November begins with theme day

Okay. I'm in again for this blogging every day in November marathon. NaBloPoMo??? I have some photos stockpiled and two pretty good cameras to carry around as the weather slowly deteriorates. Towards winter.

I took a walk over by my favorite lake, looking for a decent picture for theme day. The theme is apparently "water's edge" so I found the edge of the water and waited for some edgy inspiration as I trod around the lake. It was a nice enough day and the sun was out, so I was happy to be out and still able to enjoy such a day. This view is from the walk on the little peninsula that sticks out into the lake. It pretty well represents the day.

I also extended the walk over towards the conservatory and the frog pond. Another place where there's water and thus an edge. The vegetation all over the park is just now morphing over to their winter form. What is it with willow trees? They don't seem to change colors or drop their leaves in anywhere near the schedule of the other trees around here. This one is big and beautiful and seems stubborn enough to be designated a "Kelsey tree." Willows seem to be just the opposite of those ash trees that seem to give up their leaves right away.

It's Thursday night and there will be Thursday night mixed doubles tennis. I should mention tennis once in a while, since this is purported to be a tennis blog. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the geezers and I played outdoor tennis yesterday. It may be that it was the last day of outdoor tennis for the year. I usually say that anything below 50º is too cold for tennis. About at that temperature the balls become hard and refuse to bounce properly, plus my fingers get cold. It was 51º yesterday.

Firefighter's memorial

Sunday was a really nice day. PW and I went to the State Capitol grounds to witness the dedication of the newest memorial on the lawn - a statue to the 207 Minnesota firefighters who have died in the line of duty in Minnesota's history. PW's son, Steve, who is the fire chief in Grand Rapids was there with his wife, too, so we sat near them.

 The firefighters from across Minnesota came to the dedication and creatively hoisted a very large U.S. flag near the Capitol building.  Fire trucks for scale.

This is the new memorial on the Capitol lawn.  It may look familiar to some.  It was for a time displayed in the Lindbergh air terminal at the Twin Cities Airport.  It depicts a fireman rescuing a child from a fire.

It was a nice ceremony, but pretty lengthy, because they read the names of all fallen firefighters and presented the family of each a rose and an opportunity to shake the hand of the guv (Mark Dayton), the St Paul mayor (Chris Coleman) and Minnesota's senior senator, Amy Klobuchar, plus other local dignitaries.  Somehow Al Franken missed the event.

Today was another really nice day.  The main photographic highlight was a tour of Lake Como to see how the leaves were turning.  Some are still green, some are very red and yellow, and some of the ash trees have given up completely.  It's been dry and the ash trees are notorious quitters.

I'll probably revive the concept of Kelsey trees.  Those are the ones that refuse to give up and keep their leaves long after the pikers have packed it in.  It's a little early yet to begin judging the tree's vigor, but it will become clear later in the month who they are.

This is a partially obstructed view of the lake from the south side of Como.

Quite a lovely red maple stands near Lake Como, on the east side near the parking lot.  It was the best of the lot today, IMHO.

I chatted some this morning with PP. She got an email, purportedly from Winona Laduke, saying that Winona had been mugged in Madrid and needed 1450 euros to pay her bills and get home. The email asked PP to send it if she could. PP has had some contact with Ms. Laduke on a volunteer basis at the White Earth Indian Reservation, so she thought it might be a valid situation, but after talking it over with Unky Herb and me, it was clear that there had been a hacking of Ms. Laduke's email account and someone was trolling for dollars. PP sent an email to Winona advising her to change her password, preferably to something more complicated than the usual run of passwords. I think PP changed her own password, too, to be on the safe side. I guess that Tanzania is the wild, wild west of the internet.

My tax money at work

I guess autumn has begun to invade this land. The temperature dropped to 43 this morning and rose briefly to 61 in the "heat" of the day. I turned my home heating system back on.

I visited Como Park for a rest day walk and a chance to explore a bit. I like to see what kind of changes the powers that be are making to my favorite park. I walked part way around the lake and then thought I'd go to the Conservatory and see what sort of flower show was in session. The signs suggested a summer flower show and I was curious to see what they had.

