18 May 2018 Holden Plant Sale

we visited Holden Arboretum for the plant sale. I needed to take a business call so I wandered off into the crabapple collection while Ali waited to pay for our wildflowers. If you need to take a business call on a vacation day, it is nice to be able to take it on a sunny day wandering through trees in blossom.

19 May 2017 Holden Arboretum

Our annual visit to Holden Arboretum for the plant sale is a relaxing past-time for us. The weather is always a lottery game, but today was outstanding.

21 August 2016 Taking a Break

We've been planning for some time to have the exterior of our 1850's home restored. Last year Ali had contractors correct a build issue with a section of the foundation. This year was the big, long haul with windows, doors, siding, rebuilt porches, and a rebuilt, corrected addition. My activity has been limited to some yard work and landscaping to assist the crews and keeping out of way, but Ali's been dealing with three to four groups on site at a time working basically 360 degrees around the house. It's life in a fishbowl. Today was a day to take a break. After a pleasant walk at a Lake Metropark to find a new cache, we headed to Holden for more walking in the gardens.

Oh No! They have sacrificed a geocache container to build a bat box! ;)

It looks like the base of a 50 cal.

16 July 2016 Holden

I was on my way to Mexico the following day so we spent our afternoon with a quiet walk at Holden Arboretum. Birds were plentiful on our journey.

13 May 2016 Holden Plant Sale

I made a late drive back from North Carolina to be home for a visit to Holden Arboretum and the annual plant sale. We added more wildflowers to plant in Pennsylvania and enjoyed a quiet lunch together before taking a short walk on the grounds. The weather was a happy addition.

11 June 2015 Holden

We decided to go for an evening walk at Holden with the dogs. We parked at one of the remote members-only lots to take a familiar walk. Our early walk was great as we spotted a swallows and an unidentified bird while enjoying the sites and sounds of red-winged blackbirds.

We hoped to get a better view of family of wood ducks we spotted on the water, but the sounds of the dogs quickly sent them scurrying into the dense plants along the water's edge.

This is a good area to look for summer wildflowers. This evening daisies were plentiful.

Our walk was cut short early as Ali stepped in a hole along the trail and turned an ankle. We went on for a short bit, but it was obvious she was in pain.

It's not often that Air Force jets can be seen refueling over the skies in Northeast Ohio. It looks like an ancient KC-135 topping off a C-17.

It looks like we caught site of the pair just as refueling was finished. Seconds later, the boom had been retracted.

We were almost back to Subie when we started noticing the cedar waxwings. There were many, many cedar waxwings. We've seen them gather before in large numbers, usually when there are berries nearby. This evening it was small cherries in trees near the trail. Any time we can spot these beautiful birds is a treat.

10 May 2014 Holden

We don't visit Holden as often as we should. It is a beautiful location every season. This evening we stopped for a walk with the dogs after an afternoon of chores in the yard. The spring wildflowers are running their course, but there were still some to be seen on our walk.

These bellworts were attractive. There was a large carpet on the ground.

We have been lucky to see male orioles on our journeys. The female is not so easy to spot. Today we were able to see both of them in the same group of trees.

9 February 2014 Snowshoes at Holden

Normally, we would have brought our cross-country skis today and covered a lot of territory at the arboretum. I still have very little stamina after being sick so we brought our snowshoes and enjoyed a relaxing walk through the frosted trees.

3 May 2013 Surprise News

There's a few ritual places I pencil in each year to relax. One of those has been the Holden Arboretum plant sale. Today was the day of the sale. It's spring and even my thumb is green. Before we went to the plant sale, we made a visit to our vet. Our dog Eva had been sick for a couple days and didn't appear to be improving. A short time after our arrival at the vet, we knew there was bad news when the vet came into the room battling tears. Eva had a large cancer growth pushing against her heart and windpipe causing her sudden illness. Sometimes you know there's no long term happy news. This was one of those times. We still went to the plant sale, but it was with heavy hearts.

15 December 2012 Late Afternoon at Holden

20 October 2012 Bole Woods