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A bold prediction about Big Ten football

Posted for family and a few friends with an interest in collegiate football.

Other readers can just scroll past to more interesting stuff.

Tomorrow the Big Ten football season starts with the first preseason games.  The pundits and national analysts have published their predictions; the list embedded at the top is from USA Today.   Of the Big Ten teams, Ohio State (predicted 5th), Michigan (7th), Penn State (14th), Wisconsin (17th), Iowa (19th), Michigan State (20th), and Northwestern (25th) are all expected to be in the top 25 nationally.  Minnesota received 1 measly point, out of 21,000 awarded by 65 headcoaches around the country.  Reporters covering the Big Ten are similarly dismissive; they collectively predicted Minnesota to finish sixth in the 7-team West division.

TYWKIWDBI hereby predicts Minnesota to finish in the top 25 nationally and second in their division.  You heard it here first.

Last Year
The Gophers closed out the 2017 season two years ago with two losses by a combined score of 70-0, and in the past two years under their new coach P.J. Fleck their record against Big Ten teams has been 5-13.  The problem last year was that the team lost both of their premier running backs to injuries in September, and they lost Antoine Winfield, their star defensive safety after just four games.  So they struggled; after a change in the assistant coaching staff, the defense went from giving up 500 yards/game to 300 and from 43 pts/game to 15, and the team's offense compensated and managed to finish the year by beating ranked Wisconsin at Wisconsin and then blowing away Georgia Tech in a bowl game.

Personnel
Last year they fielded a team that was the youngest in U.S. collegiate football; at times the entire backfield was composed of freshmen right out of high school.  This year the team returns 78% of its offensive production.   Their injured star running backs (Rodney Smith, Shannon Brooks) are back for their senior seasons, as is last year's star sophomore Mo Ibrahim; the three have combined for 6,000 rushing yards.

The only major players lost to graduation were the placekicker and center, two defensive tackles, and the best linebacker.  The team has 17 returning starters: the Gophers return an amazing 100% of passing yards, 99% of rushing yards, and 99% of receiving yards. None of the Big Ten teams they play can say as much; most of the opposing teams in the division lost key players from last year to graduation or transfer. 

The offensive line has four returning starters, and pound-for-pound is bigger than the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line. The four average 6-foot-6 and 340 pounds (the Vikings’ line averages 6-foot-4, 302)  Sophomore Daniel Faalele is 6-foot-9 and 400#. The wide receivers include all-Big-Ten senior Tyler Johnson, who could have turned pro last year but elected to stay with the team.

Schedule
The Gophers have one difficult preseason game in week two, against Fresno State, which went 12-2 last year, beat Boise State for the Mountain West championship, and then beat Arizona State in a bowl game.  The game is at Fresno State in the second of a home-and-home pairing.  But.. of those two losses last year, one was to Minnesota in the preseason, and Fresno State lost to graduation their star quarterback, and will play this year with an inexperienced one.

A little-known fact:  the Gophers have won 15 straight nonconference games.  That is the longest streak in the nation, dating back to when they lost to #2 TCU in 2015.  I expect the Gophers to repeat as winners against Fresno State and thus enter the conference schedule 3-0 after wins against South Dakota State and Georgia Southern..

When the conference schedule starts in late September, the first five games will be winnable (at Purdue, home against Illinois and Nebraska, at Rutgers, and then Maryland at home).  By then they could be 8-0 and ready to roll against the big boys, because the season ends against presumably ranked teams: home against Penn State, away to play Iowa and Northwestern, and then the season-ending traditional game against Wisconsin (at home).

This year the Gophers are not scheduled to play Ohio State, Michigan, or Michigan State.   The West division's toughest schedule may go to Wisconsin, which must face Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State. And Iowa will play against Michigan and Penn State.

Prediction
I predict the Gophers to finish 6-3 in the West division, behind only Iowa, and thus 9-3 overall and ranked in the top-25 nationally. The one thing that could derail my prediction would be unexpected injuries to key players.  Already in the preseason one of the team's two experienced quarterbacks has been declared out for the season with a foot injury.

Update Oct 1:
After five weeks of the season (4 games and a bye), the Gophers are 4-0, with the three nonconference wins and a Big Ten opening win at Purdue (in that game Gopher QB Tanner Morgan was 21 for 22 (!!) for 396 yards and four touchdowns).  In the national poll, the "others receiving votes" now looks like this:

California 125; Southern Methodist 118; Arizona State 96; Army 47; Minnesota 34; Baylor 34; Appalachian State 28; Colorado 18; Duke 17; Tulane 16; Utah State 15; Kansas State 13; Hawaii 10; Southern California 9; Texas Christian 6; Washington State 3; Mississippi State 3; Air Force 3; Wyoming 2.