There were a couple of changes on the way over Lexington and past the labyrinth. They have finished restoring the pool area just past the Lexington pedestrian bridge. For many years the pool was dry and the concrete was cracked. This summer enough money was available to get the pool into the condition in the photo below. It seems to be a big improvement.

And then before reaching the Conservatory I came across a sign announcing the restoration of the Friedrich Schilling statue that greets people as they enter the park. It's been there since 1905, and it has apparently fallen deeply into disrepair. They have a restoration specialist working on making it good again. The specialists have taken it off its pedestal. Here is photo of the statue last year.  Schiller was an important German philosopher, poet and playwright who died in 1805.

There was also work going on on expanding the Japanese garden near the Conservatory using Ordway money, but that won't be done until the spring of 2013.

The Conservatory flower show was pretty good but anticlimactic.  The flowers - roses, hibiscus, sunflowers, etc - are still in bloom outside.  I have included one photo anyhow.

September is more than half gone and we're just a few days from the equinox again (September 22).  Soon enough I'll be pining for sweet September.

The day after the ides of March

The strangely warm March continues. Today broke a high temperature record for March 16 by 7 degrees, reaching 79 in the Saintly City. And tomorrow promises more of the same for St Patty's Day, a big event in St Paul where there is a big parade and nearly everyone claims at least some Irish ancestry.  I'm not complaining about the warmth yet. If this is indeed global warming, this part of it is welcome in these parts.

Because it was a really nice day, and because the girl from the north country (GFTNC) was in town, we took the opportunity to circumnavigate Como Lake. We were joined by a large number of the diverse population of the Capitol City. The lake has not lost quite all of its ice, but what's left in the central part of the lake is really just slush with maybe a few chunks. The ice out date is very near at hand.

There is a new feature at Como Park, a charging station for electric cars. It's solar powered and thus will not be connected to the grid. The charge is free for any electric cars in the area in need of a charge, paid for by the tax payers of St Paul. No need to thank me. You are welcome. I guess the idea is to encourage people from a fair distance to come to Como without fear of running out of juice for the ride home. I'll be watching after it opens (next week sometime) to see if it's being put to use.

There is some cycling content in today's blog. As we were walking near the pavilion, I noticed an object about 50 feet from shore. After some examination, it appears to be a bike seat. It doesn't seem to have a bike attached to the seat, but I could be wrong. I wasn't about to walk out onto the ice to see what's attached.

Does it or does it not look like a bike seat?

Not bicycling but at least cycling content. It was a nice enough day to attract a guy on a unicycle to come out and repeatedly circle the lake. He was getting exercise or maybe just showing off, but it was a nice addition to a good people watching day by the lake.

And I played some tennis inside today at Ft. Snelling with three other codgers. There are indications that we may be moving the game outside next week, but only if this string of beautiful warm days continues into next Wednesday. The weather creatures seem to think that it is well within the realm of possibility.

Snizzle

Snizzle is a mixture of drizzle and snow - exactly the blend that we are currently experiencing in the Saintly City. It was not a day for photos. Too dark and dank and gray. So. I looked through the archives for a purty flower and I'm posting it here. I took it two years ago in February at the Como Conservatory.



I played two sets of tennis at Wooddale with Jerry and two hardcore girls. We split the sets and I left to face the raging snizzle. I, of course, stopped at Yang's for some tasty vittles. And then went home through the snizzle.

Snow Angel

There was a fresh layer of snow on the ground and the temperature rose above 20 degrees (21, I think). The sky was blue-ish tinged with cloud. I had no tennis to attend to and I went out for a walk at Lake Como. Como is 1.6 miles around and normally is easy to get around without frost bite. Today was harder, but it was a pretty day. After getting most of the way around without a photo, I decided to go out onto the lake to see if there were photo angles previously unused. About 20 yards from shore, I encountered the nicest snow angel that I've seen in moons. Someone had created it and went on to walk out further on the ice, perhaps to do some ice fishing.


The pretty sky and the expanse of blue sky cried out for a photo. I'm not sure this does it justice, but it is taken from the ice surface and represents February in the tundra. There were tracks on the ice, a skier, and a group of people engaged in ice fishing while I was there, but not necessarily visible in the photo..



