Late Summer Colors in the Rock Garden

I'm working my way through the third complete weeding of the rock garden. I got the most difficult places done (the steepest, with fewer good places to put my feet).

I'm really pleased with a few areas of contrasting colors and textures. This one has (front to back) Blue Fescue, 'Vera Jameson' Sedum, 'Sparkling Bright' Sedum (past blooming this year), and Sedum Sexangulare beyond that. A couple of Sempervivum below.

This space seems to make my colorful list quite often, but it's working very well. Lamb's Ear (left), 'Wildfire' Sedum (center), and Hylotelephium 'Rosenthaller' in bud (right). Various bits of greenery around the edges- Moss Phlox and the Bloody Cranesbill.

The central area in this picture is Sempervivum 'Gold Rush,' which takes forever to turn goldish, but apparently it got around to it for the last couple of months of the season. In front of that is a patch of the Bronze Ajuga which has beautiful blue flowers in spring but these nice dark leaves the rest of the year. Blue Fescue for texture. Behind it all are violets, Sedum 'Angelina,' and a mess of stuff that needs weeding yet. The top center patch is Sedum 'Weihenstephaner Gold' which bloomed in June.

Here's another space that is looking really good this year, most of the season. The center is 'Firecracker' Sedum, with 'Gold Nugget' Sempervivum above it. It's just not as gold as the advertising pictures show it, but it did get orangy much earlier than the 'Gold Rush.' Behind that is more Lamb's Ear, with a spray of the blue-green 'Blue Spruce' Sedum.

The 'Red Heart' Sempervivum is red, although it's never gotten as dark as when I bought it. Still, it's much better than 'Ruby Heart,' which is hardly red at all. I like the way it looks with the 'Thundercloud' Sedum which still has quite red edges on the leaves making it look pink. It's in bud. Some Moss Phlox up in the top right, and a few other green sprigs of things.

Finally, I'll show you a Sedum all by itself. It isn't a big enough patch yet to contrast with something else, but the color is great. This is basically just a Sedum spurium tricolor, but instead of pink it has a more orange tone. It's named 'What a Doozie.' It was unhappy where I put it last year but didn't die. First it got too much shade. Then something ate it. I also think it prefers to be where the roots get a little crowded. A few weeks ago, I moved it into a small space by itself, and it seems to be responding well. I hope the colors stay true. The tricolor ones sometimes revert to just green and white. I have three patches of tricolor, not counting this, and each is slightly different with the reddish hue varying from pale pink to dark red.

Hopefully, given a few more years, the rock garden will have lovely spaces like this anywhere you look!

I worked hard today at various jobs, including cleaning up the house. They never do seem to clean themselves.

See Late Summer Colors in the Woods

Late Summer Colors in the Woods

I did take a hike yesterday, but wanted to share about the quilt show then, so I saved these pictures for tonight.

First of all, green is a color. And I love it when the woods are green. I've been hiking a lot in the brown months over the last few years, so I want to be adamant about how much I love the green woods.

Not by planning, but it just happened that I got an array of primary-colored mushrooms.

Red is the Apple Bolete, or Frost's Bolete, Exsudoporus frostii. I looked back in the blog and I last saw a bunch of these in 2015. "Apple" should be easy enough to remember. They sure look like someone dropped an apple in the leaves.

If you uncover the stem, you can see that the underside of the cap is convex. It has pores not gills. That easily tells you it's a bolete. And the stem is striped/striated. It will get downright grooved as it ages.

Moving along to yellow, these are Honey Mushrooms, Armillaria mellea. They are supposedly very edible, but I have not tried them. I should... there's not much you can mistake for them.

Blue is iffy. Maybe it's purple. You'd think something that looks so distinctive would be easy to identify. Nope- there are lots of choices. Well, it may be Laccaria ochrepurpurea, Purple Laccaria. That word "ochre-purpurea" should tell you it can vary in color from a yellow-brown to purple.

I did remember to take a picture of the gills. Still not enough info, although it allowed me to eliminate a few possibilities.

For real blue, believe it or not there were a few late-blooming harebells, Campanula rotundifolia. Why "round-leaved" you ask, when the leaves are clearly narrow straps? The first true leaves that appear near the ground in spring are round. That was a nice colorful surprise.

I reported these miles yesterday.

I tried hard to stay on track with getting things done today. Did pretty well. I need to make a master list for September and then stick with it. Several deadlines coming right up. For some reason, I have a sore hip. Hope that shapes up soon!

