Tennis Tousan

Two Scarves and a Pond

2012-02-20T15:24:00.000-06:00

The theme for today seems to have been decided by chance and the photos that I took. Santini is wearing a new scarf that was created by the Girl from the North Country (GFTNC). It's a winter weight scarf, but looks very good on a summer weight jacket. Incidentally, there was absolutely no need for a jacket today.

The GFTNC found a natural scarf hanging from a southern pine and used it as a wrap. It's Spanish moss on a tree near Ollie's Pond and probably wouldn't work in a more northern clime. It does show a bit of flare.

Ollie's Pond was very attractive today as we walked around it. It's heavily populated with a variety of water birds, and I plan to go back with a longer lens so that I can capture a few of them on "film."

It was and is a beautiful day in Southwest Florida.

Refreeze

2012-02-11T18:58:00.002-06:00

Winter made a return visit to the northland today. It was the first day with below average temperature in a very long time. It was one degree fahrenheit early this morning when I was on my way to Wooddale to play Saturday tennis, and it warmed all the way to 19 when I was visiting the big falls in Minneapolis this afternoon.

The falls had nearly melted the last time I was there and actually posted a picture of the falls, that on December 6. This is the scene today. The creek is frozen over, too.

And this is what the falls looked like on January 6, in a previously unpublished photo.

The creek on the way to the Mississippi is frozen hard, but somehow looks strange without a halo of snow along the banks.

The big tennis news of the weekend is the Davis Cup results from Switzerland. The US team defeated the Swiss team - a team composed of Roger Federer (ranked #3 in the world) and Stan Wawrinka (ranked #27) with a team of John Isner (#17) and Mardy Fish (#8) - plus a doubles team composed of Fish and Mike Bryan. Isner upset Federer in four sets and Mardy Fish won a five set match from Wawrinka on clay in Fribourg, Switzerland. It was the first loss for Roger in Davis Cup singles in eight years. Fish and Bryan beat Fed and Wawrinka (the reigning Olympic doubles champions) in four sets in the doubles event for an insurmountable 3-0 lead.

The second big news is that I managed to play four consecutive days of tennis this week and still had enough energy to win a set this morning at Wooddale, and to hold off the opponents long enough for time to run out with the score 6-6. Oxygen was not available at the tennis club, but I was able to get home and have a nutritious lunch before my trek to Minnehaha Falls this afternoon.

Pike Island Creatures

2012-02-09T16:51:00.003-06:00

It was another reasonably warm day - my car thermometer said 39 - and a chance to get some exercise before Thursday night tennis. I went over to the state park and decided to walk south on Pike Island. On the way to the parking area I passed at least five white tail deer - too far away for a decent photo - so I continued to the big island. It was a pleasant day, but the lack of snow made it seem like late November, or maybe like winter in Memphis. On the way to the island there is a new statue representing a common creature in the flood plain, the beaver.

After a walk down the island and back on a fruitless quest for more wild deer or turkeys, I came back to the bridge that separates the mainland from Pike Island. There have been beavers at work here, apparently gathering building materials for a new lodge. Real beavers.

They've been busy chomping on tree trunks. The beaver lodge was fashioned from the gnawed down trees near the waterway.

There were other creatures - a gaggle of Canada geese were waddling along the edge of the waterway, the deer which I saw on the way in were still around, and I got a couple of distant photos, not of sufficient quality for the blog, and lots of squirrels - vermin.

A bonus photo of an isolated bench, surrounded by brown fallen leaves in the middle of Pike Island. The snowless landscape is still pretty much brown and yes, nearly snowless.

It's Thursday and there will be some tennis played at Wooddale tonight. I'll be there trying to stay competitive with Jerry and the hardcore girls.

February in the snowless winter

2012-02-07T19:47:00.000-06:00

It has been a mild winter, but today the temperature went back closer to average and it felt a little frigid. The ice had a chance to begin to thicken up again after a couple of days with highs in the 40's. The warnings about thin ice are serious and are usually observed. There were reports of people in Minnesota going through the ice and not being able to rescue themselves. Today, at Upper Lake in Crosby Farm Park, there were no ice walkers and very few dry land walkers. It's Tuesday, for one thing, and it was 20 degrees colder than yesterday.

I had a walk around Upper Lake and along the Mississippi. Upper Lake is thinly iced over, the Mississippi is ice free.

Upper Lake, where the thin ice lies. It's impossible to tell how thin the ice is, so it's best to stay on terra firma.

A beaver lodge sits on the edge of Upper Lake. There are beavers living in this mud domicile, but they don't come out to play in the day light.

A bonus photo of quite a primitive bench to add to the bench collection. This is near the northern end of Upper Lake.

As you can see we're nearly devoid of snow pack. There is unlikely to be a flood on the Mississippi this spring - a mixed blessing.

Not a groundhog

2012-02-02T23:25:00.001-06:00

The groundhog didn't see his shadow in St Paul today. It was foggy and dreary the whole day. I also heard via the radio that the groundhog's history of weather predictions for the rest of the winter has an accuracy of 39%. Abysmal.

I missed the blog theme day yesterday and didn't take a photo today - too dreary. But I have in my archives a photo of a Como Zoo tiger from December of 2007, a year when there was an actual winter. With snow and everything.

I played two sets of tennis at Wooddale tonight. Both of the hardcore girls were absent, but the subs were competitive and tennis went well. Then I went to Yang's for Singapore rice noodles and a chat with the Yangs while I was waiting for the take-out order to be filled. We discussed my recent trip to Norway and the difference of climate between here and there. Interestingly, they both knew that Norway has a border with Russia in the far north, well north of the Arctic Circle. Up there by Murmansk.

Super Bowl Sunday is three days off. Tom Brady or Eli Manning?

Nearly groundhog's day

2012-02-01T16:03:00.001-06:00

Sometimes these blog entries are more like weather reports. The unreal winter of 2011-2012 continues. Yesterday it was 48 in St Paul, the day before 41. That's usually too warm for January, but maybe it's just make-up for last year's very snowy winter. It's now February and while it's still above freezing - 34 now, it still feels like late fall or maybe early spring. There was no tennis with the geezers today. Dr. Bill was giving his one-man stand up impersonation of Mark Twain at a matinee in Bloomington, so we played tennis yesterday instead.

Today I took a walk around my favorite city lake to see if there were any animals or strange happenings to get into a photo. No animals of note, and no odd occurrences to report today, but it was still nice to be out and about.

It was still misty from a morning fog that refused to burn off. The tree below stands next to the lake. The mostly puddled lake surface is in the background.

Even in a year when the temperatures are near record highs for winter, it is possible to ice fish in St Paul. This guy was very much at home, walking on frozen water on Lake Como. He's braver or, at least, more foolhardy, than I am.

After our geezer tennis session yesterday, we discussed the current topic of grunting (screaming) in professional tennis. The recently completed Australian Open Tennis Tournament featured two of the loudest grunters (screamers) in women's tennis in the finals. Victoria Azarenka beat Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-0 in the finals. Sharapova's grunt (scream) has been measured at 101 decibels (a lion's roar is 110 decibels). Azarenka's is equivalent. Martina Navratilova, other pros, and many fans have labeled the grunts (screams) as a form of cheating. Others defend the practice as just an incidental part of the game. I found a scientific paper on-line that measures the effect of the noises and concludes that the grunts (screams) cause significant delay in response time of the receiver of the shot, and are indeed affecting the game.

So I'm agreeing with Martina and the others in hoping that the rules of tennis can be applied and obeyed by the grunters (screamers) so that this activity can be removed from competitive tennis courts.

One hundred and three years old today

2012-01-26T17:38:00.000-06:00

A 67+ year-old photo from about 1944. The old guy, Tom Miller, was 35 or so at the time. Today, 103. He's smoking and wearing a really nice fedora(?). The photo was likely taken at the "ranch" of Richard Anderson, his father-in-law. Jimmy and Tommy are the youngsters. The car is, I think, a 1938 Ford 4-door Sedan. See photo.

Whoever made time made a lot of it.

Lots of good tennis going on in Australia. The women's final will be contested tomorrow between the two worst screamers in the women's game: Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka. It'll likely be a good quality match that should be viewed using judicious application of the mute button. Tonight Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic vie to see who reaches the final against Rafa Nadal.

Ice fishing is a Minnesota thing

2012-01-24T22:45:00.000-06:00

I was out on Swan Lake over the weekend and took a few photos of a popular Minnesota January activity, ice fishing. It was a nice day for being out on the lake, the ice was plenty thick as you can tell from the chunk of nice next to the house, and there was enough sun to get photos. Whoever owned the house didn't seem to be around, but there had been some recent activity. The sled used to get the house into position is leaning against the side of the house.

There were other more actively used houses on the lake, too. There was a truck out on the lake by this ice house. The ice was strong enough to handle the weight of a truck, so a human walking on the ice wasn't in any imminent danger.

There was even a village of ice fishing houses on the far side of the lake.

Northern Minnesota has been cold enough in January to freeze the water firmly enough to fish on the ice, but it's a short season and, because it started late there isn't that much time left - maybe another month. Then it will be time to shovel the snow and ice off the tennis courts and get on with the tennis season.

I realized as I walked across the frozen lake that I was walking on water - frozen, of course - but it's an activity unavailable to residents of Florida and other southern states.

Superior Shores shores

2012-01-15T18:11:00.000-06:00

The reason they named this town north of Duluth Two Harbors is because it has two harbors. Oddly, this is not one of the harbors, but it is on Lake Superior. The ice on the rocks along the shore are the chief evidence that it is winter. The snow is still strangely absent from the north shore.

A rock on the bay.

A nice sunset on Lake Superior.

The Australian Open should be in progress as I am typing this. A fine fortnight of tennis is beginning.

Gooseberry Falls

2012-01-14T21:43:00.001-06:00

I hadn't been to Superior Shores since the northern Minnesota TRAM some years ago when we spent the last night of the bike trek in Two Harbors. It was a cool summer night when we came through, but this time it was 19 degrees and snowy. The big lake outside the hotel is clear of ice on this warmest of recent winters, but there was a layer of ice attached to the rocks which were just a few feet from shore. It's winter here now, and though we don't have much snow yet, there is plenty of cold wind and ice.

It was a good opportunity to visit Gooseberry Falls State Park about 15 miles north of Two Harbors. I was cold enough that I didn't expect to see many other souls out walking along the Gooseberry River, but I was surprised to see quite a few hardy folks outside, taking pictures and walking on the ice of the stream. There was a newly married couple, the bride still in white, walking to the river to have photos taken to commemorate their union. She looked cold and he looked sympathetic to her plight. There were photographers of all ages out to capture the mood of the day. And us.

We encountered an ice climber, well equipped with spiked boots, a couple of ice axes and a good quantity of ropes as he was about to attempt to scale one of the falls.

A panorama of three of the Gooseberry Falls - two of the middle Falls and the lower falls.

I add for postscripted fun, another fine example of the kind of benches that one can find in the state parks of Minnesota. This one overlooks one of Gooseberry River's five waterfalls.

The Australian Open tennis tournament opens tomorrow in Australia. It's the first of tennis' grand slam events of 2012.

Where is the winter?

2012-01-10T18:22:00.000-06:00

There should be ice on the Mississippi River. I went down to Crosby Farm park to get some exercise on a day when the temperature here was an unlikely 54 degrees. The warmest January 10th on record here by about five degrees. There was no ice on the river and very little snow along the banks of the big river. Weird.

But I walked around Upper Lake and the ice there was intact, but big puddles of water adorned the surface. This kind of weather is confusing the crocuses and the cottonwood trees. And some of the humans in town.

An unexpected gift from the white elephant party was this photo from 1965 that I hadn't seen in years, if ever. My memory isn't that good. It's the day in June that I graduated from Hamline University in St Paul. Forty six years have added wrinkles and subtracted hair. Thanks to Mark for bringing it and letting me keep it. The photo was originally in color, but it's faded, and I converted to black and white to reflect its age

A special greeting to the old married folks who just celebrated their 47th anniversary. I wish them many more happy years.

Meanwhile, outside ...

2012-01-09T19:51:00.001-06:00

I made another trip to the conservatory and took some more photos of poinsettias. It's a fine place to see some color on an otherwise pretty drab day. A lot of other color enthusiasts were doing the same thing.

Some more impressive poinsettias. There are apparently several varieties that have been created with white sections on the red leaves. Who knew?

The reflecting pond in the Sunken Garden was calm and lovely as usual.

It was a record setting warm day in Minnesota for January 9. Inside the poinsettias were blooming and outside the cocuses were getting confused by the warmth.Meanwhile these guys were ice fishing on Como in the 49 degree heat. I also encountered a couple of high school age guys running around the lake shirtless at the same time the ice fishermen were tempting fate out on the ice. A strange day in Minnesota.

The white elephant party went well on Saturday. We had 15 people exchanging gifts, eating pizza, salad, and pie while chatting and remembering previous Christmases and people not with us that night. The usual array of Christmas meat, bobble-head deities, and gag gifts changed hands. It was a fun evening and we are likely to continue the tradition again next year.