I'm not sure that I would ever fish through the ice on Como, and I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't eat any fish caught here, but other people have other ideas. The fishing group had at least one ice auger and seemed to be enjoying the day. After all, it is February and the ice is solid enough to support vehicles, so why not do a little sport fishing for some of those Como carp.



On another note, I encountered two bikers as I strolled the lake. One was riding a bike with very wide tires and seemed to be confident, even on a path that had plenty of ice patches. The other guy was on a more normal bike toiling up a hill on Lexington - a stretch of road that I won't ride even in the summer. Some guys are just more hard core than others. I'm more of a tennis bum, I guess.

Cold Enough

For those who have been waiting for statistics: it has been 13 days, 312 hours of below freezing temperatures in this fair city. A lot of the time lately has been below zero. A favorite weather site reports current temperature at -1 F. But it's what is expected here on the tundra. The winter solstice is less than six days away and is scheduled for 11:47 a.m. CST on December 21. So there is not much light around here either. Today supplied 8 hours and 48 minutes of daylight here.

The snow yesterday left the streets looking like the below snapshot. I took it on my street, but on the sunny north side this afternoon before the fickle sun took an early powder. The city promises to do some more plowing later in the week to clean up the less than adequate (for a snow emergency) snowfall. There will be no tagging or towing. It must be time for the Christmas spirit to break out.



My tennis schedule has been sparse this week - a fluke of the schedule maker. I last played on Saturday and won't be back on the court until Thursday night at Wooddale. The time off seems to be helping the healing of the aches and pains, but I miss the activity. So much so that I hiked around Lake Como yesterday afternoon in the relatively balmy 12 degrees at the time. It wasn't too bad, because I was dressed for success, and I was commiserating with PP, who is still working outside with chainsaw in hand. Her chemical hand and toe warmers are apparently doing their magic.

I end with a photo from the archives, from a much warmer day when orange flowers were out in force. A little color this time of year is good for the attitude. (I'm using this photo for computer wall paper for a while.)

Two Lakes

The cold continues and deepens. A big winter storm is predicted to roll in tomorrow and bury the state with a thick blanket of snow, and then the first sub-zero weather is expected to arrive. It's almost time to hibernate. PP is still working outside and will be for another week and a half. Tonight we went to Sports Authority and she bought chemical hand and foot warmers for the rest of the month.

To appreciate her working conditions, I walked around two lakes today and have the photos to prove it.

Como: It's essentially frozen over except for two small open spots that are kept open by ducks and geese and perhaps the aeration system that is installed in the lake. The lake looks like a big ice rink, ice from end to end. Tomorrow and for the rest of the winter there will be a layer of snow on top of the ice and the drama will be gone.



Upper Lake in Crosby Farm Park: The beaver lodge sits in the lake surrounded by clear ice. The beavers have accomplished their goal for the winter - to have a safe abode. The only way into the lodge is under water. I guess they have two rooms in the lodge. The first has an entrance to the outside world, but the second is only reachable under water. It's a clever ruse, and it has served them well.



I saw a biker out on the streets today. Just the one and he was dressed for survival.

More Cow Bell

The temperature has been below freezing now for 49 or so consecutive hours. I made a special tripto Como after 90 minutes of tennis to see if it had iced over yet. There is still open water, as you can see in the photo through the flurries, but the lake is over half iced over. This is what happens in December in Minnesota. Water turns solid. Snow flies. It gets cold.



"I have a fever and the only prescription is more cow bell." - Christopher Walken. See video.

Ergo. Honky Tonk Woman by the Rolling Stones.

The whole SNL skit with the Blue Oyster Cult song, "Don't Fear the Reaper".

The lakes are starting to freeze over

It's December and also December weather. The "mercury" dropped into the freezing range last night at about six p.m. and has been there for the last 27 hours. I guess it's staying there the rest of the week. To test my cold weather resilience I went for a brisk walk around Lake Como - and I mean brisk. The lake surface was still mostly water, but the photo - taken on the northwest side of the lake - clearly shows the freezing line. The ice comes out from the shore towards the center. By tomorrow the whole surface may be captured. Or, at least, by the weekend.



