Twin Cities Garden Tour Wrap Up

You see, in my yard, next to the driveway is this triangular shaped patch of dirt. We've tried growing grass, we've had a vegetable garden here. Each has done okay, but this odd shaped patch of our yard was really useless. Mowing the grass with a lawn mower in this area was awkward, the vegetable garden didn't have enough room to grow. So now we've come to flowers for this patch of land. Ahhh, this works great for this tiny area. We've transplanted a couple things in the spring, but need to fill in the bare spots yet. If you walk around to the back yard, I built about a 25 foot flower box that wraps around the back porch. You can see a bit of it in the smaller photos below with the white lattice fence.

  

Cottage Grove Garden Tour - Day 3

This is our third year with the Lily's. The year we first planted them, it produced zero flowers. The second year the Lily produced four flowers. This year, we had 18 to 22 flowers bloom. After a slow start, I would like to get more of these for next year as the aroma it gives off is amazing, not to mention the looks of the flowers. The stem on these Lily's is about 4 foot tall. We lost the tag of the exact kind of Lily, I've done a bit of Google searching and the best I could come up with was these are "Stargazer Lily's". Though the images I'm finding don't quite look exactly like my photos. Perhaps someone out there can identify what type of Lily it really is.

Garden Tour 2008 - Day 2

I'm not sure which of my plants leaves this is from, but the drops of rain caught my eye.

Twin Cities Garden Tour 2008

It's the 2nd annual, summer time, Twin Cities Garden Tour 2008! Of course it's held in the summer as the other half of the year in the Twin Cities is covered with a blanket of snow. The flowers on this garden tour do come from the garden located in my very own yard.

I Don't Recall Taking This Photo

I do believe I accidentally took this photo. The strange angle is a dead give away. I do however, like the blue sky with the lights, made for an interesting shot. Have you ever taken a photo by accident and liked the results of it?

Mystery Item

Any idea what this is? Take a wild guess, you're going to need it....

Train To Nowhere

The train was moving around 35 mph, I was waiting for it to pass, about 15 feet from it. It took me a few shots, but I worked on my pan and shoot technique the other day to kill the time.

How To Capitalize On Parade Candy

I must hand it to this kid, this is a very creative idea on getting a ton of candy from a parade. It's simple, it's fun, it's challenging for those in the parade throwing candy to those along the parade route. I watched several floats and vehicles from the Afton 4th Of July parade that were tossing candy to the curb, stop and throw several pieces of candy onto his candy game board. A few stopped until they scored points! There was no need for him to dash into the street to collect the treats as they all were throw directly to him. It was a brilliant invention!

Afton 4th Of July Parade

One of the events held each year on the 4th of July is the parade in Afton, Minnesota. I've spent the last four to five years at the parade with my family. It's a rather unique parade, the floats, cars and all of those in the parade travel down the road like all other parades do. When they get to the end of the route, they turn around and travel back to the beginning. So you more or less get to see the parade twice. I'm unsure of the reason behind it, but it stands out none the less.

  

East On University Avenue

The view is to the east, traveling on University Avenue in St Paul. I cannot give you a cross street reference, but I am about one mile west from the State Capital building. If you look closely it there, way down the road you can just make out the dome of the building.

Yet Another Rosemount Water Tower

The second water tower I've posted from Rosemount this week. This one is along Highway 42.

Storm Reflection

My son took the first photo of the evening, his vision he saw after a thunderstorm had passed through the Twin Cities. I saw a puddle in the street and snapped a reflection photo of the enormous cloud.

St Paul Cathedral

I believe this is the north side of the Cathedral in St Paul. I'm always surprised at the detail that went into the construction of this building. It's easily missed until you get out of your car and walk up to see it.

Graffiti Has Returned

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my sons photo [see the previous post]. He was overjoyed with the amount of comments left for him. If it helped contribute his liking to photography, then yes, my ploy for comments was well worth it.

I'm back under Highway 61 for this graffiti photo. When I was younger, I always used to draw names very similar to this style of font lettering. Granted, I never once felt the need to spray paint it on a wall, I was happy enough with paper.

Dad, Grab You Camera

My son walked into the house and started yelling for me, "Dad Dad" he said, "You should grab your camera because there is a cool looking cloud to take a photo of". Hearing him say that gave me a surprised and curious look to my face. I certainly had to take a look at what he was talking about. So I grabbed the camera and we headed out side. He walked over to the our drive way and sure enough, the view in today's photo was the photo opportunity he was talking about. He then said, "I bet if you put this photo on your web site it will get lots of comments". I handed him the camera so he could take the photo for today. I must admit, the way the passing thunderstorm cloud looked as the sun was setting and framed between the neighborhood trees, it was a great vision at only the age of 9.

My sons only question now is, how many comments will his photo bring?

Rosemount Water Tower

I captured this Rosemount water tower while I was heading east on Highway 42. The view is to the south. The water tower appears to be in the middle of a farmers crop field. Though I don't know what the road leads to once you get to the top of the hill. I do like this view, kind of different from the norm.

Walking Path In Hastings

This walking path at this point runs along side the Vermillion River in Hastings. The road that you see crossing the river is highway 61, which runs through the heart of Hastings. Just beyond the bridge is the Vermillion Falls. And the industrial building you see sits on the falls and is called the Hastings Flour Mill.