Forty-six

2012-01-05T17:38:00.000-06:00

It has been an unseasonable day. It's really too warm for a Minnesota January day, but who's complaining. It was 46 degrees in St Paul and 62 degrees somewhere in the southwest corner of the state. My appointment with a tennis racket isn't scheduled until tonight, so I decided to take a walk over by Minnehaha Falls. It was a little cloudy, but warm enough to bring out quite a few other walkers. I stopped by the falls, which is a trickle accompanied by icicles, and not very attractive. I trekked to the end of the creek where it enters the Mississippi, stopping now and then to appreciate the warmth and the afternoon light.At the end of the creek there is a bridge over the water. Because the creek level is low I was able to get a new vantage point and took a picture with the more well lit Mississippi River flowage in the background.

Along the way there are some nice views of the creek as the ice turned temporarily back to the liquid form. It looks more like March than January.

It's Thursday night tennis at Wooddale, and I'm about to be on my way. I've been in a bit of a perceived slump since my layoff when I visited the Daughter of Norway, but I think the jet lag has finally passed and I feel like the slump may be history.

I'm starting to think that a white elephant party is in order. It's a good way to close down the Christmas/New Year season.

Poinsettia Show

2012-01-03T20:34:00.002-06:00

I combined a walk outside with a search for color this afternoon. I parked by the lake and walked over to the Como Conservatory to see if there was a flower show to be seen. It was a cold walk, but once inside the Conservatory it got much warmer and indeed steamy. The Sunken Garden is the home of the holiday poinsettia show. I don't know how much longer it's running, but it was nice to see some brilliant reds.

Another view featuring the sculpture in the pool, daintily dipping her toe into the water. It's winter outside, but a pleasant summer day inside the sunken garden.

January is off to a coolish start, but a warm-up is coming later in the week. It's been a wimpy winter so far in the north country.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T14:23:00.000-06:00

Or, as they say in Oslo, "Godt Nyttår."

From Unky Herb and me.

Tree Hugger

2011-12-30T22:13:00.001-06:00

Unky Herb and I have been back from Ås for almost 48 hours and I'm nearly back to pre jetlagging status. It's nice to reflect on the previous twelve days that we spent with our family's tree hugger. We visited her grad school at UMB, a school of 3800 students, where she is pursuing a masters degree in International Environmental Studies. The town of Ås has a population of 16,400 people. It was a small town, but large enough for a train station, two grocery stores and two pizza restaurants.

We went to spend Christmas with the Prairie Princess treehugger, and to see what Christmas and the winter solstice are like in Norway. We had a good experience living in campus guest accommodations - living space usually used by visiting scholars. We met some of PP's classmates and new friends, all international or Norwegian folk, none American. They were bright and friendly and obviously enjoyed PP's presence and generally up beat character. J.B., the French guy whose English gaffs were guffaw inspiring, and the German, Sophie, who spent quite a bit of her free time with PP. We also trekked through some Norwegian wild areas and some urban wild spaces in Oslo.

The erstwhile Prairie Princess doing some tree hugging of a moss encrusted campus tree.

The Daughter of Norway in Nordskogen (north woods) near UMB (University of Life Sciences). DoN used the trail here for her nature runs when the weather was a bit more hospitable.

I played my first tennis today since my return and I was a bit rusty at first but managed to recall most of the necessary skills before the afternoon session was over. It was nice to be back on the courts and smacking a few forehands with the other three geezers who showed up to play today.

Twenty-seven hours in transit

2011-12-29T17:38:00.000-06:00

Home again after a long day in airline land. Unky Herb and I caught a taxi at 3 am in Ås to catch a bus at 3:30 for the hour bus ride to Gardermoen airport in Oslo. Three plane rides and two layovers later we landed in Minnesota, but not without a few glitches, one of which caused an extra three hours celebrating(?) the joys of Chicago's O'Hare Airport. It's good to be home sleeping in my own bed and eating my usual diet again. It was worth the trip, however, to spend Christmas in Norway with the Daughter of Norway, and to see what the winter solstice is like that far north. Eleven years ago I experienced a summer solstice in Norway and, in my opinion, that was a much more pleasant time. With quite a bit more solar exposure.

I picked out four previously unpublished photos from the two weeks in the north. I decided to only include those that are more about scenery and activities rather than those about my fellow travelers. This was taken just after sunset at Frogner Park in Oslo at 3:30 on a cold afternoon. It's dark and pretty much represents the environment most of the time we were there.

These three white swans were waddling up the beach in Moss when we visited there near the end of our stay. I guess that most swans in Europe are white and these are definitely so and are extremely large birds. They were banded and seemed tame. They came up to us seemingly expecting to be fed.

One day we visited several museums and the city hall in Oslo. This is Oslo Harbor from just outside the City Hall just after the 9:15 a.m. sunrise. It's a dark city this time of year.

This is a point of interest much more famous than the Kate Moss statue. Here in the Oslo City Hall is the room where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. There are huge murals on the walls depicting Norwegian scenes.

Life is good. Even when adjusting to Minnesota time again.

Moss

2011-12-27T12:08:00.001-06:00

It was a sunny day and a good day for a day trip south of Ås to a slightly larger city, Moss. It's on a spur of the Oslo Fjord and it seemed like a good idea to walk along the fjord and take some photos on a sunny day in Norway. We took the 9:16 train about the time the sun was rising.

By the way, it's my experience that in Norway this time of year, that the sun rises in the south and sets in the south, a few degrees to the west. It's odd, but useful if the sun is shining. South is easily established.

Unky Herb and the daughter of Norway posed by a moose statue at the city hall in Moss. The light is slanted, but it's about 1:30 in the afternoon.

This is the harbor at Moss. It's a well used port and there are a lot of fisherman's boats in the harbor.

The Norwegian Lady statue on the harbor at Moss. It memorializes a ship wreck long ago off the coast of Virginia.

It seems as though most of Norway shuts down this week. Almost all the shops that we came across had closed signs, indicating reopening in January. Christmas is a serious holiday here in the north.

The second day of Christmas

2011-12-26T12:29:00.000-06:00

Every country does Christmas its own way, and every family has it's own version of the celebration. On Christmas day (the first day of Christmas) we had a Norwegian feast at Unni's with her daughter and parents in attendance. Unni made pinnekjhøtt, a Norwegian salted meat from sheep, and potatoes and a squash-like dish (maybe rutabaga), with beer and aquavit. It was all good and we had a fine time, speaking a little Norsk, but mainly English. I have a picture of my kids a bit after the meal.

Today is the second day of Christmas and I was surprised to find that the stores - including all the grocers are closed for the second day in a row. This would never stand in the good old USA, where December 26 is one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T15:02:00.001-06:00

We were able to successfully navigate lutefisk and kjøttkake at the haus of DoN. The Christmas Eve celebration was unique and satisfying.

Merry Christmas to all readers and friends from us, visitors to the old country.

Ås and the north woods

2011-12-23T13:05:00.002-06:00

Just twenty-four hours can make a big difference in the appearance of a town. Yesterday it snowed an inch or so and when we were in the town center, I took a photo of the train depot. Today it was about 37 degrees and all the new snow disappeared. Yesterday looked Christmasy, today, not so much.

Our adventure of the day today was a walking tour of Nordskogen (the north woods) just next to the UMB campus. It was cloudy and wet from the melting snow and there was mud and a bit of ice in spots where the sun couldn't shine - in Norway in December, that's quite a bit of territory. We had fun looking at the green, green moss on the trees and ground and trying to identify the European trees and other vegetation. Here the DoN crouches down at a creek in Nordskogen examining some moss or lichens and looking pretty Norwegian in her new hat.

As is usual when trekking with my kids there was a fair amount of joking and horseplay. Unky Herb wanted video of him bouncing up and down on a fallen log in the forest. I took this photo just before some video was taken.

The Daughter of Norway (DoN), now sometimes known as the queen of the trolls, wanted her turn on the log, too. The queen of the trolls on a log in the north woods. I think she's enjoying her Christmas break as much as her brother and her dad.

And a representative view of Nordskogen - the north woods. The trees have a thick layer of moss, I guess because this is a fairly moist area of Europe. The snow comes and goes.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. We went to the Ås Kiwi supermarket and stocked up on lefse and lutefisk. The DoN is volunteering to do her best on the lutefisk if I help her eat it. I said I would. I know I won't be sorry.

Norwegian solstice

2011-12-22T09:25:00.002-06:00

As luck and science would dictate, the date and time of the solstice was 6:30 a.m. in Oslo (11:30 p.m. yesterday in St Paul.) Today, then, is the shortest day in Oslo and Ås. The difference from yesterday is just a few seconds, and in any case, it snowed here today and was cloudy all day, so the sun didn't make an appearance at all. Today's blog has photos from yesterday, mainly because I was too knackered to do a proper job of selecting content. This is maybe better.

This is Unky Herb in front of the place where Kelsey is living. There are bikes galore and, up until today, a lot of students. Most of the students have finished finals and are going home for Christmas, including J.B., a French student that has been a friend and generator of amusement because of his tendency to massacre the English language in humorous ways. Today she is the only student left in her residence pod. She's out figure skating on a local pond, while I use her computer.

I meant to include a photo of the big ski jump facility in yesterday's blog, but instead bogged. The hill and associated museum are at the top of a hill, one that featured icy side walks and cool mountain air. It was a highlight of yesterday's ramble through Oslo, checking out cultural high points.

The Olympic size ski jump. One of the sports at which the Norwegians excel.

The view from the top of Holmenkollen (the name of the ski jump) - showing a cross country skiing area near the ridiculously high ski jump.

The Daughter of Norway (DoN) told us a couple of days ago that there is a statue of Kate Moss in Oslo. I thought that she must be joking and expressed some disbelief. Ever the perfect hostess she led us to the spot where a pop culture sculptor did indeed produce a much bigger than life size statue and someone put it up in a shopping area in Oslo.

The statue of Kate Moss in a shopping area near the Oslo Apple Store.

We also went to the Edvard Munch museum, hoping to see the famous artist's most famous work, "The Scream." I guess it's somewhere else with better security, since it was stolen last year and, although it has been recovered, the authorities seem a little squeamish about security.

There is also a pretty good story about our adventure trying to find a statue of the reclining Buddha at the University of Oslo. Adam's Shinnyo-En groups founder had presented the statue to the University in 1967 and he wanted to see it. It's a long and involved saga, but ends with us stumbling upon the statue displayed on the 4th floor of the East Asian studies building almost by accident while we were looking for an information desk.

Oslo and Ås on the solstice

2011-12-21T13:40:00.000-06:00

The weather outside is cold, but more accurately cold and dark. It is the winter solstice and one would expect short days. We used the day by using an Oslo pass and going into the city by train before sunrise (about 9:15) and trekking around the city. There is a statue in Ås on the way to the train, that I photographed yesterday. As you can tell, it is winter here.

We visited the City Hall, site of the Nobel Prize presentations, then went off on the subway to find Hollenkollen, a huge facility for ski jumping in Oslo. Thee is a museum there, too, showing the more than 5000 year history of skiing in Norway.

The big ski jump is Hollenkollen, in a suburb of Oslo. One view from the top.

The Daughter of Norway and Unky Herb on the top of the big ski jump. The view from the top is spectacular.

Oslo is Oooshloo here

2011-12-20T03:20:00.001-06:00

We took the train from Ås, passed through Ski and arrived in Oslo in the early afternoon. Given the short days here we hurried along to get some photos before the sun set at 3:11 p.m. The train station is near the harbor and the new opera house in downtown Oslo. The tiger statue is a gift to the city on its 1000 anniversary in the year 2000. There is an amazing amount of construction going on in Norway, which is quite prosperous due to its North Sea oil reserves. Unky Herb has always been sort of a tiger fancier.

This is the fancy new Opera House on the Oslo harbor. The roof is slanted enough to allow walking up to the top, and sliding down on icy days. Today the footing was reasonably sure and we climbed to the top for some viewing and some photos.

This is a view of Oslo harbor from the Opera House. You may notice ducks on the part of the fjord which is iced over. It was about 30 degrees as we viewed the sculpture in the harbor that's supposed to represent an ice berg.

After a little bag lunch at the train station, we took the subway to Frogner Park a ways away. We passed a statue of Sonja Henie on the way. It was cold and getting close to sunset as we arrived and began viewing the multitude of statues - mostly depicting naked human beings. Here is the DoN at Frogner Park trying to join one of the sculptures.

A few minutes later I took this photo as the sun set on the sculptures at Frogner Park.

After sunset we stopped for tea and coffee at a warm Norwegian coffee shop. It was a welcome and welcoming spot on a cold afternoon. We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant and caught a later train back to UMB and Ås.

I am thankful for the miracle of long underwear.

A trip to the Christmas town

2011-12-19T02:55:00.000-06:00

Drøbak, a small town on Oslo fjord a few miles from Ås, is known as the Chistmas town in Norway. Unni, Kelsey's friend and third cousin, took us there on Sunday to do some sightseeing and shopping. The fjord is long and deep and is the source for fish and recreation. We walked along the harbor where the ships are tied up in the sub-freezing, but sunlit weather.

The harbor is picturesque - filled with anchored small fishing boats and recreational boats - none of which were working on this day. There were ducks - mallards, I think - swimming in the fjord waters.

There is a statue of mermaids gracing the shore and DoN joined the three mermaids. She was much more warmly dressed, however.

