Wild Wild Woods

The first snow this season was just a dusting to make things look a bit like winter in Minnesota.  It placed little white caps on the b...

Dusk, yesterday.  A hawk glided in over the bird feeders and landed on a branch of the big elm tree. A perfect place to peer down into th...

Warmer-than-average weather this autumn!  Many perennials are still standing and even blooming in the gardens and woods. The raspberr...

The summer weather has been wonderful, and with frequent rain lately the mushrooms are numerous.  I have not studied that chapter in na...

"Snag" refers to a still-standing dead tree, or one dying from damage, often missing its top or most of the smaller branches....

Two female hummingbirds come to the salvia blossoms every day. 

Blooming in late summer, the Blue Vervain's tiny 1/4" flowers grow on floral spikes about 5" tall.  This native plant Verben...

A 3-inch long toad Anaxyrus americanus makes its home in the garden at the edge of the wild wild woods, among the shady spots strewn with v...

We're seeing juvenile birds in the wild wild woods, now that many are out of their nests and learning to hunt and fly.  This Red-belli...

Eastern Bluebird mama delivers worms and insects to her brood in the nest box.  Bluebirds usually do not nest in the woods...

In the quiet woods, along the path, a fallen log has rotted and curved to become a fine trough.  Insects evidently hatch and grow there, and...

False Solomon's Seal Maianthemum racemosum grows in the shady wild wild woods.  Earlier this Spring, the rhizomes sent up zig-zag stems ...

The rabbit is so frustrated by the fence around the garden where lettuces and other attractive fare grow!  Today we saw her munching on milk...

Slender Beardtongue Penstemon gracilis is in bloom at the edge of the woods. Like other plants in the Penstemon family, each bloom has a fu...

 The Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants in the wild wild woods have finished flowering.  The 1/4" berries cluster and will stay on the stalk u...

The warm weather and frequent rains have been good for the green carpet in the woods.  Now that green carpet is beginning to bloom.  But it ...

My garden has been invaded by Common Milkweed Asclepias syriaca that used to grow closer to the woods.  I usually let some of the stems c...

This Spring, the pair of Northern Cardinals claiming the wild wild woods as their nesting territory came often to the tray feeder. The f...

One of the nestboxes we watch is used this Spring by House Wrens Troglodytes aedon .  Seven eggs hatched on June 8.  Today the cam recorded ...

One of the nestboxes we watch is used this Spring by House Wrens Troglodytes aedon .  She has been incubating these seven eggs for nearly ...

My knowledge of garden pests seems to have evaporated over winter . . . This 2-inch-long small green worm with a silvery stripe would usu...