I love daylight and sunshine. The summer solstice, the first day of summer, is one of my favorites. For those of us who live in the north country, these long days are our bonus for long dark winters! The sun rises about 5:10 A.M. and sets about 9:06 p.m.
Use the energy of the day to enjoy the outdoors. The birds are singing, and the butterflies are magnificent. It is a day to worship our beautiful earth!
Today is also Global Yoga Day: https://www.facebook.com/idayofyoga?fref=photo
I hope the sun is shining where you live, and wish you harmony and joy!
“While insects and other animal pollinators may come in small sizes, they play a large partnership role in the production of the food we eat, in the future of our wildlife, and in the health of nearly all flowering plants. A garden without bees, butterflies, beetles, birds and even bats, is a garden devoid of the life-giving relationships that sustain plant reproduction.” http://www.fws.gov/pollinators/
Good suggestions below, and please don’t use chemicals:
Plant a Pollinator Garden.
An excellent book by Heather
Provide a variety of flower colors and shapes to attract different pollinators.
Whenever possible, choose native plants. Native plants will attract more native pollinators and can serve as larval host plants for some species of pollinators.
If monarch butterflies live within your area, consider planting milkweed so their caterpillars have food.
Plant in clumps, rather than single plants, to better attract pollinators
Choose plants that flower at different times of the year to provide nectar and pollen sources throughout the growing season http://www.fws.gov/pollinators/
Everything is green and lush. Everyone loves their yard in June. Whether you have a grass turf yard or native plants, urban yards are beautiful. How can you create a vibrant living landscape with a more friendly tilt to pollinators?
I watch the monarch butterflies and the swallow tiger tail and hope they leaving eggs as
Pearly Everlasting
they flit around. The painted lady butterflies have deposited egg fuzz on the pearly everlasting making them look wilted and sick. In just a short time the caterpillars will emerge and the pearlys will be normal and healthy. Hopefully, the cycle will continue and new butterflies will live long enough to plant more eggs. Birds eat these butterflies.
The native Canada Anemone is blooming now!
The columbine and the wild geranium have almost completed their blooms, but the Canada Anemone and the spider-wort are magnificent!
We are digging our rain gardens deeper and wider. Then we plant blazing star, cardinal-flower, and turtle head to the bottom of these rain capturing gardens. The butterflies, bees and hummingbirds will love these new additions.
See the article below for ways you can create a vibrant living landscape with a more friendly tilt to pollinators: http://www.startribune.com/planting-with-pollinators-in-mind/306646301/
This week I had one monarch butterfly checking out butterfly weed in my Minneapolis yard. Last week I spotted one monarch in Northern Wisconsin. It is sad that we get excited counting our famous butterflies in the quantities of one.
Hopefully, a new program by announced by the White House will help get our monarch butterflies back on track. See article: http://www.startribune.com/calling-all-milkweed-federal-pollinator-plan-needs-a-billion-plants-for-monarchs/306383591/
We can all help:
1. Plant milkweed. Most garden stores still do not carry milkweed. Seeds are available, but not the best option. I transplant plants from friends gardens. Ask major garden stores to carry milkweed plants.
2 Please do not use Roundup or neonicotinoids, and always ask if the plants you purchase have been treated with neonicotinoids.
3. Inform yourself on host plants for butterflies http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/host-plants-for-butterflies.html
4. Never pick off fuzz or little spots on plants. These could be eggs
chrysalis in my yard last year, turned into the monarch above.
Lake Superiordandelions in the forget-me-not flowers
My hero plant is the dandelion, yes, dandelion! The dandelion attracts the monarchs, painted lady, red admiral, tiger swallow-tail and many other butterflies. I am trying to create habitat for the many butterflies that inhabit the north country. Swamp milkweed, pearly everlasting and pussy toes are my newest plants for butterfly habitat. The road where we walk,covered with dandelions, is where the painted lady, dusty wings, and sulfurs hang out, and I had monarch and tiger swallow-tail butterfly sightings this week!
Star flowerWhite-throated sparrow
Robins are raising babies just outside my door, and the forest is joyful with the sounds of the white-throated sparrow, chestnut sided warbler, red starts, robins, song sparrows, pewee, buzz of the parula and many warblers songs we are still trying to identify. Most days the air is cool, and the wind off the big lake regulates the temperatures and weather.
If you drink water, this should be important to you.
Clean water is vital to our health.One in three Americans get drinking water from streams that lacked clear protection from pollution without the Clean Water Rule. Finalizing the rule helps protect 117 million Americans’ health.