Still a couple of days from the solstice, but the daylight hours are short - nearly three hours less than the tropical St Paul. Soon the days will begin to lengthen, but it's going to be dark here for a while yet.

A tour of UMB campus in Ås, Norge

2011-12-17T12:16:00.001-06:00

After a 16 hour journey from the Saintly City to Oslo and the University of Life Sciences (aka UMB from its Norwegian initials) and a night's rest to recover a bit from jet lag, the Daughter of Norway (DON) took Unky Herb (UH) and me for a walking tour of the UMB campus. It was after noon before we began and we needed to finish before nightfall, about 3:15, but the light was good and I took quite a few photos. It was a couple of degrees below freezing, and we were dressed for the weather, but there were some icy spots on the fairly uneven walking surfaces. The guest house where we are staying is on the campus and also houses a few grad students and other visitors to UMB. It's comfortable and contains the necessary conveniences of home.

The other members of the walking tour - an entertaining group even when jet lagged - in front of our residence.

A better view of the house for guests in which Unky Herb and I are residing. There is very little snow on the ground as you can see.

The DON by a clump of trees which are festooned with years of moss. This is about half way between her abode and our guest house.

A big old Norwegian oak tree that is icon for the UMB campus. It may be 1000 years old. I suspect it is prettier when it has leaves, but in December it's a stark outline against the horizon.

Unky Herb in the field by the iconic tree. He had just snapped off his own photo from an entirely different angle.

After a walk across campus to the buildings where many of DON's classes are held we went into a big class room building. We found the library where DON does some of her research. Here she is standing next to Unky Herb.

The DON took us towards the forest were there is an old growth of a variety of trees from around the world. On the way we saw this sight. The moss grows green on a Norsky stone.

We walked through the forest where DON runs and communes with nature. As we walked a pair of riders galloped by us on Norwegian horses.

On the way back we came across a pasture containing some of the native breed of horses. This shows a curious, very Norwegian looking horse protected from the weather by a horse blanket.

And at the end of the trek, the reward for the long walk around UMB - a Norwegian frozen pizza..

Tomorrow we're planning to do some Christmas shopping at the Christmas village nearby.

Rainy Day in December

2011-12-14T18:08:00.000-06:00

It's an odd December. It's raining and overcast. The temperature is 37 degrees. This is not a usual December day in Minnesota, but somewhat nicer than last year at this time for anyone planning to do any traveling. The ground looks almost like spring is about to spring. I walked up to Grand Avenue and had to wear a rain coat to keep dry. But who's complaining?

I played tennis for nearly the last time of the year and, although I didn't play too well, I didn't get hurt. One of the other geezers somehow injured his shoulder on an enthusiastic service return and had to retire from the match. GOINFS. The survivors played one on two for a while and then called it a day. There will be more tennis in the weeks ahead.

The weather in Oslo, the current residence of the Prairie Princess, is actually somewhat more wintry than Minnesota. They are blessed with 5 hours and 52 minutes of daytime this time of year, while we get a generous 8 hours and 48 minutes. Oslo lies at 59 degrees 57 minutes north latitude (about the same as the middle of Hudson Bay and north of Juneau, Alaska) - St Paul is 45 degrees north.

Another bench

2011-12-10T22:34:00.001-06:00

I walked around Como Lake this afternoon, just to affirm the fact that winter and December are both very much with us. I found an empty bench along the way, and I'm adding it to the list of benches that are sometimes pictured in this space.

And, as anticipated, the lake at Como park is iced over. A clear sign of winter. And the time of not very exciting photography.

Still December

2011-12-09T20:13:00.001-06:00

I walked around enough this morning to get a feel for winter locomotion and some of its difficulties when the temperature dips into single digits. The cold will exceed this level of chill soon, but I'm trying to acclimate as conditions change. My walk included a swing by the governor's mansion and the sculpture across Summit from it. The sculpture was carved from an elm tree that succumbed to Dutch Elm disease some years ago. Whoever lives there and owns the figure felt sorry for its exposure to the cold and wrapped it in a warming shawl. It's a St Paul thing, I think.

There was tennis with the gang of geezers this afternoon as usual, so I was able to engage in sufficient exercise on a cold December day, waiting for Christmas.

Just walking around

2011-12-08T23:11:00.001-06:00

It feels like winter. The temperature is expected to flirt with zero overnight for the first time this heating season.

I went for an afternoon walk to begin to acclimate to the new reality. I took my camera along to record anything that looked bloggable. I was just walking around (is there an acronym for that?). I walked by Linwood Park, up the Grotto stairs and back to Grand Avenue. Then home. I was dressed for the temp at the time - about 20 - and it was actually pretty pleasant.

The photo of the day is just trees against a blue December sky. That's how it looks in the northland in December.

I played the usual Thursday night tennis at Wooddale. It was not superb tennis, but it was competitive. One of the hard core girls couldn't make it tonight so our usual number one sub played in her stead. We finished two close sets (6-4, 7-5) and quit for the night. I skipped Yang's tonight because I had home made soup waiting for me back home - made by my own hand this afternoon with the veggies in my fridge and some of the turkey left over from the Thanksgiving feast. Yang's can wait for another night deeper into the cavern of winter.

The falls at nineteen degrees

2011-12-06T16:18:00.001-06:00

I took an afternoon walk by Minnehaha Falls. As I left my car I noted the temperature was 19 degrees, a sign that winter is setting in earnestly. The water over the fall is just a dribble, a sign that we are experiencing a kind of cold weather drought. The icicles are forming and the water in the creek is firming up, but the dramatic ice dams of previous years have yet to form. The stairs down to the creek level are closed, but still passable, so I went down for the photo and for a walk along the creek.

There were very few people out today, just the guys from Prairie Restoration who are burning brush and cleaning up the areas that they are turning into areas with more native plants. I stopped and talked to a couple of the guys who were tending a fire down towards the big river. I asked if they knew the Prairie Princess, who had worked there about a year and a half ago, and they said they did. The guys, Nathan and John, wondered what PP was up to, and I explained her decision to go to grad school and her current location.I walked to the Mississippi and back without encountering any other "tourists." I guess it's too cold for December meandering. The sun is low in the sky and there wasn't a lot of sun in the creek valley to photograph. We are only two weeks from the winter solstice.

The leaves are gone and the form of the hill can be seen from the bottom. This is the way I chose to go back up to the top of the hill.

The sign at the top of the steps indicates premature closing of the stairs.

Winter is here.

Pie

2011-12-04T15:45:00.001-06:00

Yes there was a pie party last night at this address, but I didn't record the event photographically. The only photos were taken by another of the family bloggers, so I'll wait for that posting, if at all. We had good food, good conversation, and good fun with a total of 13 attendees. There were some leftovers, too, which are mostly consumed. The planning for the white elephant party took place, too, actually meaning that we arrived on a date for its occurrence.

It snowed yesterday and overnight. Today was a shovel day and a chance for iChatting with the Daughter of Norway. Her computer is back in working order and she's waiting to get a new charger to keep it running. She and Herb and I chattered away for an hour or so this afternoon and all seems well in the land of winter darkness. We in Minnesota are ahead (?) of Oslo in snow depth. They are yet snowless. I have a screen shot of the chat session, which I'm posting here.

Snow accumulates. The view of my backyard this afternoon indicates that winter has begun.

Unky Herb had some downtime and is applying his gaming skill to Little Big Planet on PS3. Note the concentration on his face.

Snow and Ice

2011-12-01T23:14:00.001-06:00

It snowed a little tiny bit, and it was cold enough to get ice to begin to form over the lakes. The photo below is a wood duck house in Lake Como as the ice forms around it. The ice is suddenly a sure thing, because this is the coldest night of the season - already 21 degrees at 11 pm. The scenery has begun the black and white part of the year.

After my walk around the lake to get limbered up, I came home, napped for a while and then went off for an hour and a half of tennis at Wooddale. Thursday nights are Jerry and the hardcore girls and tonight was the usual struggle to win a set. It was a fun night.

I almost didn't blog, because I just came through the never ending blog every day month of November and I thought I'd need a rest. The momentum carried through and here I am, blogging. I wonder what the theme was for today, December's theme day. I hope it was ice and snow. Or maybe wood duck houses.

Two Herbs

2011-11-30T20:16:00.001-06:00

At last we come to the end of November and the commitment to blog every single day. Today, I dip into my archives to find some old pictures of Unky Herb when he was but a slip of a child - about 1986. I couldn't decide which of the two was cuter, so I took both and combined them with cybermagic.

It was a cloudy day, but nice enough. I played tennis again at Fort Snelling, and although I was a little fatigued from a busy week, I played well enough and managed to stay upright through all of the competition. One of the gang of geezers brought up a uTube video that seemed intriguing. Joe Kapp, an old time Viking football quarterback, and a fan favorite, got into an altercation with another old time football player at a function in Canada, and it actually came to blows. It was a couple of septuagenarians having at it because of a fifty year old grudge. The other guy, Angelo Musca delivered a late blow to Willie Fleming, one of Kapp's team mates in the 1963 Grey Cup game. The boys should have let it go years ago, but the testosterone got the better of them. They are both 73.

In the interest of entertainment the video.

Alien rock

2011-11-29T21:07:00.001-06:00

Sometimes a photo needs no explanation.

There seems to be a human force which impels some people to paint imaginary scenes on perfectly innocent rocks. I know there is one at Hamline University that gets repainted pretty often. This rock celebrates the arrival of some fictional aliens on earth. The rock rests alongside Minnesota highway 65 in Itasca county.

It begged to be photographed.

Swan Lake at Sundown

2011-11-28T19:40:00.001-06:00

The lake is not yet frozen over, I guess because it's pretty deep. The reflection off the still water late in the afternoon is pretty and peaceful. It was warm enough for a mile walk down the highway to the video store to rent "Bad Teacher." And a mile back in the near darkness.

I understand there was a big solar flare recently and the northern lights are expected to display queer sights. But the queerest that I've ever seen was the night on the ...

I'll be looking into the northern sky for whatever fireworks exist there and that are not obscured by clouds.

A walk to TJ's

2011-11-27T18:56:00.001-06:00

I was out for a walk to get some exercise and to see what I could see this afternoon. I thought a trip to the neighborhood grocer on Randolph would be about the right length of a stroll - it's .9 of a mile there one-way. When I arrived I was surprised that some of their ads in the window refer to themselves as TJ's. I hadn't thought of that before, but I have heard of the store referenced by several other monikers including, Trader Vic's and Trapper John's and its real name, Trader Joe's. Along the way I took a few photos on a cloudy, almost murky afternoon.

While crossing the bridge over Ayd Mill Road: train tracks partially obscured by baseball style cap's brim, a photo of railroad tracks.

Further down the street a half block off Lexington I saw this non-rectangular window, hexagon if I'm not wrong. Since I suggested it as a theme for blog photos I took advantage of the site and snapped a photo. Note the Christmas decoration.

And when I finally reached the store I snapped a photo and went in to buy some hummus, bananas and peanut butter for a late afternoon snack.The store self-proclaimed "TJ's."

Today in tennis: Roger Federer won the end of year World Tour Finals tournament in London this weekend and over a million dollars to go with it. It was his sixth World Tour Finals title - another Roger record. Incidentally he has won his last 17 matches and is now ranked number 3 in the world of men's tennis.

A turn towards winter

2011-11-26T18:54:00.001-06:00

The day started out nicely for a late November day. It was close to 50 overnight, but has sunk to 37 as I type. I was able to drag myself out of bed and off to my 9:00 a.m. tennis skirmish in Woodbury. The tennis was streaky, but the sets were close and that always makes it fun. We finished two 6-4 sets and went home refreshed.

The day turned to mist and the wind came up a bit. It's not a raw wind yet, and I took a walk after noon to look for a photo of a non-rectangular window, or a bench, or perhaps a barn. But since the good photos require good light, I was a little discouraged by the lack thereof. As luck would have it, I have a cache of photos from days when the light was better and for use on a day such as today. Voila! A fall photo from 2009, of a favorite spot - Upper Lake at Crosby Farm Park.

Not much else to say. I did some reading; investigating a little more the subject of thorium and its use in nuclear power plants; did a little investigation into the tourist attractions in and around Oslo, and generally rested these old bones.

Only four more days to go until December when the need to blog every day will be relieved.

Black Friday

2011-11-25T18:19:00.001-06:00

Black Friday, the consumer spending holiday is also known as Evacuation Day (there is also a Daily Show video) and Buy Nothing Day. I, personally, did not participate in the shopping blitz, but I did manage an hour's walk around the neighborhood and later ninety minutes of Fort Snelling tennis. The walk was pretty pleasant for the 25th of November. The temperature peaked at 52 degrees - not a record, but pretty exceptional for this late in the fall. The Governor's Mansion on Summit has decorated for the Christmas season in a simple, understated, but premature manner.

Christmas decorations are up at the governor's mansion. There is still a little snow on the lawn, too.

The walk continued along Summit and past the law school until I discovered a previously unpictured bench next to the Steppingstone Theatre on Victoria. The bench is a little off the beaten track and not easily accessible, but seemingly well constructed. It's getting so I can't walk by a bench without snapping off a photo. It's only memory that I'm temporarily using.