I took the photos in a hurry, because the wind was blowing and there was a definite wind chill. The mallards are still swimming around - often in pairs - but their swimming surface will be turning hard sometime soon. They won't be happy about that. These two were much closer to shore when I started to get my camera out, but they swam away from me. I must have looked hungry.



I did see a biker pedaling around the lake, possibly a pleasure rider, but one with a parka on. I should have taken a picture.

Tennis continued at Wooddale. One of the players was ailing and absent, so we played a three person game that I learned at the Dude Ranch in Tucson. It's a better game than the typical "cut throat" game that usually erupts when you have three players. It's more of a singles game with the side with two players trading off on every point. It works pretty well and is pretty close to a real singles competition.

Then I went to Yang's for Singapore Rice Noodles. Very tasty and somehow satisfying to end the day.

A Pair of Mallards

Another September day in November, although it is tending towards October. It was a tad too windy for an excursion to the tennis courts. It was mainly in the 50's and I went to find out if the ducks were still in town. Normally, this time of year most self respecting water birds have taken their act south. These mallards were still feeding at Como Lake this afternoon as I circumnavigated the lake yet again. They had plenty of company, Canada geese and a variety of other duck breeds populated the pond.



I checked out the butterfly garden near the Conservatory, too. Nearly all the color has gone from the site. The fragile flowers are long gone, but there are some plants with a cabbage like appearance that are still thriving. They must be an import from Siberia or the North Slope of Alaska to have come through October in a green frame of mind. There were no butterflies to be seen. But there were people out and about, enjoying Veteran's Day with a walk in the park.

The sports section has been reporting on Andre Agassi's new book where he admits to quite a bit of recreational drug (crystal meth?) use back before he hooked up with Steffi. Apparently he has never liked tennis that much, having been forced into the sport by a pushy, ambitious dad. He had a pretty good career and won a lot of money in the sport, so I suspect he enjoyed himself a little bit. Marat Safin thinks that Andre should give back the money and the titles. Martina also came down pretty hard on the guy. I guess his actions kind of stink, but at least he wasn't using performance enhancing drugs, in fact quite the opposite. He's older now and seems to be doing good things with his money. And he can't be too bad a guy if Steffi still loves him. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt for now.

American Coots on Lake Como

In preparation for my usual Thursday night mixed doubles encounter with Jerry and the hardcore girls, I decided to stretch my legs the 1.6 miles around my usual lake of choice. 3200 steps it says on the sign that announces the circumference of Lake Como. For most of the last month, the lake has been been sporting a lot af algae on the surface, a condition some might call scummy. The wind of the last few days has blown most of the green layer to the downwind end of the lake. These American Coots found the algae to constitute a feast and they congregated in large numbers to eat. Unless I counted wrong - a definite possibility considering my spotty short term memory - there are 51 coots in this photo. PP's "Birds of Minnesota" field guide has the American Coot on page 12. It notes, "An excellent diver and swimmer, often seen in large flocks on open water. Not a duck, as it doesn't have webbed feet, but instead has large lobed toes. ... Also called Mud Hen." And thus a segue to baseball.

The Toledo Mud Hens are a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Detroit Tigers, the team the Twins nipped in the recently completed American League Central Division regular season playoff. The Twins then lost in the first game of the divisional playoffs to the Yankees last nightt in the new Yankee Stadium. This set of facts "really ties the room together" (after the Dude in "The Big Lebowski").



Enough digression. Tennis with the hardcore girls was challenging as usual. We managed a couple of hard fought sets with some interesting points. The players look ready for the national tournament coming up in about a month and a half. We had at least two occasions when we had to stop and try to determine the score of the current game that at least one of us thought was completed. It's amazingly difficult to remember points that were played in just the previous five minutes. And these people aren't really that old. Except maybe for me.

I made three bean salad again today - wax beans, black beans, and garbanzos. I skipped Unky Herb's addition of carrots slices. That ingredient can be his trademark. I'm also considering whether it might be all right to add green peas to the mixture. I wonder if they are close enough to beans to be allowed into the mix.

