When is Lilac Time in Your Town?

The lilacs came out today. They have been working on gaining flowerhood for a few days, but they are pushing out their unique fragrance in earnest now. Today was the first day. These lilacs are in my own backyard. The bush is actually in my neighbor's backyard, but it generously overflows into my space, and I appreciate that fact. I think that in other parts of the country the lilacs flower at different times. Maybe the lilacs in other parts of the Capitol City aren't flowering now, but in my neighborhood the fragrance of lilacs is all around. [My blog history shows a lilac photo on May 10, 2007 - the day I took it.]



I was busy during the sunny part of the day, mowing and watering and checking out my new plants - tomatoes included. It rained tonight, so it's wet and not conducive to outdoors activities. And the weekend is expected to be coolish.

I managed to get in a couple of sets of tennis at Fort Snelling. The after effects of my activities of the last couple of days got to me by the second set, and I found myself with more than my usual share of mis-hits. The tennis was still good enough and close enough to be entertaining, a key measurement of contentment. It was the last scheduled indoor session at Fort Snelling, and we were the only foursome in sight when we left the building at 2:45. Tomorrow we go outside to Marie Park and the vagaries of wind and sun. Let the summer tennis season begin.

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?

Greener and Greener

I thought about taking a bike ride. I thought better of it after consulting a couple of weather sites. As it turns out, it might have gone okay. It was windy and threatening rain. And, as predicted, it later rained and the wind increased in exuberance.

Alternate plans were called for. The rabbits in my yard looked to be a threat to my newly planted tomato plants. "Marigolds are the answer," I thought. Highland Nursery has a large selection of various colors of marigolds and now, after a strategic purchase, my tomatoes are protected by a few yellow flowers. It may be a puny plan, but it's my puny plan.

Then I went to look at the big river, down at Harriet Island. The city of St Paul seems to be spending quite a bit of money improving the river banks under its control. I hope the money is federal stimulus money, but I suspect its coming from the increase in property tax levies that are an annual treat in the Capital City. The improvements include a new set of picnic areas in the area where the Jonathon Padelford riverboat is moored when not carrying tourists up and down the river. It's an old style showboat with musicians and other entertainment.


I noticed these lines painted on the side of the ticket office for the Jonathon Padelford. They show why Harriet Island is a park, used for entertainment events, rather than being a residential island. In 1965 and again in 2001 the majority of the island was under water. The Mississippi takes what it wants when it wants it, and it's best to stay out of its way.


I walked along the river for about an hour, enjoying the forest vegetation as it gets greener and greener. Spring is here and is here to stay. I need to tell PP that there is a lot of buckthorn in the area that should be chainsawed to the ground. And I know she can do it.

Marsh Marigolds

There was Sunday tennis at Fort Snelling. It was the fourth day in a row for me and I managed to play pretty well anyhow, but, by the end of the session, I was starting to feel fried and was asking about the availability of oxygen. It was the last Sunday indoors for the season and next week begins a somewhat more sane schedule for my tennis ball smacking.

When I got home, the Prairie Princess was arriving from Mother's Day festivities with her mom, and wanted to show me the work that she and the other members of MCC had done last week at the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary just west of Mound's Park Boulevard. They planted a bunch of oak and red maple trees and generally improved the area. I have been there four times this year and each time the environment gets greener and I recognize a few more of the native plants. With PP leading the way, I now know about marsh marigolds, the yellow flowers that surround her below. They seem to be the most prolific of the flowers currently blooming at Vento.



Next is a photo of PP at Carver's Cave, a sacred Indian cave which at one time was known as Wakan Teepee. There is a fine reflecting pool in front of the cave, and in the background you can see the very many white stakes supporting trees that PP and her Americorps troop planted last week. The whole area is being transformed into an oak savanna. The trees will be a forest in a few decades.



On the way out of the park, as the sun was beginning to go away, I took a photo of the St Paul skyline and the cloud infested sky. The state capitol is off to the far right. It was a beautiful, albeit coolish day on the Minnesota tundra.



We got home in time to order a bunch of takeout food from Pad Thai - including egg rolls and dessert sticky rice. Unky Herb made it home in time to join us in the repast.

Blue Bells and a stump

It was a Saturday for indoor tennis at Wooddale, the next to last Saturday of the indoor season. It was good that we were indoors, because the weather has relapsed to middle April. The mercury stayed in the 50's for the day, and I was glad to be inside playing tennis.

Later in the day I donned warm clothes and ventured to Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis to check out the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. It's a long standing garden established in the 1930's by a Minneapolis teacher and botanist, a garden that tries to grow native wildflowers. This time of year the species include trillium, wild ginger, toad lilies, and blue bells. The blue flowers below are Virginia Blue Bells (so PP tells me) and they grow in profusion at the garden. There wasn't much sun today, but when this picture presented itself, there was a break in the clouds.

There were also a lot of down trees in the area. They leave the trees to rot in place to give a naturalness to the wooded slopes. The old stump with the new growth around it made a nice contrast, so I include the photo I took.