Another pretty nice public bench with freeze dried flowers (roses?) in the foreground.

Tennis went pretty well, and then I came home to try to make a dent in the mountain of Thanksgiving food still resident in the fridge. I'm not yet tired of tacos made with lefse, Turkey, dressing and gravy.I'm thinking about adding a new series to the bench, cute cat and barn series that sporadically show up here and on other related blogs. How does non-rectangular windows sound? A new series might come in handy during the November blogging marathon.

Thanksgiving Thursday

2011-11-24T20:38:00.001-06:00

It was a successful day of cooking and overeating. I roasted the turkey with wild rice stuffing and I got a lot of help from Unky Herb, in fact all of the guests joined in to get the food on the table at about 2:10 pm. Barb and Emmy brought cranberry bread, Gino made a pie and the gravy, and Ying brought two Chinese delicacies - an egg plant dish and a corn and pine nut creation. Very tasty. The buns (rye, I think) came curtesy of Sharon, the Girl from the North Country (GFTNC). The folk at the feast table with me are pictured below, and we were joined a bit later for pie and coffee by the GFTNC.It was a lot of good natured conversation and as promised, everyone was on their best behavior.

What the table looked like before the feasting began.

I wasn't able to send home anywhere near all the leftovers either. As is expected for Thanksgiving, we all over produced vittles, but I was able to send off only a bit of some of the choicer tidbits. I'll be having turkey sandwiches for a couple of weeks or until I sicken of them and toss out the remains or use them in soup. And I have some stuffing and gravy leftover, too. An almost unheard of situation in past festivities. Cleanup is done and I'm starting to hanker for a turkey sandwich.

Photos of the bird can be found elsewhere on the inner tubes.

We missed having the Daughter of Norway (aka Prairie Princess) here to participate in the cooking and subsequent tomfoolery, but she seems to be well and contented, but a little turkey deprived somewhere south of Oslo.

The night before Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T22:18:00.001-06:00

It was a beautiful day in Minnesota, especially for a day so late in November. My car thermometer read 53˚ at about 2 pm as I reached Fort Snelling for my Wednesday afternoon tennis session. And tomorrow is the first Thanksgiving that I can remember when the mercury will rise to over 50. I can remember a Thanksgiving not many years ago when some of our dinner guests were barely able to make it home to Roseville in the blizzard and in fact were forced to abandon their auto in the middle of their residential street. We don't need no stinking blizzard.

Tomorrow is turkey day and I appear to be ready for a feast to be consumed here. It's the first turkey that I've roasted in about three years or so, but the ducks are in a row and the ingredients obtained.

Statue of Blaise Pascal at Tower of St Jacques in Paris taken in late July. Blaise once wrote: "I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter." This blog entry, too, should have been shorter, but I didn't have the time to make it shorter.

A photo very much like another, a photo at Hôtel de Sens and featured elsewhere. This one shows the photographer of the photo there as he just finished the photo.

There are likely to be new photos tomorrow for this blog - perhaps photos of food.

Curling revisited

2011-11-22T23:29:00.001-06:00

It's still looking like winter and probably will lean that direction until March. I used to do some curling at the St Paul Curling club with some of the November can't-miss-a-day bloggers. We stopped curling about two years ago, but I've maintained an interest in the sport and even spent quite a bit of time watching the winter Olympics curling tournament in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. Both the men's and women's tournaments were a lot of fun to watch. The Swedish women and the Canadian men won the gold medals.

Tonight I visited Bif Adams Ice Arena on Western Avenue to see some curling. The St Paul Club has expanded and it is now using this arena for the sport. It was the same sport as the Olympics and the same stuff that we played a couple of years ago. It's a good way to spend a couple of hours on a cold November day waiting for Thanksgiving to roll around. At this point in the game the Flaherty rink was leading 6-1, but was destined to lose a squeaker. A pretty good effort by all involved.

It was cold in the arena, but the weather outside is expected to improve to reach the 50's (can you believe it?) on Thanksgiving day.

I'll be back to playing tennis tomorrow afternoon at Fort Snelling.

Thinking

2011-11-21T23:22:00.001-06:00

It was a cold day and icy to start, but the sun managed to get warm enough to begin to melt some of the unwanted ice off the streets of the saintly city. Most of my morning was used up thinking. And doing the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. It looked hard as I began filling in the squares and the title "Either Way" wasn't helping much. I wasn't making much progress until about 58 across when after filling in a few of the letters I discovered that the answer was a phrase that was a palindrome - the same forward as backward. Thinking was paying off. With that piece of information the puzzle suddenly became doable, almost easy, although some of the answers were a bit contrived and awkward. Ex: 22A Students err? "pupils slipup" or 46A Reinforced ice cream container? "buttressed dessert tub" or 97A One-on-one job for a ladies man? "gigolos solo gig" or my favorite: 68A Recollection from a winter tourist in Poland? "Warsaw was raw." After finally getting the squares filled in I did some thinking about Thanksgiving and what kind of purchases I would need to make at the vittles store. I think I have it pretty well in hand, especially if I'm able to locate some hand made lefse at one of the busy grocers in town.

Then I had to think of something to put in my post for the day. This is day 21 of blog every day month and I've come too far to fail now. But I had neglected to take any photos all day. It was just too cold and dark. And I'd spent most of the day thinking.Then I saw the posting from my traveling companion when I visited the City of Lights last summer and I knew it was okay to fall back on some foreign photos. And it adds a bit of variety to a month that has a kind of sameness to it. Voila. Two views of a famous sculpture on a beautiful day in Paris.

Le Penseur. by Auguste Rodin.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin at Rodin Museum in Paris.

Snow Cover

2011-11-20T15:34:00.001-06:00

The snow yesterday persists into today. The temperature is still subfreezing and the landscape has taken on that whitish hue that whispers, "winter has arrived." A walk around the neighborhood was a lot more dangerous for the less sure footed amongst us. There was ice on the sidewalks. The Statue of Liberty wood sculpture that was carved from an old elm tree serves to show the change in the landscape.

Walking by the stores on Grand always has a few surprises. Whoever owns these bikes chained them to a bike rack and it looks like the season for riding them has essentially ceased. I did see a biker on a bike path near Jefferson who was braving the poor footing and was out for a ride. A brave soul.

Bikes stranded near Walgreen's.

Only 31 days until the solstice when the days start to again lengthen.

Steel-toed boots

2011-11-19T15:15:00.001-06:00

First snowfall of the year. Maybe, probably about two inches of fresh white snow. It was inevitable. I'm going to do a little shoveling when it stops, but I think it may melt this time. The guys that predict the weather for a living say that Thanksgiving on Thursday will be warm - probably 50 degrees. I'm still likely to do a little shoveling this afternoon as part of my exercise program.

Those are work boots in front of Daughter of Norway's (DoN) native grass garden. The boots also belong to DoN, but are currently on a break while their owner pursues other interests somewhere south of Oslo.

A little goose scoop

2011-11-18T18:56:00.001-06:00

I waited until after tennis to go in search of a bloggable photo. After spending yesterday helping the Daughter of Norway deal with a computer malfunction long distance, it took me a while to get started on the day. Her Mac's charger stopped working, probably because of a faulty voltage converter and the Apple people in Norway wanted the receipt of the computer purchase before dealing with it on warranty. Luckily Unky Herb was able to get Best Buy to print out a duplicate and he scanned it into his computer and mailed it off to Norge. Problem solved, I think.

So. Tennis. Then a trip to Como to see if there was anything going on. The city seems to have jumped the gun a bit with their warning signs. The "thin ice" signs have been duct taped to several trees around the lake. The ice is extremely thin today - one might say nonexistent. But the warning will be there when the water does enter the solid state as it most assuredly will.

The geese are still hanging around, too. Hanging around and "fowling?" the paths. There was a large flock sitting on the lake, and sporadically a small group of them would take off and I'd try to get a photo of them, without any success at all. I think they'll be heading south pretty soon, because winter is about to make an appearance.

A gaggle of geese on Lake Como.

It was late afternoon, but the sky was pretty interesting. There is some weather moving in and the clouds are beginning to form. I snapped off a couple of photos to include here.

The sky at about 4 pm at Como.

Looking for Kelsey trees

2011-11-17T17:16:00.001-06:00

Santini reminded me about Kelsey trees in one of her comments - the trees that refuse to accept the arrival of fall and insist that "it's still June." Since I'm sure it's autumn and it was a little brisk out, plus I needed a theme for another of my November blogs, I went in search of Kelsey trees. It didn't seem fair to include oaks, because they obstinately hold on to their leaves into January and some times longer. There are also a few buckthorn bush-trees that are actually still green, but they're widely acknowledged as junk trees (too messy and wildly invasive), so I excluded them, too.I set out for a walk to the east, getting as far as Dale Street and as far north as Lincoln. Along the way I encountered the remnants of Halloween, more than two weeks past. There were black, white and grey squirrels out feasting on the leftover jack o'lanterns that are still decorating peoples porches and front yards. I had a chance at a photo of one hungry squirrel in a "jack", but he vamoosed before I could get the shot off. Instead, I settled for a ghost still blowing in the wind somewhere on Lincoln. I bet this scared a few pre-schoolers on Halloween.

There were a lot of oaks on Linwood - a whole block of mostly pin oaks still hanging on to their leaves, and I also encountered a buckthorn in someone's backyard and still green with black berries. But I also found these two hardy tree of unknown species in someone's yard, I think on Goodrich. They look to be denying fall (autumn deniers), summer lovers, real Kelsey trees.

Hence a couple of non-oak Kelsey trees.

There were also the oaks and I include just one example from a whole lot of them that are stubbornly holding to their leaves. Just because I like oak trees.This is apparently November's dress code for oaks.

I'm off soon for my Thursday night tennis gig at Wooddale. I'll see if I can come up with another theme for tomorrow's blog. November is just barely half gone.

Tennis returns to the blog

2011-11-16T17:34:00.001-06:00

After raking the leaves and bagging them yesterday afternoon, I found this morning that the rather stiff wind overnight had denuded the remaining trees with leaves and I had more pretty yellow foliage particles to add to the leaf bags. I raked some more, cursing silently, knowing that there are still more oak leaves to give up their high positions and clutter the front yard. Then I toted seven black plastic bags of leaves off to the recycling center. I'm claiming that I'm done with leaves for this year and I'm sticking to it.

It was a windy afternoon as you can see from the posture of the flag in front of the Boy Scout Headquarters at Fort Snelling. I'm sure that there was a wind chill number, too, but with the raw temp at 33 at the time of the photo, it was cold enough to appreciate the convenience of indoor tennis. This was about 1:45 pm, just a few minute before the scheduled Wednesday afternoon tennis session with my usual pack of geezers.

The two tennis bubbles at Fred Wells Tennis Center at Fort Snelling have eight indoor courts. We were on court eight near the closest (southern) part of the bubble on the right. The tennis went well today, close games, a 6-4 set and a 2-3 partial set before time expired, no one fell down and there was no blood or skin left on the court when we left.

Many leaves leave

2011-11-15T20:10:00.001-06:00

This may have been my last chance to get the fall leaves off the lawn before the first blizzard hits. One of my favorite radio stations reported that it is snowing up around Hibbing. They mentioned two to three inches. We may be next in line for the white blanket of winter. I got my favorite rake out of the garage and set about gathering the leaves that were on the ground. You can tell from the photo that there are straggler leaves still attached to maple tree branches. I decided to ignore that fact and went about my task. I also used my lawn mower as a blower and leaf shredder, so the task went pretty fast. By noon I had five black plastic bags filled with mostly maple and oak leaves, ready for transporting to the leaf recycling center on Pleasant Avenue, which I find is not open for business on Tuesdays. Ah well, a task for tomorrow. In the meantime the wind has continued to knock the remaining leaves off the trees and onto the freshly raked yard. So it goes.

After lunch I went down to Crosby Farm Park to see if there were any deer to be seen. I think they've been scared back into deeper woods by the recently completed archery season there, and I didn't see even one. I did notice, however, that the native plant area that Unky Herb and the Prairie Princess help seed a couple of years ago, has been burned - likely to kill the non natives. As the day waned the temperature sank and the wind came up. It began to feel as though we might be getting our first snow soon.

Something reminded me of the Dan Rather mugging of some years ago and the question that one of the muggers put to Dan before punching him just under his ear and sending him to the hospital overnight, "Kenneth, what's the frequency?" It's a question still waiting for an answer.

Getting ready for winter

2011-11-14T19:06:00.001-06:00

We are not the only beings who recognize the onset of frigid weather and set about to do something about it. The pack of beavers in Fort Snelling State Park do some preparation, too. These ex-trees were downed by an unknown beaver in a area of the park very near Pike Island. The tree was trimmed and some limbs dragged off to build a winter abode - a beaver lodge. I looked around to see if there were any lodges in the area and sure enough just a hundred feet or so from the bridge to the big island, the new construction was underway.

Ergo. Beaver lodge at Pike Island.

It was a nice day in the saintly city, a short respite from the inevitable arrival of Old Man Winter. Days like today are a bonus meant to be enjoyed and appreciated.

Incidentally, this is my 900th post on this blog since beginning May 3, 2007, the first day.

