Back from the Midwest

I just got back yesterday from a 12-day trip to Minnesota and Iowa to see family.  I forgot to take my camera and had to rely on my smart phone.  Sorry for the poor quality snaps.  Let's not call them blurry but "impressionistic" instead.

Corn blown over from 75+ mph straight line winds in Iowa on July 11th.  Surprisingly, to me at least, most of the damaged corn stood up relatively straight within a few days.

View from the road, over the ditch, and into my parents' pasture in Iowa.  I love the juxtaposition of grasses.

I spent a lot of time in Iowa photographing the perennials in ditches and unfarmed areas, even stepping on a sleeping rabbit at one point (sorry chap!) because I wasn't watching my feet.  Pretty sure this is a veronicastrum, or Culver's root.

Great mix of textures.

Helianthus I think, making inroads in a wicked colony of equisetum.

probably asclepias incarnata 

Asclepias syriaca

Turk's Cap Lilies

Purple coneflowers 

Hollyhocks from the demonstration beds at Seed Savers in Decorah, Iowa.  We stopped in on our drive from Minneapolis to NE Iowa.  I have often wondered what their operation was like but had never thought about visiting until Frank blogged about it right before we left.  I picked up a few seed packets and some dried green flageolet beans for cassoulet in their store, then wandered the farm until my antsy, hot kids couldn't take it any longer.  Thanks, Frank.

Love this dark hollyhock.  I bought some Nigra Hollyhock seeds to try some in our garden.

Gorgeous veggies, Seed Savers' specialty.

I left the blasting heat and buckling freeways of Minneapolis to come back to my hot NJ garden, only to find that the heat wave is following me across the country.  Thanks to my neighbor Ray's care while I was gone, our garden looks pretty good for late July.  Fingers crossed and soaker hoses deployed for the coming blast.