Effectively tied for 30th.  Home games vs. Illinois and Nebraska coming next.

Update Oct 8:
One week after a record-setting passing performance, the Gophers coped with cool drizzly weather this past weekend by reverting to a dominating ground game, with one back exceeding 100 yards and the other exceeding 200.  Now ranked 25th in this poll (and 26th in the other national one):

Nebraska next week.  Can't wait...

Update Oct 22:
Two more weeks, two more victories -- a 34-7 drubbing of Nebraska followed by a 42-7 win over hapless Rutgers.  In the national rankings the Gophers moved up last week from 25th to 20th, and this week to 17th (AP) or 16th (Coaches poll):

This week's game will be against Maryland, at home.  ESPN gives them a 17-point spread with an 83% probability of winning the game.  That would put them at 8-0 for the first time since forever. Then a bye week to get ready for a November 9 showdown against #6-ranked Penn State. 

I'll have more to say after this next game.

"Sack it to me"

My cousin's son, competing today for the Minnesota state championship at the Mall of America.  Readers of TYWKIWDBI who may be at the mall today will know who to cheer for.

Go Paul!

Addendum -  Some viewers may be bewildered by the notice above so here's the ELI5:  the placing of groceries in paper bags goes back in my memory to probably the 1950s, when most grocery stores had young men doing the "bagging" and carrying the groceries out to your car for you.  The process has been "modernized" by the advent of plastic bags and the expectation that shoppers will carry or push a cart of groceries to the parking area.

A variety of generally upscale grocery stores have maintained the old tradition intact.  The Minnesota Grocers Association explains as follows:

MGA Best Bagger Contest – August 17 at The Mall of America, Bloomington, MN
A dynamic, fast-paced competition where grocery baggers from across the state show off their bagging skills to be Minnesota’s best. This contest is important to the MGA and its membership because it showcases the talents of one of our key employees.  The bagger is the person responsible for the last experience customers have at our stores. They truly represent customer service.

To get to today's championship, Paul first had to win an in-store competition at the Lunds/Byerlys located in Wayzata.  He then competed against the winners from the other Lunds/Byerlys stores in the region.  Now he represents the company at this statewide competition against the winners from other grocery store chains in Minnesota, with the winner proceeding to the national championship in San Diego ($10,000 grand prize).

Here are the judging criteria.  It's not just a matter of speed.

Apparently Paul has acquired a cheering section at the Mall of America -

Unfortunately I'm in Madison Wisconsin with errands to run and chores to do.  I'll update this post tomorrow.

Update:  Paul will not be traveling to San Diego to compete in the nationals; he performed well on the time component, but did not have the best distribution of weight between bags (see criteria above).     It was, however, an enjoyable experience for him.  I'll monitor YouTube to see if any videos of the competition are posted.

Fun variants of Scrabble

Many bloggers and blog-readers were up in arms this past week when a story circulated that the game of Scrabble was going to begin allowing proper names to be used during gameplay.   What will actually happen is that another Scrabble variant will be produced by Mattel, but the standard game will still adhere to the traditional rules.

I found it amusing that so many people got their panties in a twist over this announcement, because at our house, Scrabble is played using house rules that would horrify a traditionalist.

The "house rules" are that Scrabble will be the "open book, double bag, triple return, blank start and recycle" version. This means that each player starts with a blank, and after it is played as a given letter, anyone with that letter in their rack can play the letter and pick the blank up for reuse (that's the "recycle" part).

The "double bag" refers to the fact that we keep consonants and vowels in separate bags. When you draw your letters you can do so from either bag in whatever proportion best balances your rack. If you get three of a letter, you can exchange one of them for a different letter. This prevents winding up with the dreaded IUIUCIW-type rack.

The "open book" part is fairly common among recreational Scrabblers. We have not only several dictionaries available, but also a variety of word building books, and sometimes a laptop logged on to an anagramming website.

And finally we spin our racks around to ask the other person (I wouldn't use the word "opponent") for advice/suggestions.

Using these rules, an inlaw and I had a game with 2000+ combined points, including 14 "bingoes." I suppose it's not really "Scrabble" - it's more of a mutual word-puzzle game. But it's fun - especially when the players are also lubricated with their favorite beverages.