Our economy depends on clean water.Major economic sectors—from manufacturing and energy production to agriculture, food service, tourism, and recreation—depend on clean water to function and flourish. Without clean water, business grinds to a halt—a reality too many local small business owners faced in Toledo last year when drinking water became contaminated for several days.
In 1972 Congress passed the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Rule will be an important addition. Please call your representatives in Congress and ask them to support clean water!
Many of these items I have written about before. This is a good reminder to replace some things around our homes like our toothbrushes. Pesticides, weed killers, and lawn fertilizers should be eliminated.
Everyday items that you’d be better off without or should replace:
Use vinegar and baking soda for cleaning
“Clearing your kitchen of artificial sweeteners, plastic food containers, non-stick cookware, and replacing old spices will eliminate common sources of toxins and boost your health
Air fresheners, toiletries and cosmetics, antibacterial soap, and commercial cleaners are other sources of toxins to eliminate.” This list is from: www.mercola.com
Never throw any of these items down the drain or toilet, and recycle the containers if possible! They should go in the landfill garbage or brought to hazardous waste collections. Spices can be composted, and purchased in small bulk amounts at food coops. Store your spices in small glass bottles.
According to NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the earth set two unfortunate records for March 2015
Information below is from: www.ecowatch.org and http://climaterealityproject.org/ http://www.noaa.gov/
Marking yet another grim milestone for our warming planet NOAA reported that, for the first time in recorded history, global levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged more than 400 parts per million (ppm) for an entire month—in March 2015.
This image shows how carbon dioxide moves around the planet.
“This marks the fact that humans burning fossil fuels have caused global carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations to rise more than 120 parts per million since pre-industrial times,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA
This is not the first time the benchmark of 400 ppm has been reached. “We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012,” explained Tans. “In 2013 the record at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold.”
However, Tans said that reaching 400 ppm across the planet for an entire month is a “significant milestone.”The month of March brought “record warmth spread around the world,” with an average temperature of 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average—making it the hottest March ever recorded. www.ecowatch.com These new figures, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, mean 2015 is on track to become the hottest year on record—a title held by 2014.
If the warming pattern holds true, 2015 will end up as one more piece of evidence showing the effect carbon emissions and greenhouse gases are having on climate change. Nine out of the 10 hottest years on record have come after 2000.
How have you made changes to protect our warming earth?
Plant Blue Flag Iris and native grasses to filter water run off.
“Our water belongs to all of us!” Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota
To improve water quality in our yards and along lakes and streams we need to slow water down and keep it on our property. This helps to keep chemicals and sediment on our properties instead of washing away. Native plants and buffer strips would be a great start to improve water run-off.
This is a post about the need to improve farm water run-off.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has proposed vigorous legislation that has farm groups upset. Unfortunately, when the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, agriculture was not included, and feel any regulation of their water run off is an unfair burden. Somehow farm groups miss the point that all our communities are required to spend millions of dollars to keep our drinking water, rivers and lakes clean. Farm run-off has a pass.
I have written on these pages before of my disappointment of Minnesota to enforce their buffer zones laws. Minnesota’s Governor Dayton has proposed stiffer enforcement to get land owners to comply and install buffers. This is a win-win for the people of Minnesota, the Mississippi River, Minnesota’s over 10,000 lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. It could create fabulous habitat for Minnesota’s butterflies, birds, bees, and all wildlife.
Saturday, May 9, is Minnesota’s fishing opener, and is an exciting time for sportsmen. Minnesota, the state of over 10,000 lakes, works draws people from all over the country for this big day. The state even kills the sleek black cormorants to protect the ability to fish walleye. See the story below:
The irony to me is we shoot beautiful birds for individuals to fish, but are unable to regulate harmful farm run off. Chemicals that are harmful to people, fish and other wildlife! Half the lakes and rivers in southern Minnesota are too polluted much of the time for safe swimming and fishing. Story below: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/301702651.html
Farmers under the Clean Water Act are not regulated like every other community and industry. Farmers should have to meet the same water pollution standards as everyone else. The taxpayers in Des Moines, Iowa and communities in Minnesota need to spend millions to make their water safe to drink because of nitrates from farm run off in their drinking water: http://www.npr.org/2015/04/07/398123397/iowa-water-lawsuit-calls-some-farming-practices-into-question Iowa’s largest water utility is suing county boards for polluting rivers the city uses for drinking water. At the heart of the fight is whether or not farmers should be forced to comply with federal water quality standards. What do you think?
I love daylight and sunshine. The summer solstice, the first day of summer, is one of my favorites. For those of us who live in the north country, these long days are our bonus for long dark winters! The sun rises about 5:10 A.M. and sets about 9:06 p.m.
