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.

An Old Flag

It's going into the coldest part of January. "That calls for a change in the spirits." This photo is from Minnesota in a warmer time of the year, but it's pretty and I took it.


There was some tennis tonight, but it was not exceptionally notable. We finished a couple of sets and no one got hurt. When you play with geezers, that's always one of your goals.

Minnesota's sesquicentennial is this year. It has been 150 years since Congress allowed the previously known territory of Minnesota to become a state. It was May 11, 1858, when the action passed the Congress. The first governor, Henry Sibley, took office 13 days later. The flag of the USA had to change to add its 32nd star, and this is the way Old Glory was configured for the next year until Kansas joined the Union.



Apparently there will be some sort of state wide celebration of the sesquicentennial, but it has been pretty low key so far, and not much money has been allocated for the celebration by our legislature. They are about to go into session soon, but there is no telling what will come out of it. I could make some money selling tee shirts with this flag on them, maybe, but it isn't likely to happen.

Wicked Wind from the North

It was a very windy day. We had wind advisories from the weather bureau which the TV weather creature says means wind at 30-35 mph. I deferred a bike ride and went to find a photo of the wind. This is a stretched out American flag down near Harriet Island, extended by the wind.



I walked along the river at Harriet Island and over the Wabasha Street bridge looking for one of the ceramic Science Museum dinosaurs. The wind lived up to the forecast. And I found this Renaissance Festival dino on the downtown side, very near the bridge. The dinosaurs are meant to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Science Museum. They are popping up all over St Paul.