When I got home Herb was back from Afton State Park, where he was taking photos (50 or so, he said), and PP was home from her full day of hard labor at MCC. She was wearing her new steel toed boots that are required when wielding chain saws. We were hungry, so we went out for Tex-Mex food. Love that guacamale.

Incidentally, PP informs me that her new nickname at work is "Wild Card", because of her unexpected witticisms, so she may now bear the initials "WC" in future blogging opportunities.

A Bike Ride to the Capitol

The nicest day so far this year. I took another bike ride this morning, a short one to be sure, but a bike ride. I wanted to save some energy for Thursday night tennis, so I took the Trek to the Minnesota Capitol grounds and back. I took a picture of the bike in front of the state's Viet Nam War Memorial. It's always sobering to stop there and see the names on the wall, a few that I once knew. It was a beautiful morning, so I rode on, over to the Capitol building where the Legislature is in session, dealing with a large budget deficit and a recalcitrant governor. There were some people setting up loud speakers and doing a sound check as I stopped to check on the activity.



The warm day kept me busy. I mowed the lawn, bought some groceries and waited for the tennis match at Wooddale. It was the last Thursday night inside for the spring season. The hardcore girls had a USTA match tonight so we played instead with all men. We played three sets, all reasonably good tennis, and called it a night. I was tired and hungry. I stopped at Yang's for lomein, and now I'm just tired.

A River Runs Through It

Midmorning was nice and sunshiny. I decided to check out Lilydale Tennis Club, to see what is happening to the place I played indoor tennis for 10 or 15 years. It was purchased for about $5 million a while ago to be razed and the land used for upscale condos overlooking the Mississippi. The buyer got caught in the real estate bubble and the property went back to the bank about a year ago. The building still stands and sits vacant today. There was no sign of any activity where 3 years ago, a thriving tennis community lived. So it goes.

So I walked down along the Mississippi in Lilydale Harriet Park, below the bluff. It's pretty wild territory for an urban setting. There were deer tracks and sign of geese and ducks and beaver. While I was walking in the wooded area along the river, one of the tourist riverboats was going down river towards the port of St Paul. The Smith Avenue Bridge is in the background. A good blogable photo, thought I. I walked a long way along the river on a dirt path in the woods until I reached the railroad bridge which used to cross the river into St. Paul. It's a swing out sort of structure that looks to be locked in the open position.


Then I had a look at Pickerel Lake across the road. I met some fishermen coming off the lake on the way to their car and they reported bad fishing luck today, but said that they had caught some large Northerns there in the past.

And this photo is here to prove that there are beavers in the area, ambitious beavers who, in this case, bit off more than they could gnaw. The tree is still alive and standing, but somewhat weakened by the beaver's effort.


Another beautiful day in east central Minnesota.

Old Coot

Following the theme of the last three days - another bird, this time a coot.

Another Day for the Birds

Another bird photo. This is from Como Lake, too, and may be the same kind of bird as yesterday - an egret perhaps. As usual, he spooked as I tried to get close enough for a satisfying shot, and he flew off across the lake. I took the photo anyhow, and it seems to be a reasonably good action shot. There is even a mallard sitting on the lake surface. I'll probably go back to photographing flowers and river bank scenes. They don't spook so easily.



It was a beautiful weekend day in Minnesota. I spent some time doing spring yard cleanup. PP's native plantings needed some water, and there was also still some remnants of last year's growth standing around, and so I removed some of it. Then I went off for 90 minutes of tennis at the Fort Snelling bubble. It still seems to be a shame to play inside on a day when the thermometer in my auto reached 70 degrees, but we paid for the time and so we played. As usual, there were good points and bad, but the second of the two sets was the most competitive and we ran out of time at 6-6. It was fine because I was running out of steam and ready to take a day or two off.

Herb took his bike to Mississippi Market this afternoon to grocery up. He carries most of the goods in a backpack, so he made two trips. It's not very efficient in some ways, but he used no gas, and managed to get in a few more miles on the bike.

The Shadow Knows

I was shutout on theme day yesterday. I had no reasonable shot of a shadow by the time I knew it was the theme. Today was nice enough to generate real shadows, so, after my tennis match, I went in search of something that might be usable. This bird was standing in Lake Como as I arrived, and was friendly enough to stay until I snapped the shutter, but very briefly after that he flew off, taking his shadow with him. Is it a crane or an egret of some kind? Only the Shadow knows? The park was extraordinarily busy today, because it was easily the nicest weekend day in a moon or two.


I had three plus sets of tennis to play this morning. My tennis prowess is suffering from too much play, and I feel like I could take a day off. That is likely to be Monday. Tomorrow is one of the last indoor sessions for the year at Fort Snelling. The weather outside is just too nice to waste playing inside. And I'd like to get some miles on my bike so that the Prairie Princess doesn't sneer at my mileage and my gear selection for climbing Benhill.