A Northern Bench

2011-11-13T22:21:00.001-06:00

Santini and I have been featuring benches that we come across from time to time, especially on days when photos worth of posting are hard to come by. Sometimes that happens on cloudy days when the quality of light for photos is iffy, and sometimes on days when the weather is basically bleak. Today was such a day, and in order to continue my unbroken string of days posted in November (the month of posting every day) I've gone to an old standby, the bench. Hence a remarkably primitive bench located on the Mesabi Bike trail, a couple of miles from Nashwauk.

In the area near the bench, the water is still in liquid form. But you can perhaps see that the day was not conducive to photography. But I did get in a reasonably long hike in the greater outdoors and three games of bowling in Grand Rapids. A day well spent.

Hull Rust Mine

2011-11-12T15:59:00.001-06:00

Since I find myself in the northern part of the state, I'm posting a picture of a really big truck parked next to a really big hole in the ground from which lots of iron ore has been mined since back in the early 1900's. There was once so much iron to be mined here that it caused the mining company to move the village of Hibbing so they could dig it up. I hadn't seen the big hole in the ground since the Iron Range TRAM five or six years ago, and I'm still amazed at its scope.

It was a nice day on the Iron Range, but even with the temperatures in the 50's, there is ice on the streets of Hibbing. Residual ice from the last few days below freezing.And I had lunch at Sammy's Pizza, the same pizza joint where I had my first slice of the cheesy delicacy in 1960 or 1961. Life is good.

Eleven eleven eleven

2011-11-11T12:30:00.000-06:00

After a black and white day, the sun came out and the color has returned. The trees have yet to completely shed their leaves, but the stragglers won't be hanging on much longer.

It's Veteran's Day and one of those days whose date notation makes it seem like something special should happen today. 11/11/11. There have been wild predictions about the end of the world and solar flares, but so far it just seems like a really nice autumn day.

I'm off to play some tennis at Fort Snelling and then a drive in the country. I predict a great weekend.

Black and White Day

2011-11-10T16:59:00.001-06:00

It flurried a bit this morning, but it didn't really snow. The sun, however, stayed hidden behind clouds and the temperature stayed in the thirties all day. A dark day, one might say, a black and white day. A good day to photograph a black squirrel hunkered down against the chill.

And a good day to post a bunch of photos from about sixty years ago, more or less. Photos from my childhood that include some of the readers of this blog, brothers and sister. I'm guessing about the year of the photos for the most part, but they were taken in the late 1940's and early fifties.

1949? Jimmy, Tommy, Sylvi on a snowy day in Wisconsin. No mittens. No pie???

1953 or so. Jimmy, Tommy, Sylvi in Coleraine by our home in Second Addition. Converse tennis shoes and patched pants on the guys.

1953?? Sylvi, Gene, Jimmy, Tommy in Coleraine next to the hollyhocks. The photographer's shadow appears in the foreground. New pants for Tommy and Jimmy. Classy shoes on Sylvi. The sun was too bright and made everyone look at the ground.

Indoor tennis will be attempted again tonight at Wooddale. Indoor tennis is/was a great invention. It helps get me through the black and white days.

Turkey time

2011-11-09T18:06:00.001-06:00

There are turkeys on Pike Island, too. Yesterday, when I went looking for more wildlife photos, I found not a single deer, but found a large flock of wild turkeys. Since it's nearly Thanksgiving, they were pretty shy about letting a human get very close to them, but I can be stealthy ... and patient. I was able to get a few decent photos. Again, there was no gunfire and no blood spilled in this "turkey shoot."

While I walked down the hiking trail in the middle of Pike Island, I noticed that the tree trunks were all pretty much two tone, like a 1950's Buick. Pike Island is in the flood plain and it was under water for much of the spring and part of the summer. The color change on the trees seems to coincide with the crest of the flood water. The lower, brownish portions are likely colored by mud. I tried to get a photo of the phenomenon and was at least partly successful.Note the water line on the trees from spring floods.

I played some tennis this afternoon at Fort Snelling with the geezer guys. We managed a set and a half or so before we gave up the courts to some much younger players. There is a youth tennis program at Fort Snelling that brings in inner city kids from Minneapolis in the afternoon and they are coached by some Fort Snelling pros and several University age kids who seem to be aiding in the coaching. The place begins to get pretty noisy about three o'clock when the players begin to arrive.

Election Day in the Saintly City

2011-11-08T19:03:00.000-06:00

The first Tuesday after the first Monday this November is local election day. The ballot was sparse this week, just city council and school board seats were up for grabs. This is the first St Paul election which uses the new ranked voting system to determine the winner. I guess that means that one can vote for more than one candidate, but only in a ranked manner, wherein your second (and third) choice only gets counted when there is no candidate with a majority of the first choice votes. There is a better explanation of the process here. There was no way I'd pass up an opportunity to participate in this new and novel voting system. Unky Herb and I went to the polls at Linwood at about ten this morning and found it very sparsely populated and then almost exclusively by election judges. There was one other voter in the room. We voted and Herb expressed his "joie de vivre" for the camera on the way out.

The walk to the polls was also entertaining. Big man or mini bench?

No tennis today, nor deer hunting. And no snowstorm quite yet, as the weather creatures called off the snow for overnight. Sorry, Chicago.

Deer Hunting

2011-11-07T16:58:00.000-06:00

There is a sanctioned deer hunt at Crosby Farm today through Wednesday. I discovered this when I went there for a relaxing afternoon walk on a fine November day. The road block and the sign on the post said that the park is closed for an archery season. I took that as a sign to go elsewhere for my relaxing walk in the forest. The alternative is the state park across the river from Crosby, Fort Snelling State Park and the island in the river system where the Minnesota River merges with the Mississippi. The park was open and I drove towards Pike Island, passing a flock of wild turkeys on the way. I wasn't able to stop for a photo, but they were beauties.I decided I'd hunt deer with my camera. I had my telephoto lens on my best camera and it seemed like a good project for the afternoon. It took about five minutes before the buck in the photo below ambled in my general direction and I stood in place and took about thirty photos before he passed me and disappeared into the brush. Neither one of us was frightened and no blood was spilled.

I continued up the west side of the island for another ten minutes or so and encountered a doe grazing in the forest on tender plants, the ones which have not yet frozen. She was pretty tame and stayed as I took another twenty or so photos of her activities. I was even able to get a bit closer to her without scaring her, and after a while she decided to trot off across a clearing to thicker cover. Again no blood was spilled, but I figure that I bagged two deer today.The doe at Pike Island:

As I left Pike Island I passed another guy with a big lens taking photos of another buck. I glimpsed a pretty big set of antlers in the brush. I crept by without taking any photos, leaving the big buck for him. I had already filled out my license.

Daylight Savings Time Expires

2011-11-06T19:12:00.001-06:00

The extra hour of sleep seemed worthwhile, but the early twilight was not really welcome. I managed to get all the clocks set to the correct time and mainly stayed around the house doing some outdoor chores and doing the Strib's crossword. While outside this afternoon, I encountered the remains of a rabbit that used to live in the neighborhood, maybe in the native grass garden. It was pretty thoroughly eaten, so I assume that it fell to a coyote, fox, or perhaps a neighborhood cat. It was a fairly large rabbit and a couple of its paws were intact. Those rabbits feet in no way conferred luck on the misfortunate hare.A couple of days ago, I encountered this odd sculpture at Harriet Island. Today as I was looking at photos for the blog I realized that the sculpture has some images of wildlife carved into the stump. The rabbit is pretty obvious, but there are some snakes and a couple of other animals. It is an odd thing and I think bloggable on a Sunday in November.

Unky Herb and I chatted with the Prairie Princess via the inner tubes and iChat this afternoon. She seems to be adjusting well to the change of seasons in Norway, and had some amusing stories about her German and French fellow students. She spent the weekend in Copenhagen with the international student group and promised to do some blogging in the near future to be able to publish some of her recent photos.

Windy Saturday

2011-11-05T18:13:00.003-06:00

I managed to get up early enough to make it to my nine o'clock tennis match at Wooddale. The sun was shining and it seemed almost nice enough to play outside, but the wind was blowing and we are paying for the indoor court time. I had a good day, much of the time playing well enough to consider it a day spent in the zone. The zone for a guy in his mid sixties is not nearly the same as the zone for a guy in his prime, but it's fun and gratifying to visit there for whatever time is available.After some lunch (homemade veggie soup and salad) I took my camera out for a walk. I haven't been to the State Fair Grounds in a while and I understand from Mr Moohoo's blog that it's pretty much deserted this time of year. He's right, but it was fun walking around freely in an area that for ten days or so in August is teeming with Minnesotans on a quest for food on a stick. I admired the sculptures carved out of the trunks of trees that used to live on the grounds. I include one of a Native-American standing in front of an oak tree that has changed and is showing off a bronzy red color in its foliage. It stands somewhere near where the sky ride starts and/or ends.

After an hour or so of exploring the fairgrounds, I went over to Lake Como to see if the birds have left yet for the winter. Quite a few must have gone, because the population of water birds is down, but there were a few mallards and some black headed birds with white bills still in attendance. (I think that they are coots.) There were a few mallards close to shore so I took one's picture to include here. The mallards are a regular part of the bird population at Como until it ices over.This is a mallard swimming about on Lake Como in St Paul. Wildlife.

It was nearly sixty degrees and the population of human lake walkers was up. Lots of folk were enjoying one of the nicest November days of the year so far.Daylight savings time ends tonight. I'll be missing an hour's sleep that I gained back in the spring, but at least I'll be on the same time as the rest of the state.

More leaves

2011-11-04T17:19:00.000-06:00

It froze again overnight. It's November, so that's to be expected. There are still some very pretty autumn effects in the neighborhood. I was impressed by this garage and the vine that's growing on it. The garage is about a block from home so I was able to wait until afternoon to get a better sun angle and hence better color. Photography is after all taking pictures of light.

I finished raking the front lawn this morning. The resultant bags of leaves stand in front of a bush that is still partly green. You can also see that towards the back of the house there is a large tree that has not dropped its leaves. I know that I'll have to repeat some of the toil, because there are leaves on many surrounding trees and there are leaves on the ground in neighbors yards that will move around when the velocity of the wind increases. I took thirteen bags of leaves to be recycled.

Tennis continued at Fort Snelling at two this afternoon. We played some fun tennis - two sets and a tie breaker. Afterwards I found that one of the other geezers has been logging his tennis matches for many years, a practice that I started in January of this year. I'm still not sure what use can be made of the statistics generated by this record keeping, but it's nice to know that I'm not the only one engaged in statistics gathering.

Some benches

2011-11-03T16:20:00.000-06:00

It was a really nice day for November. After an overnight freeze the day turned into a sunny dividend for any amongst us with the day off. Being a retired guy, that includes me. I walked to Trader Joe's this morning to get some vittles and snacks and, as is usual, I carried my camera. The trees in St Paul are still retaining some very colorful leaves. These were hanging around on Chatsworth waiting for a big wind to send them earthward. It's been an odd year for leaves, but it's gratifying to have maples still bearing their leaves. A few more days.

Santini and I have both posted benches from time to time. A couple of days ago I came upon these two benches less than a hundred yards from each other on the Mesabi Trail. For TRAM riders, it's the bike path from Grand Rapids to Hibbing, that we covered a few years ago. The first encountered of the benches was a really nice bench. It may be my favorite in my dossier of benches.

And further up the trail was this quite primitive bench. It's actually pretty much in tune with its environment, and practical, but a big contrast to its neighbor.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon raking leaves in the front yard. I'm still not done, but I have eight bags of crumpled up leaves to take to the leaf recycling center on Pleasant Avenue tomorrow. And the tree in my neighbor's backyard, which shades my backyard, is just beginning to shed its load of foliage. My exercise program for the next couple of weeks will include judicious use of a lawn rake.It's Thursday night and that means mixed doubles at Wooddale and a trip to Yang's for some tasty Chinese cuisine.

Post Halloween

2011-11-02T18:40:00.001-06:00

The Halloween holiday always has a few memorable images. I spotted this beautiful old pickup on a country road not too far from Coleraine. The owner had the spirit of the holiday and found a reasonable use for his derelict truck. He came out of his driveway just as I took the photo and stopped for a short chat. He seemed pleased that I'd stop and take a picture of his handy work. We both smiled and went on our respective ways.

The price of pumpkins has crashed and the crash came just the day after Halloween. I suspect that even with the new price the vendor will have trouble selling his remaining stock.

I returned from my northern adventure in time for a return to the tennis court today. We were inside at Fort Snelling, but it was clear that the outdoor season has run its course for another year. Barring a miraculous return to warm weather, tennis in Minnesota has become an indoor sport again.

Theme Day

2011-11-01T08:52:00.000-06:00

November first is a theme day - Santini says the theme is "fences." This photo has a wall and two fences, plus some leaves that have turned to reveal autumn colors. And a bike path. And some blue sky. I think it will suffice. It's also blog every day month so I'm on track to comply, just like I did last year.

It's Tuesday and a day off from the tennis wars. I'm letting my sore ankles rest until tomorrow.