Reposted from 2010 to add this video of championship Scrabble:

YouTube link

The 2019 North American SCRABBLE Championship was played July 20-24, 2019 in Reno, NV. Almost 300 players battled it out over 31 games of SCRABBLE to crown 2019’s North American SCRABBLE Champion. This year, the top two finishers faced off in a best-of-three match to decide the winner.

The video includes live expert commentary. 

An "up north" family portrait

Last week several members of my extended family gathered at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area to paddle and portage the chain of lakes there.  Pictured here are Doug from Florida, Dean from Wisconsin, Misha from North Carolina, and Karl from Barcelona.  I wish I could have joined them, but at my age pleasures like this have to be enjoyed vicariously.

Related: a previously-posted family portrait.

Six consecutive double-yolked eggs. What are the odds? - Updated

Nothing on the package label to indicate double-yolking.  Still have six more in the container for later this week...

Addendum:  Three of the remaining six were also double-yolked.  Reader Trixie offers a logical scientific explanation in her comment.

Sweet corn and freezer corn

"Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered."            --Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

For Ray Bradbury, summer was preserved in dandelion wine.  Here in Wisconsin and Minnesota, we preserve summer in freezer corn.

The first step is an early morning visit to a local farm.  They harvest at sunrise and bring it into a barn for processing.  Modern sweet corn is incredibly sweet - much more so than the strains of corn I grew up with 50-60 years ago.  And modern corn holds that sweetness longer, before the intrinsic sugars start turning into starch.  Even so, it's best to obtain, prepare, and eat the corn as soon as possible after it's harvested.  Throughout the summer we go to this farm once or twice a week.

After the shank is chopped and the ear is inspected (top photo), the corn is moved to a self-serve table, and then it's first-come first-served until they run out.  The entire process is done on the honor system.  You take what you want, figure the cost from a chart on the wall (it's about 50c/ear), put your money in the open cashbox and take change if you need it.  Grocery bags are provided, but most people bring their own reusable ones.

Here's the recipe for freezer corn, which is of course a bit different from the heat-and-eat process for regular corn-on-the-cob:

The Stonemans grow a supersweet bicolor corn.  The ears were a little smaller this summer because of unusually cool temperatures during the growing season.

We process about two dozen ears for the freezer, first cutting it off the cobs out in the garage (it can be messy, with kernels and juice flying around).  Note at this point the kernels are ready to eat - and very sweet.
 

Then to the kitchen to be processed according to the directions in the third photo above.

And finally packed in Ziplock bags and stored in the freezer next to the other essential food groups...

Reposted from last fall to remind locals that Stoneman's is open and has the season's first crop available.  The heavy rains this spring delayed planting, so several of the fields are a week or two behind schedule.  Best to visit their Facebook page to check availability before driving out.

Re-reposted for the same reason.   First corn of the season available this morning is yellow sweet corn; the bicolor should be ready by next week.

Addendum - adding a photo of one ear of the bicolor.

 Husked and ready for the microwave:

Genetic testing for inherited neuropathies

This summer when I saw my neurologist for a routine post-polio checkup, she asked whether I would be interested in participating in a large scale study of genetic screening for peripheral neuropathies.  Since I have some atypical (sensory) deficits and it seemed reasonable to rule out concomitant non-polio etiologies, I agreed.  There was no cost to me or my insurance for the testing, I believe because the project is still in the investigative stage where they are trying to establish the sensitivity and specificity of the findings in a test population with known disorders.

Here are my results:

So, as an incidental finding, I'm a carrier of an autosomal recessive gene for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.  This is of no clinical relevance for me, and since I have no children, the gene dies with me.

I'm not posting this as an endorsement of Invitae, and I certainly wouldn't recommend that everyone go out and get tested for everything.  But the information is worth sharing with my extended family, and with readers of the blog who might have an unexplained peripheral neuropathy, or a family history of a known disorder.  I am recurrently amazed at the advances being made in the field of medical science since my retirement from the profession.

"Up North"

   

I'm back from my visit to the north woods of Minnesota, and I think no photo captures the experience better than the one above - a conventional suburban car-keys holder repurposed to hold swatters for the whole family.



My destination was a traditional campground owned and operated by my aunt and subsequently by my cousin and their families for the past 50+ years.  It's located in Longville, Minnesota (home of the famous summer Turtle Races).  Longville is a small town (fewer than 200 year-round residents) that thrives on three-season visits by people like me coming up from "the cities."



