These photos were taken a couple weeks ago, while riding on the Sakatah Singing Hills State trail. It was a cool, fall evening, and surprisingly we had the trail to ourselves.
The trail was canopied with trees that had not dropped all of their colorful leaves, and yet… the asphalt was covered with crispy, autumn leaves, and it was beautiful.
Gary and I rode along this portion of the enchanting path, with the sound of “crunch” underneath us. It was a fun ride!
We called her Auntie Ag. She was my dad’s older sister, Agnes. She was a special aunt…she never married so her nieces and nephews were very important to her, and she treated us well. She pass away in 2004.
Last summer I inherited a couple of her photo albums from the 1930-40’s. I was amazed at what I could glean from perusing the old photos, where few photos had captions, and very few were dated!
I have many good memories of Auntie Ag. I knew her well, particularly in her older years…But when I looked through her photos, I felt I learned a lot more about her as a young woman. I found it interesting that I felt I could capture her essence from the photos. I decided we had a lot of similar traits.
I resonated with the photo of my aunt overlooking Lake Superior when she was a young woman. The photo immediately caught my attention when looking through several of her old photo albums.
One similarity is our love for Lake Superior and the north shore. It is my happy place. It was fun to see how often the north shore showed up in her photos, and to learn she went there often. I also know that my grandmother, my dad and Agnes’ mother, had a love for the north shore.
Another trait I share with Auntie Ag is she liked to travel. She liked to travel a lot; across the country, and to cozy cabins, and to Norway in later years. I like to travel too.
She was an adventurer…There were photos of her on hikes, on bikes, on horseback, on the water, on a toboggan, and fishing…what fun! I, too, am fond of adventure and new experiences.
You could see from the different photos she liked being with friends, and she had a lot of them. She loved hosting them for breakfasts and dinner parties, as do I.
Agnes’ mother, my grandma, was always well-dressed. I think there are stories of grandma having more than one trunk of clothes when she traveled to Norway. I noticed Aggie was always well-dressed in the photos. I know when she was older, her outfits “matched” and she always wore “matching” jewelry. I am not a fashion bug by any means, but do like to dress nice.
There were hundreds of photos of our families. I know Aggie loved her extended family. She was a believer and prayed for me (and for her nieces and nephews) all her life…and for that, I am grateful. I too, am a believer, and deeply love and pray for my family.
A writing assignment was to complete this thought: I have a feeling about my tree…
I like trees. I think most everyone does, but maybe most people don’t think about them much. Even though I really like trees, I can’t identify many of them. Of course, the oaks and maples are easy, but then I struggle.
We planted 17 trees in our yard in Northfield. Many of them almost 28 years ago. Some are getting really big, or scraggly, or both. They do provide a lot of shade. I used to have sun gardens, but now I often need to consider shade plants.
One tree that we planted 28 years ago, in the front yard, was a honey locust tree. It was maybe 1-2 inches around in diameter…It grew tall, and beautiful, and full, and it became my favorite tree. I can see it outside the window above my kitchen sink.
But I have a feeling about my tree…it’s dying. Last year we had a tree service company come and trim it back. This spring it leafed out and seemed to be doing well during the summer. Now, this fall we noticed more large, dead branches and I have a feeling it won’t live much longer. I won’t give up on it yet. But I will miss it when it’s gone. It is a light and airy tree, with branches that sway in the wind and offers dappled sun light through its small leaves.
Another tree I loved was the old, oak tree that grew in the Valley Grove cemetery. If it was planted when the first church was built in 1862… it could have been well over 150 years old…some estimate it to be 200+ years old.
It stood tall and mighty, with long, branches spread wide and offering protection over the gravesites. It was special. It was majestic. It fell when the 2018 tornado came through. It was a huge loss.
While attending the Valley Grove Country Social this fall, I learned someone made crosses from oak branches that are trimmed off other oak trees on the cemetery property. These oak trees are believed to be descendants from the majestic, old, oak tree. The woodworker was an acquaintance of mine, so I decided to contact him.
When I asked him if it was possible to get a cross made from the old oak tree, he told me he and several others checked out the wood from the fallen tree and found the wood to be twisted and not so good, and that there was very little salvaged from it. I said OK, please make me a cross from the other oak wood.
When he called to let me know the cross was ready to be picked up, he told me he was able to make a cross from the old, oak tree…that he had found enough good scrap wood to make a cross. I was blessed!
Thousands of words, hundreds of pages, years of journaling…up in flames… Intentionally.
A few months ago, a friend and I were talking about what to do with our old, personal journals. I’ve had mine sitting around for a while thinking I’d reread them, but I’ve only glanced at them and reread a few entries. The most interesting was writing out 40 days of prayers during Lent one year.
The content of our journals were our feelings at the time…my journaling was more therapeutic than anything else and so I decided I didn’t feel the need to keep them anymore. The same held true for my friend, so we decided to burn them, together. We would create some sort of ceremony making it an event of some significance.
And so we did.
She came over and we built a fire in the fire pit in our backyard. We said a prayer, and sat around talking about all the memories we accumulated over the years, while throwing our papers into the fire.
One memory that surfaced while we were talking, was from years ago when all our kids were school age (our two families got together often and had many bon fires over the years). We would get together at the end of the school year, build a bon fire, and the kids would throw in their collected school papers from the past year into the fire.
