Fern Room

It's been a wintry January and cold. The streets of St Paul are rutted with ice, and more snow is on its way tonight. Even on cold January days it's necessary to get out and about, see the winter environment, and perhaps to search out some life. I went to the Como Conservatory in search of the poinsettia show. PP was available so she went with me. There were people there, not as many as on weekends, but a good representation of the populace. They were perhaps, like me, looking for proof that plant life still exists in the land of Woebegone.

The fern room is usually pass through territory for me, but PP noticed several ferns that are related to native Minnesota ferns, so we tarried a while. There is a dark water pool in the room which provides dark reflections of the structure of the room and the ferns themselves. Instead of flowers, today we show a picture of rocks, water and ferns. Ferns are ancient plants dating from an era before flowers evolved on the earth, but they held on and are found all over the planet.



After I came home, I was looking through some of the old, old photos that I have in my possession. This one was in bad shape, cracking and continuing to turn dark with age. I scanned it into my Mac and used iPhoto to restore some luster and definition to it. It was taken in 1917 and shows Grandma Hansine Anderson with her three oldest children, Lillie, Marvin, and Leona. The writing on the back says that it was taken at the Anderson family farm. Hansine was 22 in 1917. Lillie, my mom, was about 3 and a half.


No tennis today. I played two sets yesterday at Fort Snelling and I'm on again for tomorrow night at Wooddale. My play yesterday was less than perfect, but I had good moments and my racket seemed to have a mind of its own at times. It was nice to have a place to be in out of the elements and to be able to run around like a young buck. The temperature outside the bubble was in the low single digits, not warm enough by quite a bit to be able to melt ice.

January is not my favorite month.