WISCONSIN IS ALL GREEN AND GOLD, LIKE A PACKERS FOOTBALL JERSEY

GOLDENROD...

BLACK-EYED SUSAN

THE GARDEN IN LATE SUMMER...A GLORIOUS JUMBLE

Monday, 8:00 AM.  70 degrees at the ferry dock, 67 on the back porch.  The sky is partly cloudy, the humidity is 95% and everything is sopping wet from the 1.75" of rain last night's thunderstorms left us. The barometer is steady, now at 29.82" and hopefully we will get some nice weather.
   Our trip to Milwaukee was quick, down and back.  I am beginning to feel like a yo-yo, but we had a an excellent time at the family 90th birthday party and had a good visit with cousins, second cousins and lots of children we hadn't as yet met.  The extended family is a blessing indeed.
   The effects of last winter's extreme cold, ice, snow and wind are virtually gone, new needles replacing the brown on evergreens, and dead trees engulfed by new life.  Nature heals herself. An interesting phenomena I have noted, however, is that our tamaracks in the back yard never produced any cones so far this year, and it is too late now to do so.  Tamarack, Larix decidua, is a far northern species, so it is well within its natural habitat, although we are getting close to the southwestern edge of its range in northwestern Wisconsin.  I suspect it was the vicious winds that killed the buds of the new cones.
   The garden suddenly looks like late summer, with cone flowers and tall Phlox now dominating the glorious jumble.   Wisconsin is a lush, green carpet from north to south, the roads lined with yellow ribbons of mostly golden rods of different species, and black-eyed Susans. The entire state is all green and gold, like a Packers football jersey.