“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It Goes On.”
Robert Frost
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Visiting Noerenberg Gardens

As promised, here is my post on the lovely Noerenberg Gardens.  I visited a couple of weeks ago.  It was one of those perfect evenings, just a whisper of a breeze, warm but low humidity. It's one of those days where I'm so happy to live here in Minnesota and it makes the winters easier to get through!

This was an impromptu visit, so all I had with me was my Galaxy phone.  Some photos were cropped down, but others I left as is because they show the true beauty of the garden design.



The garden starts with winding paved paths that take you around a circular garden.  The center is grass with beautiful flowers and shrubs surrounding it.  The large white flowering shrub is a variety of PG hydrangea. Unlike the southern hydrangeas, it doesn't die back to the ground in the winter and still blooms in our northern climate.








Noerenberg Memorial Gardens is known for its tranquility and spectacular beauty. Situated along the shore of Crystal Bay on Lake Minnetonka, Noerenberg is widely regarded as one of the finest formal gardens in Minnesota. Among its blend of perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, and vines the garden features ornamental shade trees and a stand of conifers, an extensive day lily collection, and "Northern Lights" azaleas.


 A close-up of some purple coneflowers...



Cultivated and native plants grow together in several of the flower beds.  The bright pink flower in the photo above is called Swamp Smartweed and is growing next to our lake shore at home. It actually can have its feet in water for a considerable amount of time. This makes it an ideal plant for a rain garden.


 Some lovely Russian Sage in front of a PG Hyrdrangea shrub...


I thought this was an especially pretty combination, white cone-flowers, pale pink nicotiana and some unknown grasses and bright pink flowers...



 Blue Love in a Mist...









A lovely trellis/pergola with gorgeous flowers planted on each side. 



And now for a bit of history...
Grain Belt Brewery founder Frederick Noerenberg and his family built their estate on the shore of Lake Minnetonka in 1890. Influenced by English Landscape Style, the property featured tiered rose beds and impeccably manicured lawns. As world travelers with an appreciation for natural artifacts, the family accumulated an assortment of natural specimens that appeared in the garden, including a collection of trees, plant materials and rocks.




On the opposite side of the garden you can see the gazebo 
which sits right on the edge of Lake Minnetonka.





 The columns mark the site where the original home stood.






 My husband and brother in-law relax and take in the view from the gazebo.


The gazebo has a somewhat Asian flair.  The design was 
influenced by the owners extensive travel abroad. 






 A few lake views from the gazebo...






















Lora Noerenberg Hoppe, one of the five Noerenberg children, acted as chief horticulturist on the gardens for a number of years. She bequeathed the estate to the Park District when she passed away in 1972. At her direction, the home was razed and the estate was transformed to a garden for the public’s enjoyment. 

This has to be one of the most spectacular public gardens I have ever visited.
I hope you enjoyed your tour!  

