If you've come here to see my Favorite Plant Carnival posting... just scroll down a ways!
Hello all... as I worked at wrapping zone challenged plants in the gardens today, I began thinking about what a great place the midwestern United States is to live. It's not as if I never lived any other place... after all, I grew up in the east (the mountains of Vermont) and all my family other than our children, live up and down the east coast and on the ocean in California. I thought perhaps I could express how lovely the midwest can be via a few of my photos from some of our recent meanderings about this part of the country... as well as a couple here at home.
We like to do short trips, mostly in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Upper Michigan, and Iowa, as often as we can... it's hard to pull myself away from the gardens and I must admit I'm always glad to come back to check out the latest blooms! At any rate, here are a few kinds of things I enjoy... of course a couple gardens are included!
For starters, we really are lucky enough to live within 150 miles of one of America's great natural treasures... that being the Mississippi River. It's great fun to travel the great river road and we love to explore both sides. Here are a few things we ran across on a recent trip...
The view from Buena Vista Park in Alma, Wisconsin is spectacular... seen here in late August...
Pickwick Mill was built between 1854 and 1858 and was named in 1857 after a young lady read Charles Dicken's novel, Pickwick Papers. The mill is being restored by the locals and is five stories if you include the partially below ground basement. The water wheel is running and the place is chock full of history! A great place to spend a couple of hours exploring...
A few miles from the Pickwick Mill, there is the Bunnell House in the little berg of Homer, a three story dwelling built in the 1850's as the second home of Willard Bradley and Matilda Desnoyer Bunnell. The couple were the first permanent settlers of Winona County on the Minnesota side of the river, arriving in 1849. Their first home was a log cabin which was close at hand until it burned in 1901. It was occupied for many years by Willard's brother, Lafayette who named the Yosemite Valley in California. A great part of the charm of the Bunnell House has to do with the fact that it was never painted... it's lumber was shipped by steamboat from Iowa....
Northwestern Wisconsin has some lovely rolling hills and pretty farms. Driving the back roads, one can discover old barns and beautiful fields of corn...
Chicago is an easy drive from where we live and the Chicago Botanical Gardens are one of a great number of public gardens in this part of the midwest. One could actually spend days exploring the grounds... here are a couple of spots that I enjoy in the gardens... the first is a view of the plantings on the bridge when one first enters the gardens and the second is self-explanatory...
One of my favorite potting sheds can be seen behind a shop/antique store in South Amana, one of the Amana Colonies between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I was excited to find this little building pictured in an article in Country Gardening some time ago...
This will do it for today, but I'll be sharing a couple more times with some of my photos from our little travels about this part of our world... sometimes at the end of the day, it good to just stop and relax with a good friend, and contemplate one's existence... first the end of the day... and then a shot of me with my good friend... take care, Larry
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