A campground like this could not be developed nowadays in Minnesota.  This one surrounds a manmade lagoon which was created by dredging a lakeside wetland (which gave the location its original name off "Austin's Swamp.")  Current Minnesota shoreland management standards preclude disturbing wetlands, and homes on riparian land are now required to have lots 125' wide, with dwellings set back 75 feet from the ordinary high-water mark.

At "retro" sites like this (grandfathered in when new regulations were established), residents can step out of their trailer, walk 50 feet to the boat and head out fishing for the day.  For a summer season the rates are perhaps $20-25/day, with flush toilets to city septic, hot showers, a modern fish house with freezer for the guts, pets allowed.  What more can you want?  I never locked my door when I was out for the day.  The residents know one another, because the vast majority stay here summer-long or bounce back and forth from a city.  When I walked through, they recognized a stranger and greeted me with "you must be the cousin from Wisconsin..."

And these are serious fishermen.   The lagoon connects by a channel to Girl Lake, which connects to the larger Woman Lake chain.  The boats start heading out at 0530, and they will cheerfully spend the entire day catching-and-releasing, keeping just enough for dinner.  

I'm always bemused to see "fishing boats" with 75- or 90-horse motors, because in my childhood weekends "up at the lake" our family boat was a wooden 14-footer with a 7.5-horse Evinrude motor which would barely lift the front of the boat when you cranked it all the way up.  But it was great for trolling and drifting (these modern aluminum boats get blown every which way on a windy day, too fast for a proper drift over a bed of walleyes).

But the big motors do allow these guys to explore, visiting distant part of the lake or the chain of lakes, and the next day they load it on a trailer and go to a different lake to catch some other kind of fish.

My time up north these days is seldom spent on the lake; I'm more in the woods feeding the mosquitoes (but only one tick the whole time I was there).  Some neighbors have planted lupine, but late June was too late for me to see and photograph the spring ephemeral wildflowers.  And I was probably a couple weeks too early for the ladyslippers.

 

My most interesting discovery in the woods was the proximal half of a humerus.  You can bet I looked around carefully for the skull (in part because that humerus was not much different in size from my own).  I brought it back to Madison, and a local vet here opined that it was likely from a coyote.  This was in a woods where a wolf was seen this past spring, and I'd bet this particular bone is more likely wolf than coyote, because at least the coyotes in our neighborhood here in Madison are more gracile, and this is a fairly robust bone. 

Anyway, I'm back.  A couple days to get recombobulated, and then the blog posting will resume. 

You'll need to go elsewhere for your therapy

I need to take about two weeks off.  I'm looking forward to an extended period of time with no internet access.   I hope to return refreshed and reinvigorated at the end of the month.  Bye.

The mystery of the "cotton" in the window frame - updated x4

The arrival of September at our latitude marks the time when windows closed all summer can be opened to admit cool night air.  As I opened the window on our guest room, I was startled to see a wad of cotton-like material tumble from the upper window frame (above, placed on the concrete driveway for imaging).

My initial anxiety was that some sort of insulation was coming loose, but the original location of the material (photo below) ruled out that possibility.

My attention was now drawn to the contents of the mass, which to my initial dismay revealed an insect pupa and a number of living larvae:

After searching several combinations of key words in Google Images, I found one entry that matched my experience.  The brief explanation there was that the mass was the creation of a solitary bee.

Now I did feel bad, because my wife and I are great fans of solitary bees.  But armed with that clue, it didn't take long to track down the answer:

Anthidium manicatum, commonly called the European wool carder bee, is a species of bee in the family Megachilidae, the leaf-cutter bees or mason bees.

They get the name 'carder' from their behaviour of scraping hair from leaves such as lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina)... They scrape the hairs from the leaves and carry them back to their nests bundled beneath their bodies. There it is used as a lining for their nest cavities.  Females tend to build their nests at high locations.

I don't know whether the larvae in the photo are bee-related or parasites.

Reposted from 2016 because this week I was wandering through the "gardening" section of our local Target store and found this:

The shelf tag erroneously said "butterfly house."  The label on the product was slightly less inaccurate with "insect house."  It is in fact a structure designed for solitary bees.  There are online instructions for making these as a DIY project, but this one was nicely made and inexpensive.  I'll hang it from a shepherd's crook near ground level in our garden and hope to see some of the tubes getting filled as the summer progresses.

Here is a photo of an equivalent bee-condo viewed in cross-section:

This one was made by drilling holes in a wood block (presumably with a removable flap so the curious home scientist could inspect the process and the season progressed).

