Red Oak House Garden Notes No. 61

Star of the North Daylily

Assorted Perennials now in bloom at Red Oak House

Little Quickfire Hydrangea, a new perennial I'm attempting in a very dry location. The rabbits are munching on the impatiens in the foreground but I seem to have gotten ahead of those varmints this year in this location. 

Buffaloberry bush near Cross Ranch State Park. There was a male Red-headed Woodpecker perched here, I swear, first I've seen in a while. They spend summers in North America in cottonwood forests, and in ND along the Missouri River watershed. I first saw these at Devils Tower National Monument along the Belle Fouche River many decades ago. 

 

Dakota Sunshine Daylily

Red Oak House Garden Notes No. 60

Life has been hectic. We are harvesting vegetables and scrambling to adjust to life in a pandemic. When I get time, I will write some thank you notes to the people who have helped us through these past months of lockdown and loss. When we get stamps or get to our nearby Post Office, we will mail those. "Notes" will feel so inadequate to express our gratitude and not dwell on our personal grief journey, but I will make an attempt. 

We have gotten some rain and the roof no longer leaks -- at least we hope not. Water is life, we live in the Missouri River watershed, and sometimes we get too much and sometimes too little. We've been birding in our yard and not so much out of town as we would like. We like to walk and our goal is to walk our metro area more than we have in recent years. The "twin city" in central North Dakota has grown and changed quickly and walking is a good way to refresh our memory about places we've not been to in some years. It keeps us grounded in our truth. Yesterday's walk was an exploration of the "Mary Hill" in the summer sunshine on a quiet University of Mary campus, exploring all of the new structures that have been built there of native prairie stone.

Here are some photos (all but one taken by Moi) from Red Oak House in the midst of the whirlwind (and no, we've not yet had a tornado here in 2020 -- as Jim says "could happen!"). Sorry, no captions. No time for that today.

Big-Hearted Jim daylily (photo by Jim Fuglie)

Well, one caption. The last photo above is Big-Hearted Jim daylily, a gift from a thoughtful friend named Bob.

Saying Good-Bye To An Old Soldier by Jim Fuglie

Published yesterday with a new preface by my husband, Jim Fuglie, on his The Prairie Blog and in the current issue of Dakota Country Magazine. 

Saying Good-Bye To An Old Soldier