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.

Theme day requires a fountain

Theme day comes on the first of the month in this blog world. This month I find that the theme is fountains. I know where one is and I have multiple photos of it. It's in the sunken garden of the Marjorie McNeely Como Conservatory, which is also a good place to go on days when snow emergencies are called and the temperature is a little too brisk to spend much time trekking around outside. This photo is about a month or so old, but I think the fountain is still there. The sculpture, "Crest of the Wave," was created by Harriet Frishmuth (1880-1980) in 1925. She apparently spent some time studying with my favorite sculptor, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).  At the expense of self referencing, I reported on my visit to the Auguste Rodin Museum in Paris in a blog entry in May of 2010.  Rodin was also fond of sculpting his subjects in the nude condition.

Outside in the city it was cold. The sun was out, but its warmth was hardly perceptible. For any readers in the warmer parts of the world, this is what the streets of the Saintly City looked like today. I had a walk around looking for the snow plows. They eventually came by my house and plowed the snow back into my freshely shoveled out sidewalk opening to the street - the dreaded "push back."

Apparently we just finished a January wherein the temperature climbed above freezing for just three hours all month. It's not a record, but also not a pleasant month.

Victoria Water Platters

It was hot enough to require a quart of Powerade and a water bottle of cool, clear water to finish our appointed tennis sets this afternoon. The temperature was in the high eighties, but the dew point remained about 55, so there was redemption for serve and volley doubles. My partner was Jerry from my mixed doubles team, and he and I played well enough to win one of the two sets we played. We played a premature tie breaker at 5-5, at my request, because I was starting to get knackered. It was nearly six and we'd been in the sun for 2 plus hours. We finished at 6-5 and declined an offer to join in the survivor set, the set reserved for the truly hardcore.

Later in the evening, I had a walk in Como Park again. It's a good place to get photos, and it's really pretty near dusk. There is a water display of lily pads and other water plants in the area just outside the Conservatory, very near the butterfly garden. The most dramatic of the lily pads are the Victoria Water Platters. They are like no Minnesota grown water plants.



And I got caught in a downpour on the way back to my auto. It cooled the night down enough to allow a night of good sleeping.

It rained the live long day

There's not much to say when it rains all day. I looked out my back door this morning and the maple leaves, although showing a nice pastel shade, were still wet and stayed that way the rest of the day.



To salvage some sanity I decided to see if there were any pretty flowers at the Como Conservatory. I drove over to the area and found a lot of places to park. Everyone was taking a rain day, I guess. They always have something blooming in the big glass greenhouse. This daisy-like fandango flower is representative of the fall flowers displayed in the Sunken Garden. Pretty, but not dramatic.



So I walked around outside in the rain. I was wearing a pretty good raincoat, so I didn't get very wet, and I was pretty much alone on the walking paths. There were some nice maple trees along the paths, but they are missing the bright sun that makes the leaves really stand out.



The sun may return tomorrow. It's been a gray month, man.

Just a few minutes ago PP posted her pie crust process on the family experimental food blog. I can vouch for its golden goodness.

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.

Still February-ish

Unky Herb missed his New York trip, but still seems pretty happy. He was in the zoo when this was taken.



A flower from the floral gathering at the Conservatory. The light was good and I used the macro setting to capture this iris(?). Why can't anyone figure out how to record aromas for later play back? There is a fortune to whomever accomplishes the process.



Too much tennis in the last three days, so I'm taking tomorrow off. Seven sets in three days can cause aches and pains and occasionally injury. This morning at Wooddale the geezers played three sets. My scores 6-4, 3-6, 5-7 reflect some tired tennis on my part. It was Jerry's last tennis before his surgery, so we stayed around and chatted for a while. The other three guys - Bill, Bill, and Jerry - have had jobs in slaughter houses at one time or another in their pasts, mainly as summer jobs that encouraged them to return to college in the fall. They had some stories about their adventures and experiences gruesome enough to permanently curtail my ingestion of hot dogs and sausages. I'm getting pretty close to being a vegetarian. Although I like a good helping of feta grouper when it's available.

The temperature rose to a few feeble degrees above freezing today. Spring is threatening to make an appearance.

Flight Canceled

Unky Herb's trip to New York didn't happen. He went to the airport and tried to check in, but NWA had canceled his flight, along with about a thousand others, because of a big storm in the Empire State. They had no seats on other flights until Sunday, so he stayed home. It could have been worse. Without a nonstop flight people have ended up in strange cities, some times for several days. Herb was wise to book a nonstop, because he is often reminded of an ill fated trip to Norway, when we spent three days trying to get out of the USA, and wherein he wasn't reunited with his luggage until we arrived at home, two weeks later.

Since Herb was home for the day, we took a ride to Como to try to see the new male baby orangutan, newly named Jaya, who was born on December 13. Unhappily, Jaya was not seeing visitors today. I was, however, able to take some photos of the area around the zoo, including a view of the Conservatory with a lot of white snow still clinging to the earth.



We took the walk around the zoo, checked out the Tiger, Snow Leopard, Cougar, Polar Bears, Bison and some sort of wild sheep. And apes and monkeys. Momma Orang was there, along with some huge gorillas with interesting feeding tactics. They'll eat anything. And then we checked out the sunken garden for the variety of flowers. It never disappoints. There was a great aroma and a lot of very pretty flowers. I'm saving photos of them for later posting, when the snow stops being so white. That could be soon. The weather guys on TV are saying that we'll get some 30's by Sunday.

I played USTA mixed doubles tonight at Fort Snelling with a new partner. We played well enough the second set, getting to a tie breaker, and nearly got to a third set. 1-6, 6-7. This time the opposing guy was very strong and we had to play away from him and towards the woman. It almost worked, but the tiebreaker was 7-5. Hard core Jerry, our captain was there, and we were able to win the other two matches for him to win the team match 2-1. We played in the cold part of Fort Snelling Tennis facility. They claim to heat it, but you could have fooled me.

Cold, Clear, Thin Ice

Yesterday was cold and calm. Today was not so cold, but windy. It felt just as cold as yesterday. Since there has been only flurries thus far this season, the ice has frozen clear, without a layer of snow for insulation. My mid day trek was a search for ice. In Minnesota this time of year it is a quest that is easily fulfilled. Thus the photo with the requisite "Thin Ice" sign for those foolhardy enough to venture onto the hardened HOH.

It was cold enough outside that I sought refuge in the Como Conservatory, and thought that I could get some photos in the flower garden. Two problems cropped up. The camera was so cold that it gathered condensation on the lens and was unusable for quite a while. And the flowers were being traded out from the fall flower show to the poinsettia show which starts December 1, this next Saturday. It was nice and warm in the Fern Room.


It is curling night. The Miller Rink will be at full strength tonight, I think. Wireless has returned from Paris and is expected back on the indoor ice at SPCC. We have a losing streak in progress that needs some inspirational curling to curtail.

It is Wednesday and Herb (UH) and I spent about an hour using iChat technology to talk with Kagami Sensei. She is studying hard for her Japanese language test which is scheduled on December 5. She's learning grammar and other idiosyncrasies, but not getting enough social interaction. She had Thanksgiving with Roberto and other assorted Americans. Miki and Roberto rounded up a turkey and roasted it in the tiny Japanese style oven, plus Roberto made some gravy. KS said that the turkey smelled wonderful, just like home cooked bird.

Only 24 more days until the solstice.