Como Pool is Cool

I went for a walkabout at Como Park this morning and early afternoon before the scheduled tennis time. The park was crowded with people today. I guess it was because it was a fabulous August day and there are only about two weeks before school starts up again. The media folks in the Twin Cities are already hyping the great Minnesota Get-together - the State Fair is about a week or so away. The people at the park were wringing as much enjoyment as possible from the park before the dreaded return to the schools. The Como reflecting pool was looking cool.



It was windy day tennis today. We had six older gents today - nearly the full complement of the Geezer Tennis Association (GTA). We meant to play at Marie Park, but we were out-scrambled for one of the courts by a quartet of women and we took our act to the top of the hill at Sibley High School. Usually, it's a fine place to play - newer courts and bright sunshine, but it's no good on windy days. They are too exposed to the wind. We played anyway, but the points were radically affected by the wind swirling here and there. We were committed to an hour and a half of tennis, which we accomplished successfully but not artfully. We'll try the new courts at Linwood on our next windy day. They are less exposed to the elements.

Summer is beginning to wane.

No 'jaune' for George

After a couple of sets of tennis with the GTA and a guest or two, I came home in time to catch a short interview with George Hincapie shortly after the race in France today. George was fuming a bit. His friends in the peloton (the Garmin team, I think) chased him enough at the end of the stage to deny him the yellow jersey by 5 seconds. He deserves to wear the yellow for one day in his life for the work he put in over the years, including yeoman work for Lance Armstrong. Tomorrow the 'jaune' will probably change hands in a mountain stage and George may be history. No justice.

This bicycle was sitting on a dock in Lake Como when I was circumnavigating the lake this afternoon. There must be a story here. It may illustrate Hincapie's view of bike racing at the moment, too.



Another pair of very pretty flowers growing out of lily pads at the Como Conservatory. The park was crawling with people today - several weddings were taking bride pictures and families were out enjoying a coolish day in July. The temperature remained in the 60's for much of the day.



The tennis courts on St Clair Avenue in Linwood Park now have nets. There were a couple of guys playing pretty good quality singles when I walked by tonight. There remains some work before everything is done. The fences behind the east court have not been re-erected yet. But progress is progress.

Another Heron

I guess that this is a heron. It was standing around in Lake Como eating a fish when I walked by with my camera. It was having a tough time getting the fish down its throat, but by the time I took this shot the digestion process was beginning. The wildlife around Como continues to amaze me. The birds and muskrats have settled in and it makes the walk around the lake somewhat more enjoyable. I spent a couple of hours at Como walking and enjoying a pretty nice day - not perfect perhaps, but nice. I had lots of company in the park today - people enjoying June.



This is shot of a funny little gray cloud against other gray clouds over Como. The peninsula sticking out into the lake was popular today, as were the paths around the lake.



PP was home for the morning and then was off on a camping trip with her female coworkers. They cal themselves BOWs, beginning outdoor women I think it means. (Or maybe beautiful outdoor woman.) They are off tonight at a Minnesota State Park making smores and talking trash about their bosses, I suspect.

Here's another snapshot of my tomatoes. PP and Unky Herb have been using the output of their compost experiment to fertilize the earth and the plants are appreciating the extra attention. Those little red worms in the compost heap are doing their thing.

Out and About

It was a little chilly this morning when I visited Linwood. The city has been renovating the tennis court that is closest to me. The court has had an awful surface for several years, but this year, they scraped the money together to make it better. I'm guessing that some of the money is from the federal stimulus package. This particular project has been shovel-ready for years. When I went by at about ten a.m. there were no laborors to be seen and the heavy equipment was parked as you see it. When they finish the job, I plan to be one of the first citizens to test out their handiwork. It's within walking distance.



Around noon, after stopping to buy some sushi to-go at Kowalski's, I went over to Como Park to enjoy the lake. The fruit trees are budded out in glorious reds, pinks and whites. You can see a couple of clusters across the lake in my photo. I savored my sushi and walked the path around the lake. It was cold on the downwind side of the lake, but there were people out and about who were not at all dressed for the cold. It looked much warmer than it actually was. There were even a couple of young ladies sunbathing on a blanket very close to the path.