That is what my friend and I did…We threw out all the written pages of our learning over many years, hopefully maintaining wisdom from all the experiences we had.
Amen.
Fall color tour... Fluorescent orange, yellow, reds, A beautiful gift!
I did not enhance these photos, before or after taking theses pictures.
The leaves were that brilliant.
Our trip to the north shore proved to be a lot more colorful than we were expecting.
We had already started seeing pockets of beautiful fall colors on our drive up, so I started to get a little excited…and then the colors began to pop out everywhere…with wonderful contrasts to the evergreen trees.
The weather also turned out better than I had hoped for, with warmer temperatures and some nice sunshine and blue skies (and one cloudy day). We had packed clothes for colder weather.
We followed our annual routine of balancing cabin time and lake time with hiking and local drives.
We watched the sun rise over the big lake and had a camp fire on the rocks. We stopped in Hinckley and Duluth on the way up, and stopped in Grand Marais one day. It’s all so familiar, yet all so refreshing, relaxing, and restorative… and so much fun!
The colors were breathtaking…everywhere we went. It was spectacular to see and hard to photograph with my iPhone.
But it was enough to witness the colors and breath in the fresh air, smell the different whiffs of pine scents, lake water, decomposing leaves, feel the crisp air and to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8a).
I stand in awe of the Creator of these incredible autumn colors.
And the colors were not only up north…we saw them driving home, and right here in Northfield, and outside our front and back doors!
As we plan our annual trek to the north shore, I always reread my own version of Psalm 23.
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall thank him. He allows me to be on the shores of Lake Superior And hear the calming waves. He restores my soul. He guides me on trails of the Superior National Forest, And leads me along the rocky shores of the big lake. Even when the waves are rough – even when the lake is calm, I am content to be near the water. And the Lord is with me. His creation and His majesty, they comfort me. He anoints me with many blessings My cup overflows and I am grateful Surely, I will praise him and follow him All the days of my life, I am grateful to dwell in His presence On the shores of Lake Superior.
Below are just a few favorite photos (from hundreds!) I’ve taken over the years, of Lake Superior.
It was a nice afternoon for the Valley Grove Country Social. It was cloudy, but no rain. A blue-sky backdrop would have been nice, but looking out from on top of the hill to the surrounding prairie and farmland is a beautiful sight no matter what the weather.
The fall Country Social, which I incorrectly called Valley Grove’s fall festival, began its annual affair with a two-day event in 1995. Back then it was a local artist’s exhibit in the two churches. Various fall events took place during the ensuing years, all with different names.
It wasn’t until 2002 that it officially became titled the annual “Valley Grove Country Social”, held the third weekend in September. It Is a fundraiser, and chance for folks to enjoy the area, and to learn about this very special place…two churches, a cemetery, and 52 acres of restored prairie.
This year there were a few artist’s works displayed, but it mostly was a time for joining in on two walks; a cemetery story tour led by Jeff Sauve a local historian and author, and/or a prairie walk.
Plus, both churches were open to explore. They are both on the National Register of Historic Places. Refreshments were for sale in the 1862 stone church with photo books on display, and a few artist gifts available to buy. There was four exquisite tapestries (see below) hanging on the walls.
There was outdoor background music by two different Nordic groups, recitals in the 1894 church, displays and hands-on activities for everyone, and the members of the Valley Grove Preservation Society were in attendance to answer any questions you had about these two historic and beautiful churches. The group works hard to maintain these remarkable churches built by Norwegian immigrants in the 1800’s.
There were several highlights for me this Sunday afternoon…
One was leisurely meandering the grounds, and running into people we recognized, stopping to chat…soaking in the energy of folks excited to be here in this wonderful space.
Another highlight was the cemetery story tour with Jeff Sauve. It was interesting. He’s a great storyteller!
Riding in a horse-drawn wagon through the surrounding prairie, which the preservation society also maintains, was fun.
And, I really enjoyed seeing four beautiful tapestries on display in the old stone church.
Funded by a grant, a Minneapolis textile artist, Robbie LeFleur, was hired to depict the Valley Grove churches and life in Valley Grove, back in the day.
LeFleur designed and created the tapestries (20”X26”) using a traditional Norwegian type of handiwork.
The tapestries were made to hang beneath four light sconces in the stone church. Each tapestry had a write-up explaining the various scenes on each one.
What a lovely display to peruse on a delightful afternoon at Valley Grove, one of my favorite places!
Tiny red feather Stood out among the birdseed... A love gift for me?
I’m going with the idea it was left behind as a love token for me. 😉
These past few days have been glorious. Bright sunshine and low humidity and comfortable temperatures. Great days for bike rides.
We were bicycling on the Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail on one of these fine weather days. The trail is in good condition. We rode out several miles, stopped for lunch and then turned around and rode back. It’s a delightful, easy ride.
Once again, this time of year, we were surrounded by yellow daisy-type flowers and goldenrod and yellow cone flowers. It is pretty, especially with blue skies.
We stopped for a water break and noticed one field of flowers bursting with busy bees. It seemed as though there was a little bee on every flower, collecting nectar and pollen. It was a good sight to see.
I appreciate these colorful, autumn bike rides, especially during the week when there are few riders on the trail. We saw more bees than people!