Archives for July 2016

Gleanings from July–Animal Behavior

July 31, 2016 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

Animals have always been such an important part of my life. When I was very young, we had a menagerie of farm animals–Holstein dairy cows, a black Mustang horse, chickens, cats, dogs, pigs, and sheep. Later in my growing up years we had a rabbit, ducks, cats, dogs, and horses. (I tend to leave out the hamster who I did not like–he was too squishy and mouse-like.) Horses were the best; I loved everything about them–brushing their dusty coats and tangley tails, feeding them sweet feed and fragrant hay, saddling and riding them through fields and woods, and even cleaning out and shaking fresh straw into their stalls.

July has not only been a month of flowers, but one of animals, too. The young Bluebirds who fledged the nest have been swooping to the ground to pick up insects, then quickly flying back up to tree branches, just like their parents.

The chattering House Wrens are on their second brood of young ones and spend most of the day hunting for insects for the hungry houseful. (See my post of wren babies fledging from the nest.)

When I was weeding the garden one day, a Leopard frog leaped out from under the kale and hid in the grass.

Have you ever seen your reflection in the eye of a frog?

Mother turkeys and their young broods have been wandering through the yard and woods, scratching and pecking for food.

A call from Chris one morning alerted me to come check out a field close to his work. I pulled into a field driveway, walked across the road, and saw a large community of Sand Hill Cranes! There were about forty in all, gleaning the kernels from the grain field.

Sandhill cranes mate for life, choosing their partners based on spring mating dancing displays. They live for twenty years or longer.

The young ones stay with their parents through the winter and separate the following spring, but can take up to seven years to choose a mate.

A pair of sentries closest to me, but still on the far side of the field, started making alarm calls as they watched me.

The others slowly began gathering and walking along the edge of the field.

This photograph of beautiful bird behavior, after the sentries sounded the ‘beware’ call, illustrates a variety of responses. The one in the middle is ‘shaking it off,’ the two adults in the back right seem to be discussing the problem–“what do you think–is that figure holding the black box really a threat?” and the young ones in the front are following directions–“walk to your left.”

I was fortunate to witness another display of articulate animal behavior in our front yard the other day. I saw a doe with her fawn grazing along the edge of our yard. (Look at the line of spots on either side of the spine.)

The doe stayed in much the same spot, and I hoped she wasn’t munching on the hazelnuts Chris recently planted. She was as sleek and healthy-looking as I’ve ever seen a deer, so she must have been eating nutritious food. (Hmm, some of our hostas had been eaten down to the stems…)

The fawn wandered out in front of the doe.

Soon he ventured out into the mowed part of the lawn, bucked, and kicked up his heels.

With cautious curiosity, he walked to the crabapple tree and nibbled on a few leaves.

Suddenly, something scared him, and he ran as fast as he could back to his mom! Immediately she started licking him. He stood close to her and continued to graze as she licked his back, reassuring him that he was okay. After a few minutes of that, he slowly pulled away to wander on his own again.

Then they slipped back into the woods.

I have learned many things about myself and life from all the animals over the years. Anyone who has ever been astride a horse that is spooked by something, knows in his/her body what the fight or flight response feels like. Consequently, one learns how to soothe the horse and let him know that he’s okay. If you have seen a mother cat caring for her kittens–nursing them, hunting for them, cleaning them, keeping them safely hidden when small, and teaching them to be on their own–then you know what parenting entails. We often forget that we are one of the many animal species and that we have much in common with them. So watch closely in the presence of animals–we can see the reflection of ourselves in their eyes.

A Woman and Flowers

July 24, 2016 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Where flowers bloom, so does hope. –Lady Bird Johnson*

We were married on a glorious day in the middle of May, and three weeks later I received a dozen red roses from my new husband for my birthday! It was the first time I had ever been given a dozen roses, and I remember how carefully I unwrapped the double layer of tissue paper in the long, white box to see the velvety red flowers. We have a photograph of that young, smiling, newlywed me holding the box full of roses. Four, six, and ten years later my husband gave me and each of our sweet newborn children an exquisite arrangement from the fabulous Licata’s Flowers, now in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. I know there must have been a few other times that Chris surprised me with flowers, but store-bought flowers quickly fell to the bottom of our priority list.

