Two beaches

It's always fun to contrast two similar, but disparate images. Plus, it's more interesting than repeating scores of tennis matches between aging, but somewhat competitive, gentlemen. The first beach pictured is an artificial one set up along the Seine in Paris about two weeks ago. The city trucked in sand to make an artificial beach in a place where none exists anymore. They trucked in enough sand so that the guys from Disneyland France could craft a sand castle on the artificial beach. It was great fun for Parisians and tourists alike and they crowded onto the beach and enjoyed the day. And each other.

This other beach is a real beach at the end of Pike Island. It is also next to a river (or two), in this case the merger of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. There are no people here to enjoy the day, nor any Disney sand castles.

We tried to play tennis this morning at 8:30, but it was sprinkling and the courts were wet. So we postponed the action and had coffee at Caribou. There we chatted about the Twins abysmal play of late, and the general lack of good U.S A. tennis players in the top tiers of pro tennis this year. The top U.S. guy at the moment is Mardy Fish (once a Minnesota guy) who is now number eight in the world. Andy Roddick is 12th. The top American woman is Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who is 31st. Venus Williams is 34th and Serena, who has been injured and just now making a comeback is 80th. It's been a bad year for American netters.

This afternoon we reassembled to try playing some more tennis. The weather had improved greatly, and although there was a bit of a wind, it was nice weather for some back and forth forehand smacking. It went well for about an hour until a wind squall blew up and it began to rain pretty briskly. We had to quit. We managed a set and a half, which isn't bad for a Saturday.

I've been harvesting some of my tomatoes from my backyard plants. I even had a couple of fried green tomatoes yesterday, and a bacon-less, lettuce-less BLT for lunch. Pretty tasty. I'm also battling with a rabbit that lives nearby, perhaps in PP's native grass garden, who has been eating the tops off my carrots. I think all those old Bugs Bunny cartoons which has Bugs stealing carrots from Elmer Fudd, were misleading. Bugs wasn't after the roots of carrots, he liked the leaves. That's my theory, at least.

And what the heck is a straw poll? In the one in Iowa, you have to pay $30 to vote in it. And you only get to vote once, because they make you dip your thumb in purple dye when you vote to discourage cheating.

Crosby Farm is Flooded and Closed

A chilly March day after a string of pretty good Minnesota spring days gave me pause, but since the river crested yesterday, I wanted to see the beaver dam on Upper Lake. The weather creatures have been saying that this is the eighth worst flood on record at 18.5 feet above flood stage in St Paul. Around noon I drove to Crosby Farm and parked. Across the river from the top of the hill I could see Fort Snelling and Pike Island below. The photo below shows Pike Island and the Mendota Bridge in the far background. Pike Island is inaccessible and flooded. I soon found that Upper Lake is also inaccessible. So the beaver dam will have to wait for the water level to ebb. I had a nice brisk walk through the part of Crosby Farm that is still above water, and I managed to get enough exercise for the morning.



The Thursday night mixed doubles went a little late tonight because the next players didn't show up. We played on and were able to get in three complete sets - 6-3,7-5,6-4. We've been changing partners for the last few weeks, weekly, and playing the whole session with the same teams we began with. Tonight I was paired with Becky, against Jerry and Barb. Good tennis and no bickering. Then off to Yang's for grand chicken.

PP is still at White Earth while her car is being repaired. A minor parking lot wounding. She'll be back next week. Unky Herb is off to Chicago again this weekend in the Corolla. Busy. Busy. Busy.

Twenty Stars

After my usual Saturday tennis competition at Wooddale, I came home to find the youngsters here and looking for an adventure in nature. We decided that Pike Island offered a nice walk in the woods with a relatively high chance of sighting a deer or maybe an eagle. And it's only ten minutes from my door.

On the way we walked by old Fort Snelling. The flag flying against the cool, blue sky has only twenty stars. I know that Fort Snelling is a historic site, so flying an old flag is probably okay, but I am hard pressed to know when the USA had a flag with only twenty stars, maybe sometime near the Civil War. I'm sure there is an internet site that will tell me. [The twenty star flag was the official flag for only one year, 1818.]