If I remember, I'll try to post followup photos in the summer and autumn.

Updated May 2018 to show the bee "condo" installed in our back garden -

Helpful hint:  A "shepherd's hook" (used for hanging flower baskets, bird feeders etc), when purchased from a home decor or gardening store can be somewhat pricey.  I went instead to our local farm supply store and picked up the "pigtail" post shown in the photo (used on farms for stringing electric fences around fields) for about $2.  An added advantage is the little S-shaped part at the bottom which grips the post for stepping it into the ground and digs into the ground to provide 2-point stability for the post.

Updated again:

Well, back to the drawing board.   After a week of drenching rains, the "bee condo" was in multiple pieces.  I don't think I can blame raccoons, because there was no honey or larvae in it yet.  Wind might have banged it around a bit, judging from the current position, but I rather suspect this was assembled using water-soluble glue.

It was cheap.  You  get what you pay for.

Fortunately I have several rolls of duct tape in the garage.

June 2019: Reposted for the fourth time to add new information.

I was able to duct tape that contraption back together and it has survived a year of biblical rains and 25-below-zero temps.  Not sure how much it's being utilized; I should do a survey of it later this summer.

But this week I saw a post at Neatorama with new information about backyard bee houses, citing a Gizmodo article entitled "Your Cheap-Ass Bee House is probably Killing the Bees" -

The most prevalent problem with bee houses is that when they’re not cared for properly, they can become breeding grounds for pests, mold, fungus, and disease...

Pollen mites are one of the biggest threats to the habitability of bee houses located in humid environments or built of materials like bamboo that don’t dry easily. “If there’s no way for moisture to dissipate from the nest then the mites take over,” Purrington said...

Packing a bunch of [normally solitary] species together into one box is not only ecologically weird, it can make them targets, Mader said. “The cheek-to-cheek occupancy of bee houses helps predators (woodpeckers for example), parasites (including wasps, mites, and others), and diseases find a dense host-bee population to exploit.”..

... it’s bad for bees when a house is tied loosely to a tree or a post with a string rather than tightly secured in place... “The bees can’t land if it’s flapping around in the wind,” he said of mason bees. “They’re terrible at landing.”

...it’s a good idea to cover the houses with metal netting to keep the birds out, as woodpeckers and bluejays find bee houses to be great restaurants.

You learn something every day.

Cat hair and dryer lint

Based on something I read somewhere, I decided to repurpose an empty suet feeder by stuffing it with wads of dryer lint and cat fur (harvested humanely with a comb).

Yesterday I was rewarded by seeing a hummingbird hovering at the dangling feeder, pulling some fibers out, dropping them, then selecting some others that she flew away with.

I don't know which she chose; the contents of the feeder are poked in at random (I should probably arrange it with one offering on the left, the other on the right).  Does anyone know from experience which she preferred?

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging hat to reader Wild Birds Unlimited Mid-Michigan for commenting that dryer lint is not recommended as material to offer birds for nesting.

Remember to prune

This photo of a transected hedge reminded me that one gardening skill I have never acquired is the ability/willingness to aggressively prune perennials.  A decade ago the burning bush (Euonymus spp.) next to our sidewalk was chest-high.

Because I loved the vivid autumn color, I pruned it minimally, so now it is enormous and extending over the sidewalk.

Now if I try to prune it back, I encounter the hardwood branches revealed in the top cross-section photo, which might not leaf out if pruned to that level.  And if I don't prune, visitors who brush against it learn what one commenter said when viewing the cut hedge:

"...as a kid, running into one playing football or something and thinking it would be soft. nope, stabby."

Stabby is right.  

The lesson repeats itself elsewhere.  The birch behind the burning bush was planted too near the house, then leaned out over the sidewalk seeking light and had to be sacrificed when winter snows brought in down too low.  Our crabapple has gone in 18 years from tidy to enormous and now drops fruit everywhere.  The junipers change from tidy to bulky.  Everything in the garden competes for the limited light and water.  As a gardener I should be more assertive in setting limits for them. 

Perhaps in my next life.

The rites of spring

As a partial explanation of my absence from the blog for several days, I'll offer this photoessay showing the outburst of growth in the woods behind our home.  This past winter was unusually prolonged, so when non-Arctic temperatures finally arrived, most people in this part of the country rushed outdoors.  I headed to the woods behind our house.  (The photos should enlarge with a click)

This tree arches over the entry to the woods; this past winter we had several dead and undesirable trees taken out and failed to realize that this tree was leaning on one of those.  When its support was removed it bent to the extent that the top branches now touch the ground.  Not sure if they will collect enough light there for the tree to thrive, but for now it creates a living gateway.