Later in the afternoon I took a bike ride. It's my third of the month, and again it was windier than I like it when I bike. I went down by the state capitol and coasted around among the monuments to the various wars that we've indulged over the 150 years of statehood. The Minnesota flag was blowing in the wind. It pretty well indicates the force of the breeze, but it also shows that the sun was shining brightly. The Minnesota flag is a nice blue color, don't you think?

Bald Eagle

It rained in the morning, but the day cleared a bit in the afternoon. I went to Como Park to see what sort of landscaping changes are being done this year. The city fathers are planting a lot of trees - many are red maples - to replace the trees that were blown down by the big windstorm two years ago. They seem to do this tree planting every year, but they don't always do a very good job of keeping them watered and thus the survival rate is not high enough.

There were a lot of birds in the park - a red-winged blackbird, mallards, black ducks of some ilk, and the usual array of robbins and grackles. But for the first time that I can remember, I encountered a bald eagle. It was sitting on a branch next to the lake, looking for prey, I assume. It remained there long enough for me to take several photos, this being the best.


The walk around the park took a couple of hours. It's a big park. The butterfly garden is just beginning to show colors of spring flowers. These pretty yellow ones were the most colorful of the lot. It was a little windy, maybe too windy to ride a bike, but for hiking around in the great outside, it was very comfortable.


And there was tennis tonight at Wooddale with the hardcore girls. This was our last night of the indoor season, because USTA women's doubles conflicts with our Thursday slot. Jerry is still out of action, so Pat was a sub. After a couple of close sets the hardcore ladies wanted to play together to get ready for USTA matches, where they play as doubles partners. Pat and I said we'd be glad to play a set. So we did. They promptly won the first two games and things looked bad for the male gender, but we were able to rally and right the ship and eventually eked out a win. But it was another good competitive set and a good end to the indoor season.

Then I went to Yang's for Chinese food.

Marjorie McNeeley

It's December. Right? I've posted a couple of days of off white outdoors photos and it's time to brighten up. The Como Conservatory is having it's Poinsettia Show and it is very colorful, mainly red and pink. It's a good place to visit to lift those sagging spirits and remember what summer will bring again in about six months - an environment wherein green plants can thrive.


The sculpture "Crest of the Wave" is located in the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory Palm Dome at Como. The artist, Harriet W. Frishmuth, made this bronze sculpture in 1925. It still looks pretty good, although not many people have heard of Harriet Frishmuth. Behind it is a horse from the Cafesjian's Carousel which is also located at the park. And flowers and red leaves.

Dock Damage

It warmed up today to 37 degrees.  For this February, it's a heat wave.  The weather creatures promise more below zero cold by Tuesday, so I went to check out the lake at Como Park.  I haven't been there since sometime in January, maybe December, before my trip to Florida.  The frozen waters have done dire things to the dock by Como Pavilion.  The forces of freezing are pretty strong and unpredictable.  The remedy for a crushed dock is an orange warning sign.  See below.

I walked around the lake and crossed Lexington on the foot bridge to go visit the environs around the conservatory.  The area around the golf course was inundated by Sunday cross country skiers and snow shoers.   People with cabin fever were given a day off and many searched out the open stretches of snow on the golf course to get some exercise and exposure to dim sunlight.  The grip of winter is beginning to weaken, but it is not yet over.

Cold Como

It was about ten degrees and I was walking around the lake at Como Park. This is what the frozen lake and pavilion look like on a cold December Day. The ice is no longer thin. It will support large humans walking across it. Not this large human however. I don't walk on water, not even when it's frozen. There is not much time left until the solstice arrives and the dark is winning at the moment. Today had 2 minutes and 15 seconds more light than the day of the solstice. Not much.



The tennis last night went pretty late and I didn't get around to blogging. I had a sub for my half of the hardcore girl duet, and we went down in two straight sets to Jerry and Becky. It was fun, but not as much fun as winning. I relearned the lesson that doubles must be played at the net. No matter how good your ground strokes appear to be, you are easily beaten by a team that volleys well at the net. That's what happened last night.

I have a USTA 8.0 mixed doubles match tonight at Wooddale. It's an eight o'clock match so I'm writing here first. I'll report later what happens, especially if we manage a win.

This video was pretty freaky. It's Andre and Roger playing tennis on a court on top of a skyscraper in Dubai.
Tennis Video