Leaves aplenty

2011-10-30T16:21:00.001-06:00

It's a quandary. The anniversary of the blizzard of '91, when about two feet of snow fell on my backyard, is tomorrow. I have trees with leaves still attached left in my yard and in adjacent yards. Today, I decided to begin the process of gathering the leaves and bagging them up for the recycle site. I know I'll have to do it again, but the process passed for exercise, and I was able to squeeze off a couple of middling photos for the blog. There are still leaves on other trees, as I said before, including these colorful, but reluctant bits of foliage.

This is the main pile from the sugar maple in the back yard.

Halloween is tomorrow. Good haunting to all.

Paucity of Pumpkin Pics

2011-10-28T18:35:00.000-05:00

Halloween is just three days away and I hadn't posted a pumpkin photo yet. Nor have any of my favorite blogs. I'm getting into the feel of the season with today's photo of a jack o'lantern (nee pumpkin) sitting in a window about a block from here. The neighborhood is working on decorating the porches and yards in anticipation of the yearly celebration of "boo." There may be more photos of good displays as the weekend moves on.

The weather was decent today, at least for sauntering around outside. Those of you who use velocipede's to get around probably needed to cover up any exposed skin or risk frostbite from the arrival of windchill.

There was tennis at Fort Snelling again this early afternoon. I'm starting to wear down for the week, but the competition was still entertaining and I was able to keep up with the other geezer guys. One more day of competition for the week and for the month tomorrow at Wooddale.

Mileposts

2011-10-27T23:14:00.000-05:00

It seems like it's been a strange fall season. I was thinking about the range of colored leaves as I hiked around the neighborhood this afternoon in my warmup exercise for evening tennis. There are a lot of trees that haven't changed colors, yet there are some very bright reddish orange maples that are very noticeable in the area. And there are the ash trees that gave up their leaves weeks ago. Some of the trees that are still green are maples. And some oaks. In this photo from east of me on Fairmount there is a flaming reddish maple in front, but behind it is another maple which is very green. And another thing. And it hasn't frozen yet in my neighborhood. My tomato plants are still exuding green fruit.

Here's a whole block of reticent changers. I don't know what they're waiting for unless it's perhaps a temperature in the 20's.

So here it is the 27th of October and after tonight's tennis action, I've played 31 complete sets of tennis this month. That beats the previous high of 30 set in January and again in March of this year. And I've got two more days of tennis scheduled. It's been a busy month.

Fort Snelling

2011-10-26T22:41:00.000-05:00

I had a 2 o'clock appointment with some tennis players, but I got an early start and stopped by the fort at Fort Snelling to have a look at the river and to maybe take a picture or two. A lot of the trees up on the hill above the river have lost their leaves, but a few oaks are just now coming into their own. This one had lost some of its leaves but still retains some nice red color.

I walked to the chapel at Fort Snelling, too. It's one of the oldest religious buildings in the state. In the yard outside the chapel there is a lonely little grave of the first white child born in Minnesota - at least according to the head stone. She was Elizabeth Snelling, and she died in her infancy at age 13 months and is buried here. A little piece of Minnesota history.

After the walk, I made my way to Fred Wells Tennis Center at Fort Snelling for an hour and a half of tennis - nearly two complete sets - with the usual gang of geezers. The ages of the geezers today - 72, 70, 69, 66. A total of 277.

Still October

2011-10-25T18:20:00.000-05:00

It was a drab sort of day today, but yesterday was bright and shiny. I took a picture of a maple about a block from home on my way to the drugstore to buy drugs ... I mean vitamins. There are still some trees that haven't decided to change to their brighter colors, even some varieties of maple. And the oaks. It's sill pretty around here.

I'm also posting some older photos, just because I scanned them in and find them entertaining. It's nice to look at photos of people from more than 50 years ago and still be able to recognize them. These two young looking people are still younger than me. You know who you are.

This is one of the few photos I have of the original Tag, our cocker spaniel - springer spaniel mix dog of our childhood. He was a golden color as I recall, but the photo comes from the era before I could afford color film. And the car is a classic, too. I think it's a Pontiac from the 1950's sometime.

No tennis today, but tomorrow is on, and it may be nice enough to play outside. I'm hoping for one or two more days of outdoors friendly weather before the snow flies.

Thursday in October

2011-10-20T22:58:00.001-05:00

It was a beautiful autumn afternoon and since I hadn't blogged for a while and since I needed to get into nature again, I took my walk-around camera and went to Minnehaha Park to roam around. I parked in my usual free parking spot and went over to see the falls. And since I hadn't been to Longfellow garden in a bit I ambled over there to see how the autumn was progressing. I know that the Prairie Princess, who likes to be known as the Daughter of Norway these days, would like to see how the native grasses are getting along. And so did I. The view from down by the creek looking up the hill towards the old, deteriorating statue of Longfellow was nice enough to open today's posting. The grasses have browned, but since the first freeze hasn't hit the center of the city yet, there were still flowers and green leaves on the trees.

The creek (Minnehaha) flows under Hiawatha and to the falls. The water is low because of the paucity of rain in the area, but it's a quiet comforting sight as it flows through the tunnel.

I walked south, following the creeks path, but from up above the flood plain. As I neared the bridge to the Veteran's Center, I encountered some wild turkeys walking in the underbrush, bravely and brashly showing themselves to possible predators. I guess they weren't very frightened of me. The quantity of wildlife within the city limits is often a surprise to me as I saunter through the parks and wild areas in the Twin Cities.

And, there was Thursday night mixed doubles at Wooddale. We played a couple of sets with a lot of interesting, competitive sets - the hardcore girls, plus Jerry and me - 6-4, 6-3. Then I went to Yang's Chinese food restaurant for some of that succulent Singapore rice noodles.

Cloudy fall day

2011-10-13T16:52:00.000-05:00

The autumn has been odd here in the Saintly City. The first frost has not yet come to this part of the city and the tomatoes and many of the fall flowers still persist. On the street light a couple of houses down the street, flowers that should have frozen by now continue to beautify the neighborhood. Morning glories?

A block east of here a young maple tree has decided to turn scarlet and begin to drop its leaves. I think it must be reacting to the shorter day light hours. The ash trees, of course, have dropped their leaves, the quitters.

I'm going to Wooddale and play some indoor tennis.

Herds

2011-10-12T20:13:00.001-05:00

It rained on St Paul today. It was a lot of rain, even some hail, and moved the tennis session inside to Fort Snelling, where it was dry, but a little noisy from the rain beating on the bubble. The tennis was fun, but the weather made the acquisition of suitable photos for blogging just too hard. These are from last weekend.

On a walk at Crosby Farm, these curious deer were close enough to get into a photographic frame. There were three of them, a doe and two first year fawns. They stayed around long enough to get their photos taken then thought better of the situation and bounded off.

And a slightly larger herd, but this time of Segway "vehicles." They were practicing their skills in the area around the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. I caught them gathering together for a conference of some kind. You don't often see a herd of Segways of this size even in the wild. It might have been these guys.

The signs of autumn are growing more numerous in Minnesota. It has been a nice long spell of above normal weather, but soon the kingdom of winter will begin to prevail.

Too windy for outdoors tennis

2011-10-07T18:52:00.000-05:00

My favorite sugar maple, the one in my back yard has turned orangish, and before the wind came up today looked like this. I'll have to post an "after" photo soon to show the damage 40 mph winds can do to showy color.

It was too windy to play tennis outside, so we took our geezer games and went under the bubble at Fort Snelling. Indoor tennis is inherently better tennis because the conditions are perfect. We played 90 minutes of pretty good tennis and left tired, but feeling somewhat younger than our respective advanced ages. I suspect that most of the outdoor tennis is finished for the year - except for whatever exceptionally nice days are left this month.

I'm also continuing to post these old photos - the ones that Santini gave me over a month ago. These are from the 1940's before the world discovered color photography.

The first ones is from circa 1949, judging from an estimate of Gino's age. It was taken at Grandpa Richard's farm in Wisconsin and includes Dad and his kids: Gino, Jimmy, Tommy, and Sylvi. Notice the giant stack of wood in the background. That stack is fuel for the winter to heat the house and for the cook stove. The size of the pile makes me suspect the picture was taken in the autumn. Sylvi has flowers. Dandelions?

An older picture from July, 1945 or so it says on the back of the photo. It's posed in front of home in Webster, I think, and shows the kids in the family at the time - Jimmy, Sylvi, and Tommy. It's before the arrival of the youngest child - Gene. Notice my fancy socks.

The same group, rearranged, on the same date with the same socks. Tommy's socks match mine. I think all the clothes are home made by Mom.

The last one is perhaps 1946, judging from the suspected age of the youngest kid - Sylvi. She's wearing a pretty fancy knitted hat, most likely home made. It was taken outside on Grandpa's farm land, I think, across County U from the barn, near Uncle Marvin's cabin, where we lived for a while. I recognize the grove of birch trees.

Eighty-eight degrees

2011-10-06T13:34:00.001-05:00

It was 88 degrees at 2 pm yesterday for my afternoon tennis session with the geezer guys. The sun was high in the sky and in the eyes of whomever was serving or trying to hit overheads. We were competitive anyhow, and we played to a tie breaker. I went home knackered and hungry. It's clear that weather that hot uses up whatever reserves one may have. I picked up Unky Herb from the airport later. He was returning from his New England trip to "peep" at the maple leaves as they turn scarlet. He has an amazing number of photos. We have a crop of crimson maples appearing here, too. The peak of the season is within days of showing up and within hours of disappearing if we get a big wind. These two maple leaves fell from a tree in front of the guv's mansion, and I posed them on some nearby very green grass.

The photos were taken on my morning recovery walk in the neighborhood. This maple is about a block from my house and on Chatsworth. It's right in the middle of its change of color, representative of the neighborhood in general.

I've been keeping a log of my tennis activities for the year, and I have some numbers through the first three quarters of the year. Through September 30 I had played 209 full sets of tennis and a bunch of partials for a total of 2,245 games of tennis. I estimate about six points a game, so there have been about 13,470 points so far this year. No wonder my knees and ankles ache.

Overheard

2011-10-05T10:29:00.000-05:00

I was walking around Lake Como yesterday. As often happens when people are within earshot, I caught a snippet of a conversation which surprised me and made me chuckle a bit. I wrote it down. And I wondered what question had elicited this response. One woman said to her companion, "No, but we got rid of the ferret." There will be a prize for the best question that causes this response. Maybe a pet ferret.

The plants in the Twin Cities are feeling stress from a very dry September and yesterday's 85 degree temperatures. And it's autumn. There are interesting things happening to the vegetation.

Milkweeds are splitting apart and exposing silky seeds.

There are still some flowers blooming at the butterfly garden over by the Conservatory. Poppies, I think.

And the maple trees are doing their best to turn that effervescent orange-red that means the peak of leaf viewing has arrived. I think they're being done in by the arid air, but they're trying.

I'm playing some tennis outside today. It's October fifth and its going to be 80 degrees. There appear to be some positive effects of global warming. I just hope we don't pay for this good weather with a winter like last year.

Autumn comes to the north land

2011-10-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted many autumn photos, but it is clear that the fall is falling. These photos are from last weekend in northern Minnesota, where the leaves are a bit ahead of St Paul's autumn display. The first photo was taken at the aptly named Surprise Lake, where the fall colors are reflected on a mirror smooth lake surface. I think that most of the southern population of Minnesota traveled north for the weekend, filling the roads near Duluth and the north shore of Lake Superior with leaf gazers. Surprise Lake is somewhat north of Grand Rapids on the road to Big Fork.

Some maple trees really get inspired this time of year, showing a flare for the dramatic.

There are also quite a few impressive red pines in the north. This path on the way to Chase Point in Scenic State Park has a number of large red (also known as Norway) pines growing among the rocks. There is a different look and smell to the forests in the north, and a distantly familiar feel to its isolation. Autumn continues it's slow invasion of Minnesota from the north.

There was tennis last night, and in actuality this is supposed to be a tennis blog. I played a USTA Seniors mixed doubles match at a tennis club on 98th Street in Bloomington. It was a fun match, decided in the third set tie breaker, yet again. My partner and I managed to eke out a 10-8 win in the ten-point tie breaker and we finished the season with a team victory to wrap up third place in the league. We went home singing the famous victory line, "We're number three." There will be no playoffs and no playoff pressure. That seems to be a very good result.

Bob's House

2011-09-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

The leaves are turning to their varied colors as the season gets serious about changing. I took a road trip to get a better look at the state of the color in the northern part of the state. There are some very pretty sunsets in the north, too, so when one happened I took a picture of it. This one was on Swan Lake.

I was close enough to Hibbing to want to stop for a low key pilgrimage to Bob Zimmerman's house. I've been here before - I think for the last TRAM that we took - we being the team of Santini e Fratelli. Bob used to live on this street which has since been renamed in his honor by some of the city fathers.

And this is his one time home on Bob Dylan Drive. I don't think he gets back there very often, but Hibbing does celebrate Bob Dylan Days every year, just to honor a famous former resident and maybe to get a few extra tourists into town.

And since I've been in possession of these old photos from Santini, I should post one or two from time to time. This one is Lillie Miller and her oldest son, Tommy, in about 1942 - almost 70 years ago.