Next time I think we need to get back to some cute vintage. 
I'll be seeing you all soon!
~~~Diane~~~




history source 


Thursday, March 19, 2015

Spring into Action




Spring will be here in just a few hours, the calendar says the first day of spring is March 20th. I am happy to say that it is starting to look like the beginning of spring around here too. Some plants are emerging from the leaf litter and showing their little green leaves.  The grass is starting to grow.

The most evident sign of spring was last week, when I heard a flock of geese overhead.  They were surveying our lake to see if there was open water to land.  Our pond has melted at the edges, just enough room for the ducks to start paddling around. We have a flock of about 25 mallards here right now.  Some of them will head on north as the ice melts off the northern lakes.

The geese stopped to look around a bit for nesting spots, but left in search of a larger lake.  They will come back as things melt and they have more room to swim around.  We may have some flowers soon if the warmer weather continues! Until that happens, here are some cute Vintage Spring things to cheer you up!

For more information about each item, simply click on the highlighted title above each item.

Isn't this just one of the cutest bunnies you've ever seen!

Bunny Rabbit Planter




Here are more cute things I've added to my shop this past week.  Some have been sitting on shelves for awhile and it's time to send them on to new homes. Just remember that even if you are in another country, like the UK, as long as you've been a follower and have left comments here, I will gladly quote you a shipping price. Just go to my Etsy shop CraveCute and leave me a message.




Fuzzy Duckling Book






Three Lambs Jumping a Fence














Bunnykins Windy Day Mug









Yellow Chicks Salt and Pepper Shakers











Rosina "JUNE" Teacup

























These cute chicks aren't listed yet, but should be in my shop soon.







I hope you enjoyed this little spring trip through my shop.  If you're wondering, the "paintings" are my photos digitally enhanced with photo editing tools. Just another thing for me to waste time with! I do like the way they turned out though! I wish I could actually paint like that! Thanks so much for visiting, I'll try and catch up with your blogs soon. ~ Diane

What kind of things are you doing to 
get ready for Spring?



Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Whiskers Wednesday

It's been a busy two weeks since my last post! Family visits, increased sales in my shop (woohoo!), Super Bowls, etc., etc., ...... always something keeping me away from blogging!

I have been active on an Etsy Team and did a blog post last week (here) on Collecting Cookbooks, and apparently my old brain thought that I had done a post so all was well. After starting to catch up again in my CraveCute shop with packing and mailing items... I started to think what is missing? Of course I knew it was my bloggy pals. I saw a couple of Tweets and G+'s come through with new posts of some of my favorite bloggers and realized I had better get back over to my own blog and do a post!




We had a nice fluffy snowfall last night and Guy Noir and I went out for a walk this morning. One of the photos was just Purr-fect for a tweet pic with hashtag (#WhiskersWednesday). All of the other cat geeks post their cats pictures. I think Guy is one of the handsomest out there!














Here are a few other shots of our yard and snow. It was a light and fluffy snow that sparkled in the morning sun. I wish the camera had captured it better but take my word, it was really pretty!











Many of you on the East Coast have had to put up with tons of snow this year, while we here in Minnesota have barely had any.   We are about a foot below our average snow fall this year.  We may get another few inches by the weekend.  Finally we'll have enough to ski and snowshoe. It's been kind of an ugly winter, so this snow was a nice change!

I promise, I will be around to your blogs soon.  I hope you all have a lovely week and of course a wonderful Whiskers Wednesday!