The three mile walk around Pike Island took a while, and on the journey we discovered several hollow trees. They reminded me of Winnie the Pooh and his honey tree. PP said she could live in this particular tree, so we asked her to get inside and see how it fit her domestic requirements. The place did not have indoor bathroom plumbing.



Herb was taken by the multitude of dead limbs lying about. They look like ninja hitting sticks. We had a good time trying to knock hanging dead branches out of trees above the path. PP called them widow makers. It was a nearly perfect day for woods walking, fifty-five-ish and sunny. Unfortunately, we saw neither deer nor eagle on our rounds, but there were wood ducks, geese, poison ivy, and some wild turkeys at a distance, a distance beyond the photo taking range of my camera.



Another beautiful day in east central Minnesota.

Whiskey was a fine horse

Today was the second warmest day of 2009. My car thermometer registered 67, but the TV weather guys were reporting a couple of degrees less. My maple tree in the backyard is beginning to sprout leaves. They are still in the bud stage, but soon they'll be shading the grass and the fresh new pots of prairie grass that PP seeded yesterday. The buds look good against a blue, blue sky.


So I took my act to Fort Snelling and had a trek around Pike Island. The bridge to Pike is accessible, because the mighty Mississippi has receded a bit. The hike around the island is about four miles, and there is plenty of mud on the trails yet. In some places the mud is the trail. I spotted a herd of white-tailed deer flouncing through the mostly bare trees, but they were too fast and too distant to warrant a photo. Maybe next time.

An interesting side story is this grave for a horse named Whiskey near the Fort Snelling Visitor Center at the top of the bluff. It is surrounded by a short white picket fence.


This is what the Minnesota History Center web site has to say about Whiskey:
"U.S. Cavalry horse Whiskey was buried on the fort's grounds in 1943. The trick-performing horse was a popular resident of the fort from the 1920s until his death. Labeled a renegade when he arrived in 1921, Whiskey soon came to the attention of Lt. William Hazelrigg, who spotted the horse's uncanny intelligence. Whiskey was the top horse of the Fort Snelling Blacks polo team and he and Hazelrigg performed widely, including at the Minnesota State Fair. In 1936, at age 25, he was officially retired and lived out his life in leisure in the fort's old cavalry stables with his old performing partners, mules Nat and Snelling. Whiskey's remains, which were in the path of the new light-rail system, were moved to a new location near the Fort Snelling Visitor Center in 2002. Ironically, this location is near the long-gone stables where Whiskey spent his last years."

Who knew that Fort Snelling had a polo team????

Autumn Trek Photos

The Blogger facility is working a little better today,so I'm uploading the photos that I wanted to use yesterday. Blogger failed me once today, but my repeated upload attempts eventually succeeded.

Yestreday's bike trek began in my own backyard. My sweet little maple tree is beginning to drop all her leaves. They changed color and then the winds came and this is what remained yesterday.


My journey took me to the River Road across the Ford Parkway bridge, and by Minnehaha Falls. It rained for about 18 of the last 21 days, so this is quite high water in the Creek that flows over the precipice. It's a fierce waterfall this month compared with the July barely adequate flow. And the leaves have decided to redecorate.


This is the photo of the spot where the trek odometer reached 400 miles for the year. A puny total for some, but not insignificant for most Social Security recipients. The bridge behind the bike goes to Pike Island in the lowland below Fort Snelling. It is one of the few places in the Twin Cities that you will find a sign forbidding bicycle travel. (There is another one very near Minnehaha Park in the Longfellow Gardens area). It was a busy place when I rode there yesterday, today it was likely deserted.


I found my broom and sliding shoes for curling and went to the club on Selby for the open house today. The place was populated with new curlers, but the event was not very well organized. I watched for a while, then came home to watch the Vikings lose another game, this one to the Dallas 'Boys. I think I'll be able to remember the curling delivery for the first night on the ice this Wednesday.