Taylor's Falls

Green frog on a pot hole wall.

Saturday was a beautiful day for a master naturalist chapter gathering at Interstate State Park in Taylor's Falls, Minnesota. The park naturalist there gave us a class on nature journals and drawing. He gave us assignments. The first picture is me drawing two leaves in detail and making notes on how they were similar and how they were different. We spent ten minutes on this activity.When I focus on small things such as a leaf I get relaxed and into my zen mode. Another assignment was to draw a cross section of the Saint Croix River. We were to draw a two dimensional four foot cut of the river from Minnesota to Wisconsin. Well,  I tried to do that. I chose to make the cut in the drawing before the steam boat was in the picture. I think it turned out pretty well. Later he asked us to make a sound drawing. We were to put ourselves in the center of the page and draw what we heard. I drew a couple birds. I drew an 18 wheeler going up the hill and I labelled it Taystee Bread. I was using my imagination. I drew two motorcycles. I drew a little boy named Oliver and his father warning him to be careful. I drew the foot prints of a family of four because they walked right past me but didn't say a word. Later we had a geology tour of the pot holes in the region. I found a green frog on the smooth side of one pot hole. Later we stopped for lunch. I brought  my lunch and ate with my friends at a picnic table at the park. After lunch we were invited to the park ranger's home for a tour of his farm and his home. His wife runs the Juneberry Cafe in Taylor's Falls. The farm provides most of the organic vegetables for the cafe. Wow, what a farm! In a very compacted space he had kale and cabbage and lettuce and six kinds of onions, and leeks, and brussel sprouts, and potatoes, and carrots and rutabaga and garlic and six kinds of basil and mint and oregano and eight kinds of tomatoes and spinach and sweet corn and zinnias and celery and I don't know what else he had so much there. He offered us his first watermelon of the season so we all had a slice. He gave us cold water. One of the water containers had mint in it and the other had green and purple basil in it. I liked the basil water better. He had a very complicated electric deer fence around his garden. One electrified line was three feet off the ground and the other two were high and lower than that and set back 12 inches from the first line. He has no deer in his garden. Another part of his strategy is to bait the deer by putting apple scent in pop caps along the fence. When the deer put their nose to the apple scent they get zapped in the nose and learn to leave the fence alone. He offered us food to take home. I left with a huge box of tomatoes, zucchini, celery and kale. I helped cut the roots off the celery as he pulled them out of the earth. After that he took us to the house so we could see the place.  He had a cement poured floor except where he has a root cellar below. He had the cement painted black to absorb the sun. He had a Franklin Stove. He also had a propane tank with radiant heating coils in the cement floor but he only goes through one tank a year. He has one bathroom in the house and a composting outhouse out by the barn. He has a nice set up going there. I really appreciated his enthusiasm and generosity. Next week he is starting a new job working for the National Park Service. I carpooled with some friends back to Forest Lake where my car was waiting. As we talked in the car about our day I asked my driver, Kathy, what kind of car this was. She answered,"It's a Mercedes Benz." I was shocked. I don't pay much attention to cars but in the space of one week I had my first ride in an Audi and a Mercedes Benz. Today was a good day.