#minnesota

Enjoying the quiet that goes with a good snowfall ❄️
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#snow #minnesota #weather #grove #pinetrees #home (at Stella + Poppy)

Virtual County Fair Art Sale

Today’s featured print is “Rails Through Easton”

Welcome to my hometown of Easton, Minnesota!  Population 199 (maybe). 

Photographed in August 2016.

This limited edition black and white print is available exclusively on natural brushed aluminum.  The highlights in the sky on this print literally shine and change as the light in the room changes!

Purchase yours here: https://etsy.me/39EhQSO

It’s disappointing to not have the Faribault or Blue Earth County Fairs this year, so all this week I’m having a virtual County Fair sale featuring prints from around my hometown area!

Get 10% off this collection of prints, plus during this sale, I’ll be donating 10% of sales to The Friends of the BWCA - a grassroots non-profit that fights to protect this Minnesota treasure.

Browse the collection here:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/afsonnek?section_id=1

To find out more about Friends of the BWCA, click here: https://www.friends-bwca.org/

Virtual Aquatennial continues with another new print release - “Skyline Storm”

The city lights cast a warm orange glow across the bottom of an otherwise dark and ominous shelf cloud as it sweeps across downtown Minneapolis.  A cold wind interrupts the humid still air.  Lightening strikes in the distance.  I get one last snap and retreat to safety.

The city lights and lightning looks especially striking on glossy brushed aluminum.  The highlights on this print literally shine and change as the light in the room changes.

This image will be limited to 100 prints.  Each comes signed and numbered.

Plus, this week I’m offering this and my Limited Edition Mpls Aqua prints with a 10% discount, and I’ll still donate 10% of sales of these to the Aquatennial Ambassadors Organization’s Scholarship Fund.

You can find it and more of my Aquatennial Limited Editions here:https://www.etsy.com/shop/afsonnek?section_id=1

For more info about the AAO Scholarship Fund: https://www.aquatennialambassadors.com/scholarship#printsforsale#aqua2020#aquatennial#minneapolis#captureminneapolis#mytwincities#twincitieslove#minnesota#exploremn#onlyinmn#capturemn#iloveminnesota#minnesota365#mnproud#bestofmn#myminnesota#mnexposure

Iconic Spoonbridge & Cherry

Celebrating my love of Minneapolis during our virtual Aquatennial with a new print available featuring the iconic Spoonbridge & Cherry!

Plus, this week I’m offering this and my Limited Edition Mpls Aqua prints with a 10% discount, and I’ll still donate 10% of sales of these to the Aquatennial Ambassadors Organization’s Scholarship Fund.

Purchase yours here: https://etsy.me/3hxE7UT

For more info about the AAO Scholarship Fund: https://www.aquatennialambassadors.com/scholarship

The Big Dipper, comet Neowise, and Minnesota Lake

July 21, 2020, approximately an hour after sunset.

Missing the Minneapolis Aquatennial this year?  For the first time ever, I’m offering my Limited Edition Mpls Aqua prints with a discount to help lift your spirits. Plus, I’ll still donate 10% of sales of these to the Aquatennial Ambassadors Organization.

Click here for the sale:  https://etsy.me/2NyLQoJ

More info about the AAO:  https://www.aquatennialambassadors.com/

A New Dawn

I haven’t put a new photo out there in a long time, and I wanted to use this opportunity to dig through my archive of RAW files and do something I enjoy while at my desk.  This photo was taken at first light at our camp in Tettegouche State Park. It’s a reminder that in these times of trouble, it always seems darkest just before the dawn. Sitting here, thinking about better days ahead.

2018 Fave 9

These are 9 of my favorite images of 2018 that did not make it on the “2018 Top 9″ of my most popular images on Instagram.

Go to http://afsonnek.com/2019/01/2018-photo-highlights/ to see and read about them all, plus my “2018 Top 9.”

