Picture of the Day for August 1, 2012

I finally made it back down to the nice little creek where all the Forgot-me-nots were blooming but had been distracted with other things to see the last time, like the fish swimming in the creek and the rock wall that I posted last month.

The human eye can pick up all the little, tiny blue flowers along the banks but the camera just can’t do justice to the scene, especially after scaling the picture down to post. But it was a very lovely sight to see, but for today’s post, I’ll use a close up of one stem of the tiny flower.

In an earlier post I mentioned the German legend how the flower was named ( I’ll repeat that legend at the bottom) but another legend says “The Christ Child was sitting on Mary’s lap one day and said that he wished that future generations could see her eyes. He touched her eyes and then waved his hand over the ground and blue forget-me-nots appeared, hence the name forget-me-not.”

Course not all the legends have a happy ending as in Mill’s “History of Chivalry”. The lover, when trying to pick blossoms of the myosotis for his lady-love, was drowned, his last words as he threw the flowers on the bank being “Forget me Not.”

Another theory suggests because the leaves taste so bad, once you have eaten them, you will never forget them.

I still like the German legend the best, after the earth was created, God went to each plant and animal and gave each a name. As God finished and was getting ready to leave, he heard a little voice at his feet saying “what about me?” He bent down and picked up the little plant whom he had forgotten, and said “Because I forgot once, I shall never forget you again, and that shall be your name.”

Forget-Me-Nots

Picture of the Day for July 31, 2012

Lighthouses always seem so peaceful to me and yet they were built because of events which weren’t peaceful like storms and hidden rocks. Split Rock Lighthouse was built in response to the Mataafa storm that damaged twenty nine ships on November 28, 1905. One of these shipwrecks, the Madeira, is located just north of the lighthouse.

Congress appropriated money for a lighthouse and fog signal in the vicinity of Split Rock. Built on a 130 foot cliff, the 54 foot tower sends it half second light 22 miles across Lake Superior every 9.5 seconds and its fog horn blasts for 2 seconds with 18 seconds of silence which could be heard for 5 miles.

The lighthouse was only accessible by water for nearly 15 years so all construction materials were brought in by barge and hoisted up the cliff with a derrick and a steam-powered hoist.

The light was first lit on July 31, 1910 and the light was retired in 1969 when modern navigational equipment made it obsolete.

Split Rock Lighthouse is one of the most recognized and photographed icons in the state of Minnesota. Generally you see the close up of the lighthouse on the cliff, and I have taken my share fair of those, but this was the view I had from my campsite where I watched both the moon and sun from my front door (or at least my tent flap).

This view is not a picture to shrink down to post and still see magnificent lighthouse but I could just about envision the ship captains peering across the lake hoping to catch the lighthouse so they could safely navigate the waters, where I just had to navigate a few feet to the bench to enjoy the view.

Split Rock Lighthouse across the Bay

Picture of the Day for July 30, 2012

The sun is shining on the start of another work week and for farmers that might mean combining oats, baling hay or milking cows. But most of them didn’t have the weekend off so the work days just continue rolling one after another.

The method of farming work has changed over the years becoming more automated but I can still remember my great grandfather using milk cans when he milked his small herd of dairy cows.

A Glimpse of Milking Past

Picture of the Day for July 28, 2012

They often talk about things on the threatened list of being extinct, and around here wooden barns would be on the endangered list as they are coming rarer and rarer to find as they are being replaced by the metal pole barns instead.

The wooden barns have a different feel to them, a warmer feel, but also they normally contained several functional areas; area to milk the cows, stable for the horses, hayloft to store the hay, a granary, and area to store equipment.

But times have changed, methods have changed, and existence of the small farmers having a variety of animals to feed his family have vanished but every once in a while you stumble across an old wooden barn and you catch a glimpse of history and you wonder what memories it holds.

Rustic Wooden Barn

Picture of the Day for July 26, 2012

I know this won’t be a popular photo due to it’s subject matter but I was sad to see that the highway department had cut the road ditches and cut many of the lilies I was taking pictures of the other day and they cut down where this Black and Yellow Argiope spider had built her web. (Also called Yellow Garden Spider, Writing Spider, Yellow Garden Orb Weaver, or Golden Orb-weaver.)

I had almost run into the web as I was weaving in and out of the lilies taking pictures. I got close enough that I scared the spider off her pretty web that has what looks like a zipper in the middle of the web. It always amazes me how they can build a web with such a fancy design and so delicate. (I always called them the zipper-stitched spider because of the pattern on the web.)

I had stopped yesterday to verify what kind of lilies they were since I didn’t take close up of the bottom leaves and hadn’t stopped a second time since it was solid poison ivy all around the lilies. I realized that since I was watching how I stepped on the poison ivy, I never took a picture of her web, only where I scared her to and now the web is gone.

(Course I was taking a different spider picture yesterday, a bright solid yellow one and I got a little too close as she climbed onto my camera and then put a web silk across my lens. So I have another spider picture to show some day.)

Black and Yellow Argiope

Picture of the Day for July 23, 2012

Another hot, sticky day is on tap and it has me thinking of a cool winter moonlit walk. But when it’s winter, I would be thinking of spring flowers.

But I might need a cold winter day to cool my temper after the bad behavior of both my cats this morning. They might find themselves permanently outside, even when it’s -40.

A Frosty Winter Walk