You’ve heard the saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” haven’t you? The same goes for a woman and flowers. In every place we have lived, my horticulturist husband has planted perennials, annuals, and flowering shrubs in abundance. From early spring until late fall I can look out most any window of our house and see flowers blooming! July is peak season, and I have included some of what’s blooming in our gardens.

A pink Asiatic Lily found its way into my prairie garden this year. It looked pretty with the Blue Flax flowers.

Lavender has beautiful gray-green foliage and spikes of lavender flowers, all with a delicious, relaxing fragrance.

Queen Anne’s Lace floats on long, slender stems along the east side of our yard. They tip their heads to greet the morning sun.

I like how this single stem of Queen of the Prairie, which lies partly in the shade of a neighboring shrub, shows the progression of tightly closed buds to fully open, frothy pink blossoming.

Lantana is an annual in Minnesota–one that I try to keep alive inside during the long winter. Look at how each tiny flower in the cluster unfolds from a rectangular envelope.

Allium, commonly called ornamental onion, comes in all sizes in mostly shades of purple. It shares space with a bright yellow Daylily and the second blooming of Perennial Blue Salvia.

Purple Coneflower, a prairie wildflower, begins to open, complementing the Queen Anne’s Lace.

Daylily flowers, slowly opening in the morning light, grace us with their beauty for only one day. The curved stamens look like candles with their flames aglow.

Getting a bouquet of flowers from anyone makes a person feel special–I smile just thinking about those times. But there is also something amazing about walking outside into the yard with scissors or pruners in hand and choosing my own bouquet. I greet the morning sun along with the flowers and walk through the dewy grass in my blue rubber boots. The birds are chirping, and the poplars are gently singing. Sometimes my bouquet is a tiny gathering of fragrant Lily of the Valley that I put in a small, old bottle by the kitchen sink. Other times I collect long stems of Lilies, Rudbeckia, Phlox, Baby’s Breath, and ornamental grasses and arrange them into a large, heavy vase. It is a sweet and satisfying act of love for myself, my family, and anyone who comes into our home. I am grateful to my husband and to Mother Nature for giving me flowers to share space with every day for so many months of the year.

*Lady Bird Johnson along with Helen Hayes founded the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center the year Chris and I were married.

A Study in Variability–Rudbeckia

July 17, 2016 by Denise Brake 1 Comment

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher. –William Wordsworth

All Rudbeckia. All unique. What a joyous sun garden!

Walking in the Sand

July 10, 2016 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

…in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth. –Rachel Carson

Walking in the sand along the shore of a lake or ocean is the epitome of a romantic sunset evening or a sand-castle fun family day. Bare feet sink into the dry sand, slowing down the pace of gait and time. Sand has been used for training athletes, including Walter Payton, to improve speed, agility, and strength with the added resistance of moving through sand. Now imagine going for a hike in the middle of a pine forest in Minnesota and walking in the sand!

Sand Dunes State Forest and Uncas Dunes Scientific and Natural Area is located in the Anoka sand plains created when meltwater from the last glaciers deposited a large area of sand. Sand dunes were formed when strong winds blew across the flat landscape. Prairie grasses grew on the sand, and when European settlers arrived, they plowed the virgin prairie for cropland. The drought and Dust Bowl era of the early 1930’s ended farming in the area as the sandy soil “took to the air and drifted like snow.” Hardwood and conifer trees were planted in 1941 to stabilize the sandy soil. In 1943, the state legislature passed a bill to set this land aside for conservation, and since that time, the forest has been enlarged to over 10,000 acres. It now includes camping, swimming beach, horse camp, and trails for hiking, riding, and snowmobiling.

Over 2,400 acres of pine trees have been planted over the decades. They are thinned and harvested for forest products every 5-10 years.

The Uncas Dunes Scientific and Natural Area lies within and adjacent to the State Forest. It was established to protect the sand prairie, the dry sand savanna, and the Uncas skipper, a state endangered butterfly. We had no idea at the time of our hike what the Uncas skipper looked like, but my photo of a small butterfly turned out to be a Mustard White butterfly.

Prairie, pine forests, and blue skies surrounded us as we hiked. Unfortunately, the deer flies also surrounded us, and I tried implementing the Aaron Brake Mind-Over-Mosquito Strategy for the extremely annoying pests.