In the Upper Midwest of the U.S., the primary choices for foliage plants in shaded woodlands are hostas.   This cluster at the base of the arching tree was one of the first I planted perhaps 10 years ago.  It will fill out to cover the entire mulched area before midsummer.  All except one of the clusters have had Repellex tablets placed in the root zone in an effort to dissuade rabbits from enjoying lunch here; one plant serves as a control.  We'll see what happens.

 

An even more striking foliage plant in my view is Pulmonaria spp.  I think we planted just a few; now they have proliferated in scattered locations in the woods.  I love the leaf patterns; the flowers are a bonus in the early spring but don't last long.  

These Lilies of the Valley came to us in an exchange with a neighbor to whom we donated some of the pulmonaria.  The other flowers in bloom this week include the bleeding hearts (photo at the top of this post), phlox, trillium, bluebells, dandelions, wild geraniums and violets.

 

Last fall I spent uncounted hours laying down landscape fabric and then dragging tarps full of hardwood mulch to the woods to create walking paths.   There's still lots of work to do to finish the paths (I'm laying down logs from the cut trees and partially embedding them on the sides of the paths to keep the mulch from spreading.   The paths give me a more secure footing for walking and also subdivide the garden into areas where we can experiment with different botanical combinations.

This hosta was the first one I planted in the woods after I spent the better part of probably two summers grubbing out the buckthorn and honeysuckle underbrush by the roots.  The soil back here is black loam several inches deep, and the other plants love it once you remove the invasives that steal all the water and light.  This fellow will be huge by the end of the summer; I probably should subdivide him.

We've added bluebells; these are not the English bluebells that you see in immense masses in the forests of the National Trust in Britain.  I put chicken wire around this cluster this week to keep the rabbits at bay, because we want to harvest the seeds to scatter in other areas of the woods.  Last summer the rabbits nibbled these down to the ground.

 

It makes sense to incorporate some landscape features into the planting scheme (and it makes way more sense than trying to move them).  Here three varieties of hosta cluster around a set of large boulders.

Some phlox was initially planted in the center of this area; it has now spread up and down the hillside.  The ferns are escaping from their bed and may have to be restrained because they will shade out everything else, and they are aggressive spreaders in soil like this.

A felicitous combination of plants - Jacks in the Pulpit at the far left just getting started, a variegated hosta, a Pulmonaria cluster, and at the far right some native violets.

Both the white trillium and the yellow ones need some protection from rabbits until they manage to spread to some distant locations.  The chicken wire is unattractive and "unnatural,", but is a temporary means to an end.

I really enjoy having Jacks-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) in the woods.  Never had to plant them; the year after I got out all the invasive underbrush, a couple Jacks emerged.  Now there are hundreds of them; the largest/oldest ones in the woods get as high as my thigh.

Last fall I wrote a post for this blog about propagating Jacks; I heard recently from my friend that her transplants have emerged and appear healthy.

I'll be back out in the woods and yard in the days to come.  Also facing the annual monster chore of Cleaning The Garage.  And hobby and family stuff is accelerating - and the Monarchs will be arriving within a week or so.  So the blog posts will be fewer for the next several weeks.

Reposted from 2013 to add some additional photos:

The bleeding hearts are five years older and the plants somewhat bigger.  I think there are more "hearts" in each array now, but that may be my imagination.

The trillium are also larger and more numerous, but the area they cover has increased only by a couple square meters, with only a few outliers beyond the original cluster.  That rate of change makes one appreciate how many centuries it must have required when they eventually cover a forest floor as far as one can see in every direction.

We now have some purple trillium, probably Trillium flexipes ("bent trillium") rather than Trillium erectum, which are native to eastern woodlands, and which I used to love to photograph when I lived in Kentucky.  I've not seen them native in Minnesota/Wisconsin but maybe I haven't walked enough woods.  They also have multiplied slowly; I think the oxalic acid in their leaves protects them from rabbit predation.

Two winters ago a large oak fell in our woods.  It wasn't practicable to harvest the wood, and the work of removing the deadfall would have been enormous because of its size, so it now serves as a new "feature" on that slope - and provides a handy place to sit and rest one's gluteus maximus while gardening.  Also a nice contrast to the ferns backlit by the late-afternoon sun.