2018 Top 9

These are my “Top 9” photos from Instagram. I do post to other social media platforms, but popularity of my photos there tend to trend much the same way as Instagram.

Go to http://afsonnek.com/2019/01/2018-photo-highlights/ to see and read about them all, plus my additional “2018 Fave 9″.

Bare November

A series of interesting naked tree limbs taken in the late autumn.

The Moody November Series

The cold loneliness of the last leaf clinging on in an otherwise barren landscape really sets the mood of the month.

A fairy-tale like trail turns to the stuff of nightmares after the bright high summer sun, canopy of leaves, and chirping birds and insects disappear for the season. Gnarly tree branches and roots, jagged rocks, and the dead silence of the empty woods (except for the occasional scampering of a rodent through the fallen leaves) greet you on your way down to the Minnesota River in Minneopa State Park.

Crossing a small footbridge on a lonely walk in the woods of November makes one stop to ponder trolls and other supernatural creatures stirring about. But then you realize it’s just the squirrels gathering the last scrap of nuts before the snow sets in.

Gray November

A few birch trees and road leading into campground at Minneopa State Park on an overcast day.

A re-edit of a photo I took last fall. After a nice autumn day of hiking Interstate State Park, we were rewarded with a sunset over the Saint Croix River gorge between Wisconsin (left) and Minnesota (right). Interesting geek fact - the gorge is an ancient fault line crack in the exposed rock that is more than half the age of the earth.

A shot from one of the last days of summer at Minneopa Falls.

Sunset on the Serengeti?  Nope - it’s the bison preserve at Minneopa State Park just outside Mankato, Minnesota.

More scenes from the Big Garden.

I planted a new strawberry last summer, I’m very particular about which and where I plant so I can tell them apart and figure out the best varieties for our conditions after some unproductuve duds. When I found these edible ornamentals with COLOUR FLOWERS I snatched them up, both for the novelty and easy identification! They’re a light and dark pink, specific to each mother plant. One tag said “Toscana”, which there is plenty of info online about but the other was something like “Havana” or “Hovana” but I can’t any information on it. Or even any other shades/names for pink strawberies besides Toscana, so make of that what you will. They are doing great as a garden perennial and also look fantastic cascading out of a hanging basket, which is how I origionally bought them.

I’m also very excited to see my buckweat flowering, although of the three pounds of seeds I planted it was considerably sparse. Rodents have been digging up my seeds just as fast as I plant them, sometimes eliminating entire crops before they can sprout, and it’s become an epidemic in our garden… I’m hoping to fill in gaps around the garden and between beds with Buckwheat to use as bee forage. A local homesteader recommended it for it’s fast growth and ease of uprooting when rotating crops. It also produces a dark molasses-like honey if a lot is available.

July 17, 2017

Summer garden getting into full swing!

Here’s some hardy roses, greens clipped for lunch, our hugelkultur mounds with perennial berries and herbs, a ground cover of radishes and rye that I pull up and use as green manure (it’s been coming back for a few years, anywhere I drop the seeds), squash vines (on a hugel mound) with a cattle panel set up for a trellis, and tractor tire raised bed full of tomatoes.

Finally, what I’m hoping will be a snake habitat to control pests. It’s set into a hugel mound that the rodents made nests and tunnels in, there’s a water dish nearby and the bricks and rocks catch the sun and warm up. I’ll let the grass around it grow long to create cover. Strawberries grow on top.

July 16/17, 2017

The end of the Driveway garden! Since we got the Big Garden going we don’t need it like we did and can spend our days working in the backyard with the animal and woods around us rather than listening to traffic. The backyard is also fenced better and a nicer place for the Kiddo to play while I work.

After tearing up the old fence and moving all the rocks we’d placed at the base, Lieblings used a box blade behind the tractor to smooth it out. Now we have a lot more space for parking and whatnot. The box blade is a pretty handy implement for leveling the ground, we also used it to correct the bad ruts (some were a foot deep) that form in the spring melt.

July 7, 2017

July 10, 2017