We hiked past native hazelnut shrubs with their frilly, pale green seed pods encasing the immature nut.

A fern-lined wetland area held the remains of trees that had died from wet feet.

The trail of trees opened up to a small meadow where a brilliant Butterfly Weed was in full bloom. Dark green lance-shaped leaves were outlined with sunlight. The bright orange flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Native Americans chewed the tough roots of the Butterfly Weed as a cure for pleurisy and other pulmonary ailments.

Another wild flower that I didn’t know was in the foreground of the Butterfly Weed. It is either Hoary or Hairy Puccoon, similar sandy soil-loving perennials that are known for the intense reddish-purple dye derived from their deep tap root.

As the time edged closer to suppertime, we decided to turn around and head back to the car, ready to be free of the circling deer flies. Our footprints sank into the sand, along with deer and horse hoof prints.

Evening sunlight streamed through the trees and lit up a spider’s web that was previously unseen.

Explorer Will Steger has been doing a yearly ice-out solo expedition in Northern Minnesota and Canada for the last number of Springs. He travels with a sled or specially designed canoe that he can either pull across the snow and ice or float in the rivers and lakes when the ice breaks up. He radios in a daily report telling about his night and day. Most often the temperatures are below freezing and sometimes below zero. Some days the wind chills are staggering. Snowstorms can dump many inches of snow that impede his travel. Food and fuel sometimes need to be rationed towards the end of his trip if he is in the wilderness longer than planned. And yet, he wraps up his report of a freezing night in a tent, thigh-high snow to trek through, and treacherous ice to navigate with “it was a good workout, though.” This 71-year-old explorer challenges his mind and body with these solo expeditions, doing the hard work, and calling it good.

We find ourselves in trying times with lives endangered in a myriad of ways. Somehow we must stabilize the shifting sands. So whether we’re trekking through deep snow, walking in sand with deer flies, navigating polarizing politics, or trying to save lives, let Light shine on the previously unseen, let us challenge ourselves to do the hard work, and at the end of each day, call it good.

Gleanings from June–Synergy

July 3, 2016 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.

–Maud Hart Lovelace from Betsy-Tacy and Tib

We began the month of June with a sun halo–a rainbow all around the sun. Also called a 22-degree halo, it is caused by millions of tiny ice crystals in high cirrus clouds that refract (at a 22 degree angle) and reflect the sun’s light. Amazing!

The flowers of June welcome the bees and butterflies. Wild roses peek their pink flowers between the stems of grass along the road.

I’m in love with this Perennial Pink Salvia we have planted close to the front door. Each stalk of delicate pink blossoms attracts bees of all kinds–the hard-working pollinators of the world.

The much larger bed of Perennial Blue Salvia is spectacular when in full-bloom! Pollen-laden bumblebees rumble from flower to flower, and the sight of a Yellow Swallowtail is like a shimmering ornament on an already beautiful evergreen–synergistic beauty!

I am always delighted to see this Pink Poppy bloom in June. The crepe-paper-like petals are entire works of art in and of themselves and when combined with the dark purple, velvety center, it is so lovely to behold.

A late evening storm turned the sky pink, and as the clouds cleared to the west, the setting sun and water droplets created a rainbow among the maple, cedar, and pine trees.

When the cobalt flower petals fell from the Blue Salvia and seeds formed in their place, the American Goldfinches gathered their bounty.

Pale purple coneflowers with their wispy, drooping petals danced in the breeze along the trail on an evening bike ride. Prairie grasses and coneflowers complement one another in the prairie landscape.

Farther along the quiet trail, the western sun glittered on a small lake and surrounding cattails that created a perfect home for this mother duck and her ducklings.

Synergy is defined as the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Nature combines the elements of sky, water, land, and vegetation to produce phenomena and beauty that is beyond our imagination. It works together for the good of all so that animals have a place to live, insects have food to eat, plants and trees are pollinated so fruits and seeds are produced that in turn feed other animals. It is the circle of life, the halo of Planet Earth created from the Source in the heavens above. May the powdered gold sunshine grace us all with sustenance, beauty, and synergy.

Archives for July 2016

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