Monthly Archives: September 2011

Lynne: I was checking the blogs I read and I noticed that Teri Partridge of the Pear Tree Gallery has this wonderful watercolor tutorial up on how to make a greeting card of beautiful bleeding hearts. I’m getting my paints together for a go at it myself.

Notes from the Farm on Wetlands

farm, Photography, , ,
Creek in wetlands
This is the creek flowing out of the wetlands.

Lynne: My last post was about the beauty of the prairie on the farm, today, I want to post about the beauty of the wetlands on the farm. One of the best things about the farm, is the number of different habitats you can see.

The wetlands are as wonderful as the prairie, but I like to look at them more than I like to walk in them. There are insects and snakes and sucking mud that make me careful about what I wear when I do go exploring. I put on those Wellingtons I spoke of the other day and resign myself to getting really dirty and really wet. But there is so much to see, it is worth whatever it takes to get clean when you’re done. I think of it like swimming in cold water those first few days of summer, once you’re in you enjoy it so much you don’t want to get out.

The photo above is of a stretch of creek that has already been filtered by the main, marshy areas and you can tell that the creek is running clear and swift. The bank of yellow flowers in the foreground is a showy clump of  the pointy sticktights you find on your clothes and your dog after a walk.

The creek is clear, because the wetlands have captured the silt and fertilizers that run off of fields and land cleared for building. The marshy areas act like a sponge that absorbs this run-off before it is dumped into rivers and streams. The wetlands also act as areas of flood control as they absorb water during periods of flooding and release their water during periods of drought. Purdue has a very informative webpage on wetlands and water quality, if you wish to know more.

Pond formed by beaver dam.
The start of a pond behind the beaver dam.

These two photos show a beaver dam. Footprints and the more telltale tooth-cut logs and branches helped us discover it. The Great Plains Nature Center has great photos of beaver and their chewing habits. Water is dammed and pools behind the dam create more beneficial marshy areas. However, wetlands change quickly because of their response to the weather. A beaver dam today is not a beaver dam tomorrow and ‘busy as a beaver’ has meaning when you have to repair or start over whenever a big storm passes through.

Beaver dam
Beavers have been working like beavers and left a telltale print.

Now that I think about it, maybe I do like the wetlands better than the prairie. Oh wait, I haven’t posted about the woods yet or the pond. Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about which is best…If you can’t choose which one you love, love the one you’re with.

The Coach-A-Thon

garage sale finds, One of My Favorites, ,

One of my best garage sale finds happened just this season. It was during one of those rare times when all four of us get to run around together and boy, we had a successful day. Unfortunately, we hadn’t started the blog yet, so there are no pictures of the bountiful booty we picked up that day, but you have seen and will see some of the items we picked up in other posts here. My new to me Subaru Forester was absolutely packed to the brim and we had to repack everything at least once.

My particular favorite purchase was a black Coach messenger bag. Now, to understand the gravity and wonder of this find, you first have to know that we love Coach purses. The family hunters have had great success over the years at finding them, but this sale was like a gold mine. They were selling 5 of them. They originally were asking $5 for each, but as the day was waning, they would sell them for $2 a piece. With absolutely no haggling, I picked them all up and we instantly sounded like a flock of clucking chickens deciding who got which ones. I was pretty adamant that I get the black messenger bag as I had been specifically looking for one, which made it the perfect day!

Black Coach messenger bag.

I love the hardware. I’m not normally a fan of brass hardware, but here it is perfect.

Brass hardware.

I have been carrying it for a few weeks now and I find that I like it more all the time. I had just bought a new purse a few weeks before (a really new one from an actual department store), but it now sits by the wayside. I will get back to it it eventually, but for now it is Coach at my side.