family home nature

Leaf Litter for Tiny Critters

We got a fair amount of snow in the Twin Cities metro yesterday. Judging by how much I shoveled off the deck, I’d say around 4 inches that was light and easy to move. It was preceded by rain a couple days before, which was a good thing. We’ve been in drought conditions and, as a friend of mine always says, we needed the rain. It’s been unseasonably mild this fall, with temps in the…

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art family nature sites travel

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

A month ago, I visited the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska with Eldest Son and his partner. It’s hard to believe it was that long ago when if feels like it was just a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure where summer is going, but it’s certainly going quickly. As much as I like history and art museums, I am super enamored with public sites that feature nature and greenhouses. The Arboretum, or the…

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family home nature observations

Suburban Wildlife

After living in a rural town most of our lives, a little over a year ago, we moved to a suburban city. One of the biggest surprises about our new home is how much “wild” wildlife we see here. Sure, at our previous home, with its large backyard enclosed by trees and bushes, we saw plenty of squirrels, rabbits, birds, and butterflies. The robins had parties in our yard in the spring, plucking through the…

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