Jessi- silent movie star in the making

We discovered a real gem in our video coverage of the storm. Meet our friend Jessi

So much for the 'Blank Slate'

Our slate isn't so blank today. Here is how our house fared in the April Blizzard. Scroll down to see my optimistic posting about all the planting and bed design ideas I can't wait to begin. Those will need to wait a little while longer than I first thought.
These pictures are from this morning. There are still moderate winds and the temp dropped into the mid twenties last night, so the slush froze into these odd shapes.

One thing about the Twin Ports- It's hard to get bored with the weather lately. Winter can seem to drag on at times, but everything fluctuates so much that it's rather interesting. For example: We had about 10 inches of slushy snow fall on us amidst 50 mph wind gusts and flood warnings yesterday (Friday). The weather forecast calls for mid forties on Monday and mid fifties for the the following seven days straight!

Meanwhile, Back at the Bat Cave...

WE'VE GOT SPROUTS!!
Here are the bean varieties we planted. All have sprouted and are excited to get growing. The tall one there is the French climbing bean.
Of notable mention: we have both pole beans and bush beans and we'll be planting them around the house and at the community garden next month. We hope to have many, many beans so we can dry them for soup in the winter.
We will also attempt to can some in bean salads to see how that turns out. It will all depend on our crop of beans!

These are the cucumbers. We planted two species last year, both of which performed well. This year only one of the species has sprouted, so I don't know if there is a problem with the other one, or if they are just slow to start.
Hopefully they will produce like last year, where we had tons of cucumbers for salads, pickles and random munching when in the garden.
These are the lovely flowers we've planted. All have sprouted and are are raring to go. This small collection includes Court Jester Chrysanthemums, Jolly Jester Marigolds, Bishop's Children, Petunias (two varieties, one vining, one an unknown species given to us by our neighbor), and Snap Dragons. They are getting double light exposure between the East facing window and the grow-lights above them.
These tall ones here are the Painted Lady runner beans. They are more for show than food, and since they only produced four usable seeds last year, that's a good thing I guess. We plan these to grow up the wall of our garage and at an Ivy League flavor to our secret garden. They mix well with the morning glories and cukes and create an interesting wall covering.
Lastly here are the many pepper varieties we've planted. They require special conditions to germinate, so they've been sitting in the grow tray, warmed by a heating pad for the past several weeks. They are nearly all sprouted and ready to move into a slightly more challenging environment to start the hardening off process.

Still Foolin'...

And I thought we were the butt of a joke last week!
This is a picture of the waves crashing ashore at Brighton Beach, the public access at the far northeastern end of town.

Here is a video of part of the most recent storm we've experienced here in the Northland (Sorry if it takes forever to download). Snow fall totals averaged around 10 inches, but the water content was so high that it was essentially raining slush. Then it started blowing slush, so we have interesting drift formations. This following video is of the shipping channel at Wisconsin Point on April 11.
In addition, we visited several other places in the Twin Ports to observe the pandemonium. Here are some images of those awesome stops. This is the view from the observation room at the Maritime Museum in Duluth.
We were intrigued by the numbers of people out enjoying the weather, realizing that this must be evidence of the shared psychosis many residents in the Northland possess. Everywhere we went, there were bunches of people there first. Even when we drove all the way out to the end of Wisconsin point, over chunks of tree branches in the road and around massive potholes, we weren't the first crazy people there. (We were more likely to get out of the car than they were, though, so that may provide a scale to measure our craziness...)

April Fools?

So, when it snows enough on April 1st to cancel schools in the area and I have a two hour delay to allow the roads to clear up, does that make us Mother Nature's Fools? This would be a pretty image - if it was taken in late November! Oh, well. They say it should all be melted in a day or so. Meanwhile, I have seeds sprouting like crazy!

Why we 'keep it green'

Here's why we spend our time and energy trying to reduce the negative impacts our consumer habits are having on the earth: we kind of like it the way it is.
Jessi, TJ, Lulu, Buster and I posing for this photo opportunity in 15 mph wind that seemed to carry small daggers of ice. I actually had shorts on when I was getting ready to leave the house...

It's just another day at the beach for TJ and Lulu. Buster doesn't seem to mind rolling in the snow instead of sand.
This is the beach at Tettegouche state park in Minnesota.

This is the view from one of the higher lookouts. The large mound in the distance is Palisade Head. This rock formation is very popular amongst repelers. The first time we saw them dangling over the edge of the cliff, I thought it was a rescue attempt. I couldn't imagine anyone hanging over the edge on purpose!





This is the northern view from the Shovel Point lookout platform in the park. It was super windy the day we were there, but the waves were just getting going.

Blank Slate

Here's our house as we wait for the snow to melt and for the flowers to bloom. We have several perennials well established around the house and I added a small bed around the crabapple tree on the right last year, which required the transplanting of the tulip bulbs that were there when we moved in. It will be interesting to see if I killed all of them or just most of them.
All along the alley here are lilies and bleeding hearts, which add excellent color to the west side of the house. I may add a bed around the other crabapple sometime this summer. We've also discussed adding planters on the short walls next to the front steps. They would get awesome southern exposure and would make interesting herb gardens for our delicious dinners.