See Frost's Bolete 2015

Lake County Museum Quilts

If you like historic quilts, get yourself over to the Lake County Historical Society in Baldwin tomorrow before 4 pm when they close. There is only one more day of the quilt display. Sorry to not post about it sooner, but I was gone most of the time it has been open.

(I also totally missed the Mason County Garden Club Flower Show.)

There are quilts dating from the 1870s to the 1970s. This is one of the oldest ones, 'Flying Geese,' a classic pattern. It's done in fabrics dyed with Turkey Red and a background of off white prints. I like that there are several patterns in each of the colors, but the contrast overcomes that to bring out the design. Turkey Red is a dye made from the roots of several madder (Rubia) plants. It was discovered in China, but was largely exported from Turkey. It was highly popular because it was colorfast and bright.

This is another classic- the crazy quilt made around 1900 with various samples of velvet and lots of embroidery.

Quilts that have names of people embroidered on them are quite valuable to local historians because they can be used as sort of a census verification. This one was made in 1963 as a fundraiser for the AME Tabernacle in Idlewild. It says they raised $660.

The quilt made by the youngest person is this 'Nine Patch' doll quilt, made by Leona Engleman when she was 5 years old in 1910. She went on to make over 300 quilts in her lifetime. She is related to Jill, who is the museum curator, and who looked at my Grandma Leary's quilt today (more on that another time).

I want to show you all the quilts, because of the variety, but you'll just have to get over there! Maybe they'll display them again some time in the future.

Here are two with military themes. This is another classic, called 'Burgoyne Surrounded,' a reference to the Revolutionary War victory. This design was often woven into coverlets as well. My family had a couple (in blue and white), and I'm pretty sure one of them was this pattern.

This is another made by the adult Leona. It is the 'Baby Blocks' design turned upside down so the colored blocks look like Chevrons. She called it 'General Eisenhower.' It was made in 1955.

There are other classics in the display: 'Grandmother's Flower Garden,' 'Drunkard's Path,' a variant of 'White House Steps,' more 'Nine Patch,' 'Fans,' appliquied and embroidered quilts for children, 'Wild Goose Chase,' 'Windmill,' and more.

I'll end this post with a rather modern design. This was made from a kit in the 1970s, and you can begin to see how quilting was changing from utilitarian purposes to an art form. This is one of the many variations on 'Tree of Life.'

There are also displays about how women got patterns and fabric to make their quilts.

It's an excellent show- all with local ties.

In other news: I took a 4 mile hike on the NCT since I had to go past, did errands, worked on some writing and weeded a little bit. I managed to fill the day. No problem there!

Miles hiked in 2025: 354.3
Miles hiked on NCT in 2025: 224.6

See Granny's Favorite Quilt?

Hiking Swag for 2025

It's possible I'd find something else to do this year to get more patches, but probably not. There are hiking challenges you can do that you pay for, and part of the porceeds go to various charities. It's a great concept, but I can't pay $25 for a patch.

There are two categories of swag I got this year: stuff I earned and stuff I bought.

These are earned. The certificate, round patch and NCT sticker are for the Hike 100 Challenge. I finished that on June 12, in the Adirondacks. My NCT mileage for this year is now at 221.3. Not bad. Not great.

The other patch and sticker are for a challenge created by the Cadillac Area Land Trust. 30 miles for 30 years. You can still get this until the end of the year. Go to their website.

On the right is a sheet of paper with a wooden nickel and a ribbon. This was a scavenger hunt quest you could to at the Hike Fest. There were 12 questions you had to answer. The coordinates were given and the answers were mostly on interpretive signs. It was a fun game!

I also bought some cool stuff at Lake Sakakwea State Park. The patch has the name of the park on a knapsack. The hiking stick medalion has the NCT terminus sign.

The other two are stickers they had for sale.

I felt better today. Not hugely energetic, but I managed to keep moving and worked on putting things away and doing various small jobs that needed to be finished up. Still chicken and corn to eat. Yum! Diane and now Marie are both home safely. I guess that means this adventure is really finished.

And, yikes! August is nearly finished too. Where has the summer gone?

See Hiking Swag for 2024

Those Purple Sedums, Two Weeks Later

Who knew that in two weeks I really wouldn't miss any of these sedums blooming. I'll present them in the same order as last time.