Not much September left

2011-09-26T18:06:00.000-05:00

The trees are working on changing to the vivid colors that mean autumn is really here. The statuary at Minnehaha Falls is still backed by the green leaves of summer, but the feel of fall is in the air. I had a good weekend, exploring the parks that I've been to in the summer months and looking for signs of change - both in the great out of doors and in myself. Hiawatha and Minnehaha in the park seem to have found each other and have arrived at a stable relationship.

My cache of new "old" pictures from my visit to Santini are scanned in and ready for display. The first is from the 1930's sometime. Lillie, foremother of a lot of my readers is standing on the bridge over the Yellow River in northwest Wisconsin. I've crossed that bridge, or a newer version of it, innumerable times in the last 68 years. I've even fished from it without very much success.

Another oldie from the late 1930's or early 1940's. It's Adam and Kelsey's "grandpere," Tom, in the great out of doors. I suspect it was a photo taken by Lillie on a warm winter day. I don't recognize the site, but probably in northwest Wisconsin, or the north shore of Lake Superior. Notice - both suspenders and a belt.

The same guy in the same hat, doing some sawing with one end of a two man saw, I think. I spent some time on the other end of such a saw with him in the 1950's. However, when this photo was taken, I was not yet a gleam in the old guy's eye. I think he's sawing up a birch tree for fire wood. There does appear to be a gleam in his eye in this photo, but it might just be the angle of the sun.

There are more black and white's from Santini's cache to post, but this is it for today.

I understand that the leaves in the north part of Minnesota are about 30% changed to their fall colors. Here in the south we are only getting color from the stressed trees and the reds of the sumac. There hasn't been a hard freeze at my house yet. My largest tomato plant is still showing green fruit and one a deep orange, which I'm picking soon.

USTA senior mixed doubles league plays tonight at Wooddale. I'm scheduled to be playing with one of the hard core girls.

Old photos

2011-09-20T22:57:00.000-05:00

While I was visiting Santini in Michigan last week, she gave me some old photos that I haven't seen in a while, if ever, and suggested that I scan them into my computer and perhaps make them available for the rest of the clan. This is one of the ways I can do that, so I'm posting the three oldest of the photos. This has nothing to do with tennis, but I get to decide what I blog about and today it's black and white photos.

This is my grandfather, Richard Anderson with his wife, Hansine, and their new born daughter, who later in life became my mother, Lillie. I'm pretty sure it was taken in 1914, almost a hundred years ago, in a corn field on their homestead near Webster, Wisconsin. Notice the dog who seems to have Lillie's attention. Interesting stand of corn, too.

Also from 1914, a photo of Grandmother Hansine and Lillie again. It was taken by the bridge over the Yellow River at the edge of the farm where they lived. The bridge has long ago been replaced, but the river still flows there under a more modern structure.

The third one is Lillie again, now grown up, but still pretty young - perhaps early twenties - the photo is not dated, so it's a guess. It's a nice photo and it makes me proud to be her son.

I had to scan the photos twice because I chose some outdated jpeg format the first time that my iPhoto refused to ingest. A guy learns something every day if he'll only just take a few risks. I got it right eventually and scanned in 18 photos from the days before color photography. I'll be posting more as time goes by.

There is rain in the forecast for tomorrow, but the indoor tennis facilities are available again, so I'll be hitting forehands and backhands again tomorrow, somewhere in the city.

Last Sunset

2011-09-18T10:12:00.000-05:00

The sunset last night will have to last for a while. We had our last mosey up the beach to the park with the tunnel through it and then returned for a last view across the big lake as our local star slid beneath the horizon.

The sky was very very blue in the hour before the sunset. I asked the group who sauntered up the beach with me to pose against the sky on the stairs to the top of the dune. Santini (also known as G'ma), Nicole, TJ and Adam (aka Unky Herb and Master of the Universe).

Another pleasant evening on the shore of the big lake.

There are some nice sunsets over the big lake

2011-09-16T18:34:00.000-05:00

Michigan's cold days don't get quite as frigid as St Paul, but it was about 43 here at the beach this morning. Most of the day was spent with small tasks - getting a needle to inflate the soccer ball, kicking the ball around a while, and an recreational trip to D&W to get some vittles and olive oil. We also had a talk with the Daughter of Norway via iChat from her latest adventure in Norway. She had some stories of her audition for the choir at the grad school. She had to answer some questions, wear a funny hat, and at the end sing a song - her rendition of "Danny Boy." She seems to be thriving and making friends with international students from lots of the well known corners of the globe.

We had this sunset a couple of nights ago. Tonight we have clouds, so this photo has to stand-in.

Yesterday we were at Saugatuck Dunes State Park a few miles south of here. It's a nice wild, natural area with a mature forest growing on top of sandy dunes. We walked to the beach, about six tenths of a mile. Santini, Unky Herb and me. We could see Big Red, the lighthouse, far off to the north. Unky Herb is shown here near the beach dressed for the weather and with the necessary photographic equipment.

The woods provide shade for Santini. It was an area filled with oak trees dropping their acorns, and beech trees, some scarred with the initials of carvers from years gone by. It was a pleasant walk, sometimes through very sandy patches on the path, testament to the location on ancient dunes.

This evening we took a walk around the neighborhood. We ran into a guy who stopped us and asked if we were residents. Santini nodded. The guy said that he is renting a place here and was frustrated because he was unable to find his mailbox. Santini suggested that it might be among a cluster of them up on Orchard Street. The neighborhood is the kind where the trees and bushes might just camouflage a mailbox. He went on his way and we wished him well in his search.

Dancing on the Deck

2011-09-15T17:27:00.000-05:00

I'm having a dancing good time here by the big lake.

Photo credits to Unky Herb.

The Journey to Big Red

2011-09-14T19:55:00.001-05:00

The walk down the beach to the state park where the lighthouse stands is often referred to as a "death march." That is an exaggeration, but today's walk to Big Red was more arduous a trek than is often the case. The wind at about 25 miles per hour from the north made the journey south easy. In fact I was feeling pretty strong as we walked down the beach. But the way back was quite a bit hampered by having to walk into the wind.

I try nearly every year to get the definitive picture of Big Red. This year's attempt has to overcome the disadvantage of a total cloud cover. During the entire hour and a half journey, we encountered not a single human being on the beach or on the pier by the lighthouse. It was just too chilly. We saw from a distance during the walk, two humans and two dogs - almost a shutout.

Santini joined us for the first section of the trek, but turned back when we reached the yellow boats. She's dressed for the day.

The MOTU (aka Unky Herb) was barefooted, but otherwise warmly dressed. He and I completed the trip, even so far as to go about three quarters of the way to the end of the pier. We stopped because the waves were breaking over the surface of the structure and we thought we'd get drenched if we went further. There were other photos taken, not reproduced here, of a turtle, sandpipers, and more gulls.

Here's one of the gulls as he hovered in the air, or at least appeared to, because his forward progress into the wind was completely nullified. It made photo taking a bit easier.

It was a pretty complete day entailing a trip to the Farmer's Market to obtain veggies for soup and a return here to actually put the 12 veggies and some assorted additions together in a tasty soup. Lunch.

Later this afternoon, the COTU and OSLO and Brad came for dinner and later still the traditional walk to the park with the tunnel through it. I even managed my own first run down the dune on the side opposite the inland sea. There is no video.

Eight Pounds of Apples

2011-09-13T19:58:00.000-05:00

It's definitely autumn. Some of the trees, even here in southern Michigan, are getting reddish around the edges. Autumn also means apples are ready for harvest. We decided an outing to score some apples was a good idea. After a little internet searching we decided to go to Crane's Orchard in Fennville.

The young lady at the farm explained the process to us, because I admitted to being a newbie to her orchard. She let us taste the six varieties of apple that were available for pickers today and explained that we could get any combination of those types for seventy cents a pound. We tried a sample of each of the six. She gave us a large plastic bag and directions to the part of the orchard where we could find jonathans and blondees, our choices for picking today.

Here are my picking buddies posing in front of a tree laden with red ripe apples. Santini and MOTU.

The apples were on small tree and thus easy to pick. This tree was laden with jonathans - a slightly tart apple, but one that makes awfully good apple crisp.

We finished with eight pounds of the mix of blondees and jonathons. The blondees are a sweet eating apple. I don't think that I've seen them in the stores that I normally frequent in Minnesota, but I like them quite a bit. The eight pounds of apples cost us $6.01. A bargain and a nice adventure on a beautiful fall day.

Rosy Mound Park

2011-09-12T22:42:00.000-05:00

It was a really nice day in southwest Michigan. I like to find new places to visit when I can, and today Unky Herb and I found an interesting and quite scenic park very near Grand Haven, Rosy Mound Park. It's not real large, but has a lot of wild area leading to a great view of the beach. It's set on a couple of high dunes, so the three quarters mile walk to the beach is very much up and down. There are a lot of steps to climb, but, unfortunately, I did not count them. This is MOTU at the end of the trail at the overlook of the beach.

There was a really nice sunset over the big lake just before eight o'clock. I took this on the daily walk to Tunnel Park - usually it's to watch the sun set, but I got caught up in the US Open men's final and didn't get an early enough start.

Just as I was finishing the above photo, a windsurfer got up on his board just off shore. He was nearly in line with the setting sun, so I snapped off a couple of shots. This is a little out of focus, but I kind of like the effect. The impending darkness and the distances made the focus unreliable, but it is a good image to sum up the day.

Novak Djokovic defeated Raffa Nadal to win the US Open tonight. It was his third major win of this calendar year.

Serena; Not a beast today

2011-09-11T22:15:00.000-05:00

Sam Stosur, a fine Aussie tennis player, beat Serena today to become US Open champion. She was the first Aussie to win a major title since Evonne Goolagong. Congrats.

Just a few photos today. Santini and I did a bit of mugging for the camera and the result is relatively cute, especially for a couple of relatively aged siblings. MOTU took the photo.

The COTU were here today. We had a couple of jaunts to Tunnel Park. The autumn dune grass is somewhat modified from the summer version, with seed heads appearing and growing in size. These were encountered at the bottom of the dune on the way to the park with the tunnel through the dune.

These guys were my companions on the way to the park. MOTU (Unky Herb) was there too, standing behind me taking the same photo from a slightly different angle. Nicole, Nancy and TJ. We had a rollicking good time walking down the beach.

Serena's a beast

2011-09-10T21:38:00.000-05:00

I'm about to watch the semis of the US Open on TV. It's Serena Williams against that cute Danish woman, Caroline Wozniacki. As they come onto the court it looks like a physical mismatch. Serena is a beast.

The Master of the Universe (Unky Herb to some of his admirers) and I managed to get to Michigan this afternoon in time to be greeted by Santini's grandkids - the Centers of the Universe. Presumably the same universe. We had to drive through most of Chicago and past a bunch of those signs advertising fireworks sales at Krazy Kaplans. The best offer on the sign is "buy one, get six free) An awesome bargain.

The inland sea that is Lake Michigan was shrouded in mist this afternoon and evening. There was no sunset, but we walked to Tunnel Park in the fog, and scared up the gulls as we encountered them. The park is much as it was last year, although it is now September and the crowds have gone. The few people on the beach and on the dune seemed to be Hope College students getting to know other Hope College students. The photo of MOTU below illustrates the foggy beach area. He brought his camera, too, and in just an hour or so, clicked of 82 frames. It's just memory that he's using and it's easily reclaimed with the delete key.

This next photo is from our stop at the Shinyo-En temple in Chicago. MOTU is standing just outside the door and I managed to get myself into the frame for a two-fer.

I'm anticipating some good sunsets in the next few days. And a conversation with the Daughter of Norway tomorrow afternoon.

Did I mention, Serena's a beast.

Master of the Universe

2011-09-07T22:47:00.002-05:00

Unky Herb has a nickname at work that I'm going to introduce here ... partly for variety. The software that he works on has been named "the universe" because it's big and encompasses all the software that his employer supplies. Unky Herb fixes that software as part of his usual job, so the other software guys call him the "Master of the Universe." It's always nice to have a powerful sounding nickname. I'm going with it.

This morning, the Master of the Universe (MOTU) went out in the backyard and began photographing his pottery. He just finished an adult education pottery class and brought the pots home to distribute around the house or perhaps to friends and relatives. There was interesting light, so I took pictures of him taking pictures of pottery.

This is his largest pot - a multi-mouthed flower vase.

The Master of the Universe taking a picture of the big fellow.

And this is the pot that I like the most and may beg for. It would be a good place to store M&M's.

Today Rich went back to Tucson, leaving a perfect day in Minnesota to return to the heat box of Tucson. But before he left we played some more doubles with the gang of geezers at Marie Park. We played a couple of sets and I took him to the airport - HHH, he was flying Southwest Air. As unlikely as it seems the indoor tennis season starts tomorrow night at Wooddale. I'll be inside at 6:30 hitting tennis balls in a windless environment. It should be easy and maybe a little more fun than bucking the elements.

The US Open was rained out again for the second day in a row.

Post Labor Day Tennis

2011-09-06T21:37:00.000-05:00

Just to clear up old business, I'm posting the photo of the class reunion. It was taken by Enstrom Studios in Bovey, the same folk who did the Minnesota state photo, "Grace." Of course that was done back in the 1930's and the actual photographer of the reunion shot is different. The photo was done quite quickly - about forty were printed in about two hours starting from the time the graduates of '61 did their posing. Where's Waldo?

