The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

Click on Mark Twain above for  my book review....  sorry for the mix up. I pushed the wrong button and failed to publish the review a couple of days ago.  It's up now.  Thanks to Patti for the correction.

Fall Aster Parade

Mid September/October roadsides , prairies and bike trails in Bluff Country see the exuberant explosion of purples, blues and whites of the native Asters. Their bright blooms are one of the joys in the changing season. There being many different models of this particular plant and the fact that some of them "interbeed" I'd make no claim at expertise in identifying each and every one. Still, short or tall, an aster is an aster and for fall color, I love them all. Take a look at a few along the bike trail.

Amidst the beautiful colors of the blues and purples are the whites: wood aster, calico aster, small-flowered white aster and flat-topped white aster, like bright candles in the Autumn dusk.
The first to bloom among the white asters is the wood aster, opening its starry flowers under the trees in late August. The small-flowered white asters and calico asters come next. Calico Asters are so named because the white ray flowers can surround either yellow or purple disk flowers on the same plant. The aspect is one of an old fashioned calico fabric spread across the bushy plants, which can reach a height of 5 feet, but are often smaller.








































I would be remiss if I didn't show you my five year project of creating a mini-prairie along the ditch bank facing our front road.  The blue and deep purple asters are doing their thing the last week of Sept.  and will continue for a least another month.....

 

 

And so we'll conclude our aster foray with a peek into the past with my all time best buddy Baron. He's standing in a field of white asters at Lake Louise State Park and saying in the immortal words of Humphrey Bogart..."here's looking at you kid."

Pipestone

"When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything." -Black Elk

We left our campground at Blue Mound State Park and headed an hours drive north to visit Pipestone National Monument.






As often happens, when we take the big guy with us, people stop to ask if they may pet him. The comments usually sound something like "wow, I've never seen a German Shepherd that big." Here Mrs T. and Baron stand outside the Visitor Center at the monument. Of course, large dogs aren't allowed inside the museum/center, but Baron got to hike along the trail leading around the quarries.

There we met a man busy at work with the precious stone. He tells us about a summer festival, just concluded, where tribal members from all over the upper midwest participated.
For countless generations, American Indians have quarried the red pipestone found at this site. These grounds are sacred to many people because the pipestone quarried here is carved into pipes used for prayer. Many believe that the pipe's smoke carries one's prayer to the Great Spirit. The traditions of quarrying and pipemaking continue here today.

Here you can see the thin layer of reddish pipestone lying between the harder quartzite.
 Methods of quarrying have changed little since the process began. Quarrying is a laborious task involving weeks of work with hand tools. Today, only American Indians may continue this tradition here by permit.

A small creek passes through the quarry area. Later, on the trail, we come across an attendant falls.

Baron and I scrambled up the hill to the top of the falls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                        

All in all it was a great day. We had a nice walk and some interesting history to boot.

 

In Search of Amelia Earhart & a Solar Eclipse

Join us as we head deep into the Heartland on the way to Atchison, Kansas and the childhood home of Amelia Earhart. She, the pioneer American female pilot, of fame and mystery. Incidentally, on the day we expected to visit the museum dedicated to her memory a total solar eclipse was to be right over our heads at the airport named in her honor.....

Leaving Southeastern Minnesota's Bluff Country, very early on Sunday morning, we headed south into Iowa, lunching in Des Moines.  We were aboard a bus with John Grabko and his  Historical  Adventure & Travel Tours.  

We had taken many trips with John .... always fun and informative.  Arriving in Kansas City, Missouri late in the afternoon we immediately got to tour that cities wonderful WW I museum. It was very well done.

After a short hop the next morning we found ourselves outside the childhood home of Amelia Earhart high on the bluff overlooking the Missouri River as it separates the States of Missouri and Kansas.

Beside the living quarters, one section was filled with all kinds of fascinating memorabilia from Amelia's career. Of course, I questioned the guide about the mystery of her disappearance and presumable death near the Marshalls in the Pacific. No "alternate facts" were supported.

After our tour and before hopping aboard our bus I ran across the street to take a look at "The Big Muddy" and  the new connecting Amelia Earhart Bridge in the distance.

 

Back on the bus we quickly arrived at the Amelia Earhart airport along with lot of other gawkers.

Fortunately our maroon bus had priority parking in a nearby pasture as Mrs. T. has a folding chair in the foreground, waiting for the big celestial event.