This is 'Jade Tuffet,' the one I bought less than a month ago. It has just burst with joy since being let out of its little pot. Not quite in full bloom yet.

The 'Cherry Tart' is partly in full bloom, and it continues to make me really happy with the colors. There are still a couple of the heads with buds.

This is the one from Betty, pretty certainly identified as 'Vera Jameson.' Not quite in full bloom, so plenty of time to enjoy this yet.

'Dream Dazzler' still has rather tight buds. It's interesting that I now have three small patches of this, and only one of them has many buds. That's OK, I'll let the patches get established now, so more should flower next year. These leaves change color a lot as the season progresses. It looks nicest earlier in the year.

The 'Coraljade' continues to be a big success story. This is just about in full bloom.

'Wildfire' also is doing different things in different places. The original patch does not have buds. A small patch I took off that has some tight buds. The leggy discount pot I bought a few weeks ago is covered in buds, but the leaf color is not as good as the one that overwintered. This is the new one. Blossoms still to come. The truth is, I really have these dark sedums mostly for the foliage, so I'm not too worried if they bloom or not.

Last year, 'Firecracker' bloomed a lot. This year, it only has a couple of buds. But that's fine. It's happy; it's filling in the space.

'Dazzleberry' has lots of buds that aren't quite open, so it should be stunning in a couple of days.

So far, I'm also really happy with 'Oriental Dancer.' This was a 4" sprig when I bought it this spring. That I'm getting one moderately tall stalk with blossoms this year is great. These are not open yet. Can't wait to see how dark they will be!

Weeding to do. Lots to do on every project here. But today I didn't accomplish much. This was a crash day. I mostly rested. Hopefully tomorrow I can get back in gear.

See Sedums Almost Blooming

And I'm Home!

Last night, we stayed with Ken and Mary near Chicago, where I visited a year ago January (link at end).

Ken is a fellow author, and Diane bought one of his fantasy books, Eclipse of the Triple Moons, for her granddaughter.

Mary has some nice garden plants.

We concentrated on driving, but had to make a couple of pit stops, of course. This is at the Welcome Center at Berrien Springs, MI. Some very nice gardens there.

We arrived at my house a little after 3 pm. Marie and Diane took on the "big sort," taking everything out of the car and figuring out who it belonged to, tallying up the money and who spent what. I went for groceries, because the fridge was bare here!

We had rhubarb chicken, rice, and corn on the cob for dinner, with Moose Tracks (of course) ice cream for dessert. Not a great picture with the sun in our eyes, but at least we will remember.

We visited a litte bit after that.

Sigh. Diane and Marie have to leave at 7:30 in the morning. They have a really long driving day tomorrow to get back to Diane's house. It would be great to have one more day together that wasn't a total rat race, but we all have lives that require re-entry.

It was a wonderful trip.

See Ice Age Trail See Stop Two - Ken

Ice Age Trail

We mainly wanted to put a good number of miles under our tires today. But I had one planned wish, and that was to at least put my feet on the Ice Age Trail. We chose Janesville, Wisconsin, because it was on the way to where we were staying for the night.

I did a total of 0.7 mile. But my 20 minutes had just about everything a trail adventure can provide. Some was dirt, some was paved. A turn wasn't marked and I ended up at a dead end in a golf course. I needed a bathroom (but did find a porta-potty- Lon's Jons, actually). Once I went back and found the turn, I saw this. The Ice Age Trail has yellow blazes.

I followed the blazes down some beautifully made rock steps to the Rock River.

So now I have at least put a foot on 4 national scenic trails. Am I trying for all 11? Probably not; my chances of getting out west are low. But if the opportunity arises, I'll take it.

The day started with a fast look at a place called End-O-Line Railroad Park. We were not there when it was really open. That's probably good, or Diane and I would have seriously wanted to take the tour. It was much more than a village park with an engine. Basically, they are recreating a small village from the past. As far as I'm concerned, the key feature is an old turntable. I've seen some old ones, but never one that still has the rail down in the pit that allows the table to turn.

Here are some of the buildings in their historic village.

I was sadly thinking I was not going to see white pelicans on this trip. But we found some!

And just a quick shot out the window as we crossed to the east side of the Mississippi "where we belong."

Staying with friends for the night. Didn't have to set up the tents!

Hiked 0.7 miles, some of it on the Ice Age Trail.

Miles hiked in 2025: 350.3

See Dignity of Earth and Sky