken, and ordered a flight of wine to taste a couple of the many variety of wines they offer.
It was a lovely and relaxing way to spend a late spring, almost summer, afternoon.
It was hard to get a photo of this yellow peony, but the color was delicous.
These are a few photos of the vibrant peonies I took, but I want to share a link to an expanded blog about this Aspelund Winery, written by the friend with whom we were enjoying the wonderful afternoon in Aspelund. Check out Minnesota Prairie Roots and enjoy a great tour.
Twenty-seven years ago, in 1995, one year after we moved into our house in Northfield, we added a cedar deck in the back. Gary took good care of it over the years, but it finally started to deteriorate.
June 2022
We decided to replace the deck, and we decided to use composite material that does not need to be stained every other year. It should hold up well – perhaps for the next 27 years…
Going…going…
Gone.
The deck will be a bit different. We had flower boxes built into our old deck, which I loved. Our contractor said he had not seen that design before…well, that’s because we designed it, and the carpenter, who build our deck back in 1995, built it how we designed it.
In summer I planted petunias in the flower boxes.
In winter I added evergreen boughs and lights in the flower boxes.
At our home in Burnsville, we also had flower boxes on the deck…so I’ve had flower boxes since 1980. I think I’ll miss them.
On with the new…
We kept the pergola Gary and our son built years ago.
Looking good.
We enjoy our deck, and use it a lot. We have shade trees that help keep it shaded for much of the day…however, there are a few hours in mid-afternoon when there is full sun.
Finished. We like it!
We like the way the deck turned out… and the openness it offers that we didn’t have before.
Apparently for two years before the 2020 pandemic, Bachman’s sponsored a spring flower show at the Galleria. I didn’t know about it at the time. Now, two years later, after the pandemic, Bachman’s is once again, sponsoring another flower show: AFloral Experience at Galleria ~Sugar Coated.
A Floral Experience at Galleria.
We happened upon it by accident. We were going out to dinner at the Good Earth in the Galleria, after an interesting play at the Children’s Theatre. We noticed there were a lot of flowers in the mall as we walked toward the restaurant.
Beautiful blooming daffodils adds to the honeycomb display.
Blooming cupcakes.
The hostess at Good Earth then informed us the Bachman’s spring flower show was opening the next day!
Ice cream cones: must be strawberry flavor.
After dinner we decided to walk around the indoor mall, and we saw a preview of the bright and beautiful show. It was all set up, and ready for the debut.
Colorful skittles…blooming lillies..
It was fun to see so much color. It was wonderful to see blooming flowers.
Cotton candy clouds create indoor showers.
Silver beads hanging from clouds represent April Showers.
The theme was “Sugar Coated” and it was colorful, delightful…and not crowded (as it probably would be the very next day when the show opened).
A giant gummy bear.
Hydrangea trees…
The show runs from March 27 through April 10, 2022.
Lollipops.
Colorful candy sticks.
Hyacinths about to bloom, set with deep blues and whites, create a stunning display. In a near-by display some of the hyacinths were blooming and smelled so fragrant.
It was a “sweet” surprise, and a great ending to our fun day in the cities.
My interest in flowers did not start when I was a child. Although my mom had indoor plants and some flowers growing outside, it didn’t seem to influence me much. I do remember beautiful window boxes filled with flowers outside the large picture window in front of our house– pretty to look at from the inside as well as the outside. I must have been influenced by that. I have had flower boxes on my decks for 40+ years.
I plant petunias in my flower boxes…this deck gets full afternoon sun and petunias can take the heat! And they are colorful.
I remember my mother’s purple clematis (probably a wonderful, old-fashion Jackmanli) on the side of our house on McKinley Street, along with some other flowers.
This Jackmanli clematis grows along the side of our house in Northfield.
There may have been a small garden plot in the back corner of my parent’s yard, but I don’t remember the kinds of flowers growing there. I did not have to weed flowers, but I did have to weed around the Poplar trees that lined our back yard.
A different clematis climbing the arbor…the lilac bush is behind the hanging blue, glass ball…
My mother did plant a lilac bush and I took a small section from her bush and planted it at our house in Burnsville. When we moved from Burnsville, I took a section from that bush and planted it in our yard here in Northfield. It’s still growing and blooming after 27+ years.
Looking off our deck into our back yard. The lilac bush is near the wagon wheel by the shed.
Such lush green…so amazing to look at right now while outside snow is falling and the ground is white!
I do remember, as a child, picking some tulips from a neighbor’s garden to bring home to my mom…then I had to turn right around and go apologize to Dorothy for not asking permission to cut some of her flowers. Whoops.
Star-gazer Lily, Coral Bells, Rudbeckia
Recently a prompt from a writing session led me to thinking about when my interest in flowers began. I remembered giving a friend an eight-pack of starter begonias as a housewarming gift. I have no idea why I picked begonias or how they would grow …but when I went back to her house later that summer there was pot on her front porch, blooming with beautiful begonias…the ones I had given her earlier that spring. I had no idea they would grow and fill out so much! This was back in high school. I’ve learned a lot since then.
Cone flowers in front of Quick Fire hydrangea.
My Quick Fire Hydrangea, later in the season. When this hydrangea begins blooming it has white flowers (see photo with purple cone flowers above) and changes to mauve by the end of the season.
My interest and knowledge grew when we moved into a new house with a vacant yard, almost twenty-eight years ago. As I mentioned, I have always had flower boxes to fill with colorful annuals, so we included that into our deck plans, but I created a few flower gardens, too, and have been playing in the dirt ever since.
I call these corn lillies.
And now I love flowers…tending to them, admiring them in gardens all over the world, and taking pictures of them…
My favorite…Stargazer Lilies
(These photos were taken in my yard at different times and years.)
As I was on a walk this week I noticed something out of the ordinary…
Blooming crocuses.
beautiful, blooming purple crocuses. It was a surprise to see, what I thought were, confused crocuses because they were blooming in the fall.
After taking a picture of theses perky blooms, I looked on Google and learned there are some crocuses that do bloom in the fall…only they have no leaves.
Autumn blooming crocuses with no leaves.
This was a pleasant sight to see while walking on a beautiful, unusually warm, fall day.