After The Storm....Part Two

Continuing on from yesterday's storm photos....as I mentioned, I was taking photos while everyone was cleaning up the fallen branches. There was a very large sewer back up around one of our loading dock areas. It made for a very easy photo opportunity and is easily my favorite photo from this set. Once the bulk of branches was cleared, since we had no power and were waiting for Xcel energy to get us back on the power grid, we had no choice but to kill time by throwing the football in our parking lot. One of my co-workers, during his college days, played for the University Of Minnesota. He easily could throw the football the furthest from everyone who participated.

According to the local weather, a small tornado had touched down in the area somewhere, but did only minor damage. 65 mile per hour winds were achieved during the touchdown. Considering how much tree damage I saw, we were luck to only have debris in our parking lot and one tree knocked down. It certainly could have been much worse.

  

One Wicked Stormy Afternoon

I'm speaking with a customer on the phone this afternoon, we were trying to rush out an urgent order for him. All was going good as could be, everything was on schedule. Just as he finished thanking my crew for their hard work, flexibility on adjusting our work load, and doing something that the commercial companies could never do....we lost power in our building due to a very powerful storm. The high winds, branches flying, trees falling over, water coming down in buckets. It was an amazing storm to watch. Heck, since we were without power and our customers order that we had worked so hard to finish was going no where, we all watched in awe as the storm rolled through

After 15 to 20 minutes of downpour, the rains stopped, we made our way outside to get an up close view of the damage. Naturally I grabbed my camera and started shooting photos. What I found interesting, while I was taking photos, the group of my co-workers started picking up the lot of the leaves and branches. No one asked them to do so, they just did it on their own. Including one brave soul who waded into the loading dock to remove debris from the sewer drain. I thought all of their efforts was rather awesome to see.

I will post another batch of photos tomorrow on the storm, including my favorite shot from this photo set.

   

I Can't Believe Someone Threw Away A Perfectly Good Car

Has something ever caught your eye as you were driving and you had to turn around and go back and see it again? This contribution photo from swc was one of those instances. When I first saw the photos, I was a bit puzzled by it. Looking at what is printed on the side of the roll off box, it is nothing more than advertisement by the publicly funded bus system encouraging you to throw away your car and start using public transportation. Yep, that's my tax dollars paying for that odd, but very eye catching advertisement. I'm curious how much this cost for this setup and is this the only location that is advertising in this manner? Hummm....

 

Feeding Time

At first glance, I didn't catch it, did you? Who is feeding whom in the photo? This outstanding contribution photo from swc capture a mother bird feeding her young. If you have not looked closely, baby birds open their mouths to be fed. The smaller of the two birds is feeding the larger of the two birds. The mother bird is the smaller of the pair. The two birds obviously are not the same and I would have to speculate that another bird laid it's eggs in this mothers nest perhaps?

 

Wild Fire Smoke Filled Sky

I do believe, the redish glow from this sunset capture the other evening was partly contributed by the annual California wild fires. Seriously, this has become a yearly over hyped media event from the West Coast. Why do these wild fires get more TV coverage than the levy that broke in Iowa and flooded the entire town? Where is the media coverage? Where are the celebrities asking for help to relocate the folks of Iowa? Even George Bush isn't getting blamed for the recent flooding.

Interesting Read Of The Day: California Wildfires “business as usual” for nature

Woooo, Ahhhh, Woooo,

This is my third 4th of July celebration since I've started the Twin Cities Daily Photo. This is the first time I've captured photos during the fireworks display. One year, I simply forgot to bring my camera to Kingston Park in Cottage Grove where the community gathers for the local event. Last year, I intentionally didn't bring my camera as I had unfortunately cracked my LCD screen and couldn't set up my camera to take any nighttime photos. The camera was pretty worthless at the time, but I've since repaired it. Third times a charm. I was finally set, working camera, working batteries and I brought the camera to the park. All in all, I took around 50 photos, my favorite being the sparkler photo [scroll down to yesterday to see it]. The wind was a bit tough on some of the photos, the fireworks were drifting into a smear on many of the photos. I did manage to get a few good captures on the night.
  

Symphony Of Light

My kids performed the sparkler symphony while we were waiting on the nights fireworks display in Cottage Grove. I'm not sure who enjoyed this performance the most, my kids with the sparklers or me with the camera....

Happy Birthday America

Have a safe Independence Day America. Land of the free, home of the brave. I'm proud to be an American. Thank you to our founding fathers and those that fought for our freedom so I can post my beliefs in a free country without fear of death.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
In Congress Assembled, July 4, 1776
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

Read the entire Declaration Of Independence here

Mississippi River Fishing

I caught this group of boys fishing in the Mississippi River while I was in Inver Grove Heights. I made a visit to the construction site of the Wakota Bridge. It was quite a colorful photo shoot as this picture shows. A lot of the colorful things in the photo, a urinal, a power generator, waters reflection, rusty iron, plus some green. I really didn't notice all of the color until I was digitally processing the photos.

Theme Day: "No . . ." signs

The first of the month and the City Daily Photo has elected for the Theme Day: No [fill in the blank] signs. You know the signs, "No Parking" "No Trespassing" something along those lines. Well, I went to great lengths for my sign. I went to the end of the road in Ely, Minnesota. Essentially, I went to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and snapped a shot of the sign in the photo. I wanted something different, something no one else would have, and something that wasn't easy to obtain. Granted, the timing was perfect as I had planned a trip to the BWCA in June and I knew ahead of time July's theme day. See some of my favorite BWCA photos I've taken.

Stop by the other cities participating in the July Theme Day via the links below the photo. Do remember that there are timezone differences between the other cities. Or you can head over to the portal page to see a thumbnail view of blogs that have posted their corner store photo.


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