 ~~~~ Diane ~~~~ 
Guy Noir ~~~~ 
~~~~  xoxoxo


Friday, October 17, 2014

Up North

It was just a month ago that my husband and I decided to take a trip to what is fondly called "Up North" around here.  We drove away on a sunny morning from the Twin Cities and headed towards the city of Duluth.

As we progressed north, the clouds started to build and by the time we entered the overlook and tourist information center just before you head down the hills to Duluth, it was as if the Apocalypse was near. The lady behind the information both was explaining to some other travels that it had been beautiful up to about an hour before our arrival. Well of course it was!!

Looking down at the almost obscured city of Duluth, I was ready to get into the car and turn around! Even my husband, a seasoned traveler and frequent visitor to the area was taken aback! But we persevered!



We arrived in late afternoon and checked into the hotel. Afterward we went out to check out the marina so that my dear one can gaze at the boats and dream of his retirement! The wind was gusting and we were freezing despite wearing gloves and fleece hats and scarves... and after a few minutes we abandoned that little outing. We headed over to a local restaurant and had a wonderful relaxing meal. And planned the next days adventures. 

Duluth is really a lovely little town and I just wish I had some good photos, but it was so dark and gloomy that most didn't turn out well! The photo above shows how choppy the water was, those are hard core sailors in their foul weather gear.





The next day the weather was much calmer and we headed north on what is commonly known as North Shore Drive. Duluth sits on Lake Superior and we took that path north all the way to Grand Marais. One of the first areas we stopped was at Two Harbors, it was pretty chilly so I cheated and took photos out of the car window. We saw a wood figure holding what I think looks like a giant spoon.  I took that as a sign that he had been at Betty's Pies
and was ready for a return trip.


Mountain Ash Tree



Just outside of Two Harbors is Betty's Pies which is famous around here and has an enormous selection of delicious pies. We tried the Lemon Angel pie and the Berry pies. The photo further below is of a slice of raisin sour cream that we ordered and picked up on our way home. Yes, we ordered an entire pie to go. Having pie for breakfast is really nice by the way!









Sour Cream Raisin Pie Oh My!



We also saw the Red Two Harbors Lighthouse! It looked rather spooky with the lighting and the fence surrounding it. As I said it was cold and we had a lot of other stops to make, so this was an out the window photo!









Next we went through the Silver Creek Tunnel. They had to blast through the cliff to make the road. It was quite the sight.  After that we stopped at Gooseberry Falls State park and checked out the trails and waterfalls. No sign of goose berries, but I did find some wild viburnum cranberries. The falls were partially created from a lava flow.  The rock has a high amount of iron, thus the reddish color in the rocks and water.  Northern Minnesota is still a large iron mining area.


























American Viburnum Cranberries




They say the twisted bark and roots are from the 
rushing high water and the winds.













One of the tugboats used to maneuver the large ships that haul iron ore.








We then visited Split Rock Lighthouse State Park and got a few nice photos. It is a retired lighthouse and is no longer in use. It is probably one of the most photographed lighthouses in Minnesota if not in the world.










These are the homes that were built for the three lighthouse keepers and their families.








We passed a home built in the traditional Scandinavian style.
It is called a Stave house.








Still on our mission to visit yet one more stop before arriving at Grand Marais, we drove through the area of Lutsen and stopped in to get some photos of the Lutsen mountains and the ski lifts.  The weather conditions were closing in and the fog was settling on the tops of the mountains.

We headed north again and of course ran into road construction with only one lane part of the time.  It took us twice as long to get to Grand Marais as we thought it would.






I can see Canada from my car.
Well maybe. 
On the horizon we thought we could see Canada only about forty miles away. 
So close but yet so far, maybe some day I will get to visit Canada.



By the time we got through all the road construction is was too late to do much sight seeing. Our first night in Grand Marais we decided to treat ourselves to a gourmet meal.



This was my meal that evening in Grand Marais at the Angry Trout Cafe. The top half of the plate was a locally Smoked Lake Trout and Spinach Fettuccine and the lower half was an incredible salad!  I don't have any photos of the exterior, because it looked like a fishing shack.  I was asking my husband why we were going into this crummy building and he explained that it was the restaurant.  I was shocked when we went inside and it was fabulous! The food top notch!







The sailboat belongs to the North House Folk School.



Lovely flowers in front of the North House Folk School main building. The school teaches courses in traditional northern crafts such as timber framing, wood carving, boat building, outdoor skills, music, painting, photography, fiber arts, clothing, foods, jewelry, story telling, and much more.













We stopped when the clouds thinned a bit to check out this view across Lake Superior.  It's not hard to understand why it is called an inland sea.












The cutest house in Grand Marais! I love everything about this cute little house. The color the simple style, the white picket fence with the lovely flowers all around! They had a huge yard and off to the left you can just make out their little Barn painted in the same colors!









This was on our drive back down towards Duluth. The Temperance River State Park was just starting to show some fall color. We walked through the trails and headed up the steep rock walkway to check out the scene.








The water has driven deep gorges into the rock. We climbed up some fairly steep hills to get to this spot.










The round areas are pot holes that the water has worn through the rock, they are often called 'Devil Pits or Devil Holes'.  I was kind of freaking out a bit because I do not like heights and I even though there was a large rock wall, that is as long as my arms would reach. There was no way I was leaning over the edge!


The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful other than we had to stop back at Betty's pie for our lunch and of course had to pick up our pie to go!

Now that I have had a taste of the Up North experience, I know I would love to go back, maybe in summer when it's not so cold. There will be a return trip someday. 

Here are a few more facts about Lake Superior.   Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes in surface area and volume. Lake Superior could contain all the other Great Lakes plus three more lakes the size of Lake Erie. The lake is 350 miles in length and 160 miles across, average depth is 483 ft, but some areas are as deep as 1,322 ft. 

Next time I'll be sharing some more photos of autumn leaves and some scarecrows that I saw at my recent visit to our arboretum!

See you all soon! ~~ Diane