Rich is still in town and we were able to get in some high quality rallying on the tennis court on St Clair Avenue. We just smacked forehands and backhands at each other unmercifully until we ran out of steam and went home. Rich has one more day in the idyllic weather in Minnesota before returning to the much hotter Tucson. We're playing once more, the next time with the gang of geezers at Marie Park tomorrow afternoon.

Here's Richard after his stint on the courts this morning.

And a shot of Tennis Tousan. I had to crop the photo a little, and I probably should have done something to enhance the appearance of the old guy with the racket. I'm still wearing the Santini e Fratelli bracelet, and still using my old Wilson racket.

There was no tennis at the US Open today. They had rain all day.

Fiftieth Class Reunion

2011-09-04T20:59:00.000-05:00

It's been a little more than 50 years since I graduated from high school. The event was some time in June of 1961, and it took place in the field house of the high school in Coleraine, Minnesota, the home of the Greenway Raiders. This weekend about 40 of the graduates showed up to have a reunion at the Eagle Ridge Golf Course in Coleraine. In 1961 there was no golf course there, just a rudimentary airport.

It was a much better event than I had feared. Most of the people who showed up knew me, although with some of them I had to first tell them my name. Several were glad to see me and a couple even had stories about things that happened when I was still living there. Maybe I'll tell one or two.

Before the dinner I had a tour around the town looking for landmarks, old ones mostly. This is the sign between Bovey and Coleraine that announces the name of the town you're about to enter.

This is a house in Coleraine's second addition that looks like it has been well maintained and looks somewhat better than we lived there in the 50's and 60's. Yep, 108 Hartley. The kids in front are the newest version of the kids that live there.

In Longyear Park there is an American flag made of painted stones set into the hillside. That was there in 1961 and I think it is in better shape at the moment thanks to the current set of city fathers.

And the Carnegie Public Library, a historic building built in 1910 and still in use. I was there on a Saturday morning and it was closed, but one of my classmates who lives in Coleraine assured me that it's still open during the week. I once performed a magic act in the basement of the library, when I was in my early teens.

The reunion went well and there is much to tell. The really good stories may come out at a later date, but first a few anecdotes. Dennis Hershbach, one of my classmates and now a three time published author, took me aside and thanked me for some math tutoring I did for him in high school when he couldn't get the hang of some concept. Apparently I did a good enough job to get him through the class and awaken in him a love of math. He spent his adult life being a math teacher, and he considered it unfinished business to thank me for a happening that I don't even remember.

Brian Johnson, another life time math teacher - I think in Duluth, welcomed me by complaining that if it wasn't for me he would have had the highest grade in the calculus final. He was still unhappy about it Friday night, although I think he was really just kidding. Who remembers the results of a math class final for 50 years?

Caroline Gilman, a girl from Marble who now lives in Seattle, read me the thing I wrote in her annual (the Blast) in 1961, something to the effect, "You won't remember me in 25 years, so why am I writing in this book, etc, etc" Of course she still remembers me and we had a good chuckle over the quote.

And I'm including the pictures of the 18 members of the class of about 140 who didn't live to make it to the 50th anniversary. Nine men, nine women. A third of the cheerleaders and our homecoming queen. All were missed and were the subjects of much rueful talk.

The reunion itself was a lot of fun. Most of the people are 68 and pretty mellow. Some are very well preserved and a few did not look anything like they did in 1961, even after they said who they were. It was as though they had been stolen by aliens and replaced with an imposter. I make no lists of who was who, but I want it known that I didn't have to tell very many people my name, and I am still able to wear my letter jacket that I wore those years, even after it spent 35 years in an attic cedar closet while I was eating donuts and chocolate chip cookies at work on treat Mondays.

Cool and rainy

2011-08-30T20:56:00.001-05:00

It was rainy and cool today - the coolest day in over a month. I managed to play a little tennis in the morning, but mostly let my achy, creaking joints rest. I also applied some ice to my left knee, the one with the extra knobs.

Purple petunias from the butterfly garden at Como Park.

I'm in the middle of getting psychologically ready to attend the 50th anniversary of my high school graduation in Coleraine. I plan to go look at the yearbook - the Blast - and then try to recognize the faces after the damage done by 50 years of Father Time. Luckily I haven't changed a bit.

I may bring along the antique ax I have that used to belong to Abe Lincoln. Of course it's had 5 new handles and 3 new heads.

A campus visit

2011-08-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

Rich is still in town and we've been playing quite a bit of tennis. And we'll probably play some more before he leaves at the end of the Labor Day weekend. Today, since he and I are both alumni of Hamline University and because we are trying to help our old tennis coach, Doc Lewis, get into Hamline's Athletic Hall of Fame, we took a trip to Hamline. We toured the campus before our visits with a couple of interested parties. The statue of Bishop Hamline, the colleges namesake is pretty photogenic with the flowers and lawn neatly manicured for the start of new student days next week. It's a pretty campus this time of year.

And we had to stop by the tennis courts. This used to be court one where the number one players would face each other in dual meets. I'm not sure it's still used that way, but we appreciate its history. I've played on the court a number of times over the years since I graduated from the college. It has been resurfaced at least once since 1965 when it was a concrete surface.

And a memorial fountain on the grounds that looked attractive in the midmorning light. I guess I like fountains and the reflections that they sometimes provide. This one has a layer of dark gray and very rounded stones at the base.

We had a chat with a couple of members of the alumni relations department and expressed our belief that Doc Lewis deserved the hall of fame honor. Then we went off to find the tennis coach. He's a young guy, still in his twenties and a graduate of Hamline. He seems to be doing a good job of recruiting players and has a chance to have a pretty respectable team this year. He actually went to HU at the same time as the Prairie Princess and recognized her when I showed him her photo. It's a small world at Hamline. We even tried stopping at the office of a certain Mrs. Smith, but she wasn't in the office that the Alumni people had pointed us to. Maybe another time.

And there was geezer tennis again this afternoon. It's getting close to the end of summer and we'll soon be losing a couple of our competitors as they go south to escape the coming deep freeze. But today the tennis was spirited and competitive. Again, no one fell down or hurt themselves, always a good result.

Some tennis with a gent from Arizona

2011-08-26T20:16:00.000-05:00

Rich Stebbins is in town for a while so we scheduled this morning as a time to hit some tennis balls. He drove to my place in his 1994 Honda Accord and turned off his car to come inside. When he tried to restart the Honda it just groaned and refused to turn over. This is pretty much what happened last year when he was here too. Last year we went to Sears and he bought a battery charger, which got him through last year. This year we drove to AutoZone and bought a nice new battery, then we brought it back here, jumped his car with mine and went back to the battery store to get the battery installed for free. That put us over an hour behind our schedule, but we managed to get in an hour or so of smacking tennis balls at the St Clair courts. It was a beautiful, windless day, a day well worth spending on a tennis court.

Here's the guy from Arizona at the courts.

And here's me clothed for tennis court action with my trusty tennis weapon, Wilson.

There are no scores to report - there was only practice hitting.

Kids and Sculpture

2011-08-25T22:51:00.000-05:00

When you take a bunch of photos of sculpture, sometimes you get extra characters in the photo. When the characters are little French kids, it makes the photo special. I intentionally snapped the photos with the kids in them because they were so cute. I think the kids are French, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

This was taken in the little park by St Julien the Pauvre just across the Seine from Notre Dame. Sculpture title is unknown.

And this was taken at the Rodin Museum. The sculpture is one of Auguste Rodin's most famous,"The Three Shades".

Pleasant memories recalled.

Tennis scores: 6-7, 6-3.

Mid August

2011-08-24T22:26:00.000-05:00

A quiet street in the middle of a mid-size city in the midwest.

I had a walk around the neighborhood on one of the nicest days in the history of days. There must be an acronym for that. I was just stretching my legs in anticipation of some tennis action this afternoon, and also enjoying an August morning. The birds were singing. the flowers blooming and the rabbits eating my carrot tops.

Rich, my old college tennis team mate, is in town again for a couple of weeks. He came for a wedding of his niece, but also to play some tennis with the gang of geezers. It was a little windy in the mini valley that contains the Marie Park courts, but not so bad as to discourage play. There were eight of us today, and is usually the case, no one got hurt and no discouraging words were heard.

Some are flowers

2011-08-23T21:04:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of plants like this in the parks and even growing in DavN's (Datter av Norge's) native garden plot. I think it may be goldenrod, and goldenrod has a reputation for being one of the prime causes of hay fever. Along with rag weed. There seems to be some people beginning to get the tell tale symptoms of pollen allergies. The tennis geezers and even Unky Herb seem to be reacting. I sort of like the flowers on this weed, but it takes its toll.

I'm in a tennis slump. Last night in USTA mixed doubles play, my partner and I lost to a pair that we probably should have beaten. There were a lot of errors and double faults that don't usually occur. We went down 6-3, 6-2. Luckily there was no money on the outcome and nobody got hurt. And even Novak Djokovic, the world's number one player, has a bad day once in a while. He lost on Sunday, for only the second time all year, this time to Andy Murray. I lost to a couple of people named Dan and Lisa.

The tomato plants are bearing fruit. It's a tomato salad everyday now until the first freeze. There are even enough fruit that I don't mind losing an occasional orange one to the squirrel vermin that live in the neighborhood.

Summer flowers

2011-08-20T20:55:00.000-05:00

It's summer and the summer flowers are in full bloom here in the northland. The black-eyed susans are at their peak for a while yet, but the feel of autumn is starting to sneak into the air. Especially after the sun goes down. It won't be long before the asters become the prevalent bloom.

I spent some time yesterday at William O'Brien State Park. It's located on the St. Croix River which is pictured below. I mostly just hiked around about a two mile trail and read the trail signs about the park and the flora and fauna in the area. It was a nice day for a walk in the woods.

There was morning tennis again today. The weather was pretty much perfect for an August morning. We had eight guys and we played the better part of two and a half hours. I was a little off my game - the coordination just wasn't there today. The sets were competitive and no one was injured so it was a good day. It would have been better if I had been able to get my serve in, but there will be better days again.

It was nice enough when I got home, that I mowed the lawn and enjoyed the odor of freshly mowed grass, but without the smell of burned gasoline exhaust. Then I picked a couple of tomatoes from my little garden patch and made some home made soup. It doesn't look like the carrots are going to be much of a crop. The bunnies (vermin) that live in PP's native grass garden are still eating the leaves off the plants. My new protective fence is not very effective. Nonetheless, it was a nice busy August day, and the soup was pretty darn good.

Two fountains

2011-08-18T23:12:00.000-05:00

Another opportunity to use a new photo and one from France. I'm running out of comparisons and I'll soon have to try to be a bit more creative. The first fountain is in Como Park near Lexington Avenue.

The second is in Paris very near the Louvre Art Museum. A little more grand, I'd say.

It was another fine day in Minnesota. It was a good day for a walk in the park. That's where the first fountain was.

Boots

2011-08-17T22:57:00.000-05:00

The Prairie Princess (Datter av Norge) left her boots here when she left for school. She doesn't need the steel toed version of work boots in her new enclave somewhere near Oslo, but they make a nice subject for photography. These are PP's boots nestled in front of her native grass garden here in St Paul. Waiting.

It was very close to one of the nicest days in the history of days today. It was a really nice day to play some tennis outside and enjoy the warm zephyrs as they wafted lightly past the eight guys who showed up to play some tennis today. Everybody played well and they were all winners - just like Little League. Prof Bill was back from his bout with rotator cuff problems and showing some of his usual grit. It's hard to believe that we're two and a half weeks from Labor Day weekend and that the Minnesota State Fair starts next Thursday. I can almost smell the deep fried butter sticks.

And political funny season is back in full swing. It's hard not to be excited.

A large bird in a city lake

2011-08-16T21:14:00.000-05:00

This is a city lake. I live in a city with such a lake. Large birds live here, too. If that isn't nice, what is?

It's raining really, really hard in St Paul tonight. I guess it's our turn.

Flutterbyes

2011-08-15T23:29:00.000-05:00

It was a nice, nice day. I was scheduled to play Senior USTA mixed doubles at 7:30, so I took a stroll around Como Park as a kind of warm-up for the evening. I circled the lake first. They have done a lot of improving of the vegetation and flowers and planted milkweeds and butterfly milkweeds along with an assortment of other blooms to attract butterflies. They should really be called flutterbyes. Then I walked over the pedestrian bridge over Lexington Avenue to see how the Enchanted Garden was progressing. It's planted every year with the express purpose of attracting a population of butterflies. It has an assortment of colorful flowers and, of course, milkweed.

This butterfly is not a monarch.

This butterfly is a monarch.

I was pleased with my collection of butterfly photos. I may go back with my new camera tomorrow and see if I can get some better ones.

And then, tonight, there was tennis. This was the first match of the season for the senior league. Mostly I've been playing in an open league, where there is no age limit, but the senior team requires people of at least age 50 (I think). It doesn't matter what the age is, because I'm old enough. It was nice to play against people who have slowed down nearly as much as I have, and to be reasonably competitive. The people on the open team that I played on this summer are mostly old enough to play on this team, so we were good enough to win tonight. Marsha was my partner tonight and we won too.