McKenna-Tessman.com Home Page

We moved in late May 2017, but I haven't updated our web page until now. We were living on a lake but now we are in farm country. At the top left is the house we are renting, decorated for Halloween. In Minnesota the weather often goes from a warm Fall to what seems like Mid-winter in a moment. We had our first snow, 4.4" on November 3rd. Luckily it didn't last long. October was just a little warmer than normal so we were able to get away using propane for a few minutes each day. Last year we were heating with wood in September but this year we didn't start to heat with wood until 10/26/17. Now we are heating with wood daily. The stove is a good one but this house is an old one and it isn't as well insulated as the last.

I haven't taken as many foliage photos as I did in previous years, there aren't all that many trees in the immediate area. I didn't realize until I got here how much I missed seeing the sky. We now have a great view of the sky so I take sunset photos when I can.

Though this is no longer a working farm there are still leftovers from the working farm such as the old silos.

  Here is a photo of the house in daylight.

Birding here is not like birding on a lake. There just aren't that many birds. We had a rare one, the Red Crossbill on June 17th. Not a pretty bird but worth showing.

We were excited to find out that Yellow-headed Blackbirds were nesting in a nearby preserve. Quite a lot of local land is set aside as breeding land for ducks and geese. The same area attracts Gulls and Terns, in particular the Black Tern. This photo is from June 14th.

We had Kestrels hanging around our yard and we managed to get a few decent photos.