A Quiet June Day

The rains from yesterday flooded parts of southern Minnesota and the winds broke a branch off my long suffering ash tree in the front yard. But the sun was shining and I needed to walk or something to shake the cobwebs from my brain. The falls at Minnehaha Park are a popular destination for me and I wanted to see if the rains had affected the volume of water going over the edge. There was a healthy flow, and there were a lot of visitors to the park today. It's Friday and people are taking advantage of June to have a few of those long weekends.

 

 I walked all the way to the Mississippi River and back along Minnehaha Creek. At the end by the river, a guy asked me if this was the Mississippi River. I admitted that it was. Then he asked me the name of the creek that he's just followed to the big river. I told him Minnehaha Creek. He said he'd been here about twenty years ago and didn't remember the names. I walked back to the falls, climbed the steps (about 100 of them I think) and walked by the trendy Se Salt restaurant. It was 12:30 and there was a line 100 feet long extending out the door, waiting to order seafood.  I came home for lunch. 

As I stepped out of the garage on my return from the park, this cardinal was sitting on the fence. As I readied my camera, he flew to the tree and I got just one shot before he moved on.

 

There are other wild animals in the area. A bunny, probably not named Bugs, who lives in my neighborhood, maybe even in my very own bushes or PP's native plant garden, where he lurks waiting for veggies to appear from my garden. This one is a baby, freshly minted, and equipped with a ready hunger.