Needless to say your hapless observer was persuaded to leave the shelter of the bus in spite of the scattered rain showers and   intermittent cloud cover all in hope of seeing the great event. I did briefly catch glimpses which apparently qualified me to partake of a small cup of champagne....:) Shortly thereafter we reboarded our bus to follow the trail of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri river valley into the wilderness of Nebraska and Iowa for more adventures. (More on that to come)

Blue Mounds

This vista of Blue Mounds State Park prairie provides you with an idea of what southwest Minnesota might have looked like hundreds of years ago. In 1836 George Catlin, making his way to the Pipestone Quarry described the scene. "There is not a tree or bush to be seen. The grass at our feet changes to blue in the distance like the blue vastness of the ocean. Man feels here, the thrilling sensation of unlimited freedom."

Blue Mounds State Park, located four miles north of Luverne, is one of the largest prairie parks in Minnesota. The park's approximately 1,500 acres of prairie preserves a wide array of rare and common plants and wildlife. A bison herd grazes peacefully on a portion of this prairie. Most of the park's prairie sits atop a massive outcrop of rock known as Sioux quartzite. The rock outcrop slopes gently up from the surrounding countryside but terminates abruptly in a spectacular cliff line. The cliff, one and one-half miles long and at some points 90 feet in height, provides a panoramic view of the countryside and is also used by a number of rock climbers from throughout the Midwest. Miles of hiking and cross country skiing trails take you along the cliffs, around the park's two lakes, into the oak woods, and through the prairie. Here you can experience tall grasses and colorful wildflowers swaying in the wind or witness the power and color of a summer prairie thunderstorm rolling in from the west.

There were outcroppings of rock everywhere, providing evidence of the thin soil on this elevated area. The fence contains the buffalo herd, while to the south and west farmsteads and cornfields stretch to the horizon. Prairie plants like golden rod pop up along the trail outside the fence.

Recent rains have left the occasional puddle and surprisingly I spot some killdeer and a lone lesser yellowlegs.

We camped in this neat park several times over the years.

Our Neighbors

Our neighbors across the street are a friendly family. I must say though, we often keep an eye on them, from our front porch. It's not that they cause trouble or anything. It's just that they had four new kids this summer. I don't know all their names yet, but one of them should definitely be called "peek-a boo." She seems to like to watch us lot.... when not climbing the huge woodpile.

 

Now we often spend our evenings on the front porch...... watching the goats across the road. There are eleven of them including four kids. The kids romp and chase. They all (including kids) like to butt heads and climb on the various woods piles.

"This is more entertaining than anything on TV these days," once Troutbirder was heard to say. Peek aboo....:)

Merle's Door

Lessons from a freethinking dog indeed. If you are one of those many dog owners who have noticed how amazingly smart and aware your dog is....think again.  The methods and manner of the relationship between Merle and his owner/friend result in something simply amazing and touching as well.  Click on Mark Twain above to jump to Troutbirder II and read more about a wonderful memoir...

A Flutter.... Then A Blizzard

Last week Mrs. T.,  Lily and I were hiking one of our favorite trails in Lake Louise State Park just north of the Iowa border. To our great surprise we saw lots of Monarch butterflies soaring over the prairie. It reminded us of an episode some five years ago in the same area. I'm recycling that story which was published the first week in
September 2012.
   The Baron (my first GSD)
and I were driving along a track on our way to one of my favorite
hiking/birding trails. To the right was a prairie, to the left a long line of shrubs and scrub trees. The flutter of monarch butterflies coming off the
shrubs quickly became evident. The flutter soon began to look like a blizzard of orange & black for the next quarter of a mile.

I fumbled to get my little cheapo camera out of my pocket. I like the camera because it does
fit in my pocket, while the binocs dangle from my neck. The following pics thru the windshield don't come close to doing justice to what I actually saw....but you get the idea.
Like many of
our migrating birds, the monarchs gather in the fall for an epic journey south. My friend, Mr Science (Gary) gives the following succinct explantion.

"MONARCHS
PRODUCE FOUR GENERATIONS EACH YEAR. THREE OF THESE GENERATIONS ONLY LIVE ABOUT
ONE MONTH EACH, BUT ONE GENERATION(THE 4TH GENERATION) LIVES FOR ABOUT 8 MONTHS
AND THAT IS THE GENERATION THAT EACH FALL MAKES A 1400+ MILE MIGRATION TO
MEXICO."
His blog "Nature Notes" on the flora and fauna of Fillmore County, Minnesota can be found at http://fillmorenature.blogspot.com/

I was, perhaps, a little early that year in checking some favorite monarch roosts but the sad fact is their numbers were way down over the long term average. That years drought, especially in the Upper Midwest had a bad effect. These beautiful creatures depend on milkweed. The long term prospects are even bleaker. Loss of habitat is hurting butterflies in the same way as it has our songbirds. Development and agricultural monoculture are very detrimental….

Here's a photo Gary took a few day ago in the same area we had been hiking....

At twilight the Monarchs settle down for the night.  Hopefully we're seeing a resurgence of their numbers this summer....:)