Serena Loses It

After my Sturday morning tennis adventure at Wooddale, I went over to the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary to see what PP was doing. She had invited me to drop by and see her at work restoring the prairie. Today, she and her Minnesota Conservation Corps (MCC) crew were gathering grass seeds for later use in seeding other prairie restorations. She has a crew of six high school age workers who are interested in nature and get paid to work on various projects. It was fun to see her at work and see some of the people that she has been working with. I guess they are required to wear the yellow hard hats. It was a hot, streamy day, and I'd already played three sets of tennis, so I didn't hang around long.



On my subsequent stroll in the sanctuary, I encountered these very red berries on a bush near a stream at the base of the tall cliff. I took a sample to PP and she said that she thinks they are high bush cranberries. I didn't taste them, but they did seem to be a miniature version of the Thanksgiving berries that we usually get out of their can shaped mold in November.



Today for me was the fourth of five straight days of tennis of one form or another. I must admit that I'm wearing down a bit and the quality of my play indicates that a day off is required. Maybe Monday. Today it was practice for the mixed nationals with Jerry and the hardcore girls. My side was dusted pretty well in the first two sets, but managed to win the meaningless third set. I was happy to get home for lunch and I hoped to see some of the US Open tournament going on sporadically between rain showers in New York. Rafa Nadal advanced to the semis this afternoon as he completed his quarterfinal by shutting out Gonzo Gonzalez in seven straight games.

The semi between Clijsters and Serena tonight ended oddly with Serena losing the last two points on a foot fault - double fault followed by a loss of a point for abusing a referee for the foot fault call. Unfortunately the point she lost was match point and it sent Serena to the lockers and Clijsters to the final against Wozniacki tomorrow 6-4, 7-5. The men's semis are also tomorrow. It should be a very good day of tennis action.

Unky Herb is spending the weekend in Chicago. I am hoping that he'll return with some of that tasty crab sushi from the Asian store there that he frequents. Delicious.