I've had the luxury of packing our bags leisurely over the last couple of days for our longest vacation yet--a month-long stay at my parents' farm in rural Minnesota. Our family has stayed there three weeks, but never four and never yet during the month of June. I think it will be wonderful. The only challenge during preparation for travel was figuring out how to fit two large suitcases, four people, and a BOB child stroller into a Toyota Corolla. It's the first time I had a space-challenge with my tiny, efficient car, but I think I figured it out. Someone will have to pick up our car at the airport since we are on the (only flight these days) 1am flight, and several people will allow Harley, the sleepy yet energetic pug, to stay with them while we are away. The neighbor will water my garden from time to time. She promises to work miracles.
It is DRY. You can see that without watering the lawn it is brown. It is the end of May and it hasn't really started to grow yet. People who care for nice lawns are sprinkling like crazy. I planted my garden a week ago; salad greens and radishes and some other things appeared within just a few days. It's been 80. I hope to have a garden and greenhouses like my retired neighbor someday. Although her electric bill is outrageous because she has to keep light and heat on her vegetables from January to May, her tomato plants are taller than I am and she feeds her family the entire year with her preserved produce.
I hear Minnesota is about 20 degrees cooler and has been getting plenty of rain. I always feel like I'm flying into a tropical rainforest when we go there from here in the summer. There are so many degrees of the color green. I'm sure coming home to this arctic desert after being in sandy desert would seem lush and green also. 
The White Spruce trees are self-sufficient. I know that they were reluctant to show new growth this spring, but toward the end of May they finally did. They must be finding water somewhere down there.
Here is where the color is. A wonderful graduation gift from a friend, this fruitless Plum bush was. I hope it fares better than the 3 spruce trees did that surround it. I won't know if they, last years transplants, made it through the winter until I get back. This pink bush has been attracting bees and butterflies, and I will have to be sure to bag it in fall so the moose don't mow it. This and a Late Lilac I recieved from the electric company for Arbor Day are my babies this year.
There is some life in other places too. And I'm not taking about mosquitos, which we have plenty of this year. The trees that we planted when we were married, 2 birches and 3 bird cherries are thriving. This 3rd year I have stopped babying them. They'll have to fend for themselves like the spruces do from now on.
The "sticker bushes" that will produce pink roses are growing wild and large, along the sides of the driveway. Seeing their flowers is one thing I'll miss when we're away. Elm and Willow are rapidly taking over the bare areas where spruce have been taken down by beetles. And the riverbanks are green and have wilted blue and white wildflowers. Even the banks are in need of rain. It's perfect forest-fire weather. This morning, there is the slightest smell of smoke and it looks hazy in the distance.
I hear Minnesota is about 20 degrees cooler and has been getting plenty of rain. I always feel like I'm flying into a tropical rainforest when we go there from here in the summer. There are so many degrees of the color green. I'm sure coming home to this arctic desert after being in sandy desert would seem lush and green also. This is some of the summer work that awaits us. We also plan to build a composter, 6 garden beds, and a wood shed. Also, with my boys and while they nap, I will pick raspberries, blueberries, and high bush cranberries to my heart's content . . . until the snow falls.
