Full Moon Flight

This morning, the first day of my vacation, started early.  I had the luxury of a personal escort on the light rail trip to the airport which was very nice.  I've used light rail before but having an experienced companion made the trip anxiety free.  My flight took off in the dark.  As we flew over the Mall of America I looked down and could see through the skylights.  I saw the tables and trees inside the mall.  The clear sky and the full moon made it easy to see bodies of water.  The moon shone on the water and reflected back to me.  On the lakes the moon illuminated the thin rim of ice on the lake edges and corners as well as the open water in the middle.  Rivers were visible in curved arches where the moon shone over the river bank and through the trees and reflected back to me up in the air.  I tried to follow the rivers and predict which way they curved when the reflection was temporarily blocked.  I really like having a window seat although I gotta say, the left side of my neck is a little tight from looking out the window for so long..

Creatures of the Kingdom

I was on my way to the gym and looking for a book to read when I saw this one on the bottom of a stack in the kitchen. I grabbed it not knowing how long it had been there.  Here was a treasure just waiting for me.  James Michener wrote Creatures of the Kingdom.  Usually Michener writes very long and well researched books that are so thick you wouldn't want to carry them to the gym.  This collection of short stories was easier to carry and perfect for distracting me from my exercise.  Sixteen short stories were delightful and educational.  His love of nature is contagious and I now have a new fondness for armadillos and mammoths.  The final chapter, "Genghis Khan and the Colonel" is about a squirrel/bird feeder dispute and is very entertaining.  

 

Favorite Day Of The Year

What a week it has been.  Seems like every minute was filled with responsibility; every task completed with the next step forming in my head.  I had a regular whirlwind of a week culminating in my favorite work day of the year - the annual years of service ceremony.  The ceremony went off without a hitch.  Every moment was fun.  Months of planning and preparation have paid off.  I am so lucky to have a job that I enjoy this much.

What's In Store For Me In The Direction I Don't Take?

“What's in store for me in the direction I don't take?”    - Jack Kerouac

Yesterday I went for a short motorcycle ride.  Because it was a nice day and I had tons of things to do I thought it would be a good day to fill up the gas tank with gas and add a fuel stabilizer.  So I put on my gear and headed to the gas station.  No one said I had to go to the nearest gas station so I headed north and west through Nowthen and Elk River.  All the yards except on the golf courses looked brown and dry.  Many of the potato fields were bare soil but some had a green cover crop growing.  The green color of the cover crop looked irregular as if it shouldn't be there and won't last very long.  I took the river road and before I knew it I was in Big Lake.  I crossed the Mississippi.  As long as I was there I stopped in the city park of Monticello.  I parked under some maples still fully loaded with yellow leaves.  I walked down to the water edge to feel the temperature of the river.  The water was very low so I had to cross some boulders and a good ten feet of river bottom mud before I got to the water.  The water was clear and I could see algae growing on branches under the water.  Jesus bugs scuttered around and the water felt surprisingly warm.  Three groups of people fished from shore and another group fished from a boat.  Kids played with sticks on the rocks.  A man and a woman holding hands strode by walking downstream in the dried mud.  I headed toward home and the gas station.  Logically I could have taken the shortest way home.  But on Indian summer days like this, the pull of the open road is too strong.  I took the other side of the river back home.  In Dayton I saw the Crow River flowing into the Mississippi.  I wanted to follow the Crow for a while and that took me into Rogers.  From there I took the familiar Diamond Lake Road back into Champlin.  Still unable to take the logical way home, I stopped by Point Park in Anoka to see the state champion ash tree standing guard.  And then I got gas and went home.  It's strange how when I drive the motorcycle sometimes I loose control of the vehicle.  The road pulls me like a magnet pulls a piece of metal.  I end up places I didn't plan on going.  Like hypnotism, you have to be open to the road tugging at you.  If you choose to let the road decide where to go, you open yourself up to exploratory state of mind, senses on alert, destination unknown.

War!

I've been hunting the thorn this weekend. I have come out of the battle somewhat victorious although bloodied, scratched and injured.  Armed with a loppers, pruning saw, bow saw and a squirt bottle of "Brush B Gone" I advance on the enemy.  I snip and spray while saying aloud, "Suck It!"  The buck thorn is drawing it's fluids back into the roots in the fall so the nasty plant draws the poison right into the heart of the root.  But the buck thorn is a tricky plant who plans to survive my attack.  The sneaky thorns grows amid the poison ivy, creating it's own poisonous moat.  The nasty buck thorn will hide it's cut stem under the leaves so I can't see it to administer the poison.  When I cut a 12 foot tall tree, it nearly always falls on my head.  Statistically, not that many trees should be falling on my head when there are 360 degrees of possibility.  In this war, me against the thorn, who will come out on top?  I see an army of thorn in the woods around me and it's scary.  Those dark green leaves of the enemy remain unmolested on neighboring property.  This is war!

Art!

 Last night at my Master Naturalist class we had a nature drawing class.  One of our members is an artist.  She gave us all paper, pens, pencils, charcoal, erasers and smudgers to use.  She showed us how to draw a daffodil starting with six circles around a center circle.  My daffodil turned out to be the best daffodil I have ever drawn.  Also on that page is supposed to be a stalk of wheat, a turtle, an oak leaf, a snowflake and a robin.  The upper drawing is supposed to be a squirrel holding an acorn while standing on a branch.  She spoke about the left brain (the artist) and the right brain (the scientist).  Sometimes the right brain can impede the artistic process by trying to insert facts and science into the picture.  That is why she recommends that if you listen to music while drawing, make sure it's instrumental music without words.  According to her, listening to lyrics will not help your drawing.  She is a good artist and she does nice work.  We had fun trying to draw, trying to focus on the shapes of things and keeping the right side of our brain subdued for once. 

Far From The Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy wrote Far From the Madding Crowd.  I had heard of this book before and I thought it was far from the maddening crowd which turns out to be pretty much the same definition.  I loved every minute of this book.  And I loved the names the author gave to the characters.  Gabriel Oak (manly angel and a sturdy tree) is one of the main characters.  He's a hardworking shepherd who is as dependable as the day is long.  Bathsheba Everdene is the independent young woman who seems to drive all the men around her to madness.  Bathsheba - what a name.  Can you just picture a baby named Bathsheba?  I can't. I also can't imagine Bathsheba passing my personal naming test - how it would sound when you opened the door and yelled for her to come in from outside.  "Bathsheba! Come home!"  No, it just doesn't work.  Farmer Boldwood is a neighboring farmer who falls for Bathsheba.  Boldwood is a mentally unbalanced, moody fella who insists that Bathsheba agree to marry him even when he knows she doesn't like him.  Sargent Troy is the two timing, duplicitous villain of the story.  And Fanny Robin (thank you my dear parents for not naming me Fanny) is the long suffering victim of the tale.  This is a great classic story.  I already put the BBC version of the movie on my netflix queue.

Buckthorn Suddenly Apparent

Now that many leaves have come down, the glossy, waxy, dark green leaves of the European buckthorn are very apparent.  I have cut buckthorn out of my yard for the past two years and I see I still have more to do.  One is over 12 feet tall and I don't know how I missed it before.  Even more disturbing is all the buckthorn in my neighbor's woods.  The oak forest around my house is full of young buckthorn.  I am tempted to call 3 or 4 of them and point out the problem and offer to give them a hand.  I'm not sure how they would take a call like that from me.  Maybe I will talk to the neighbor I know the best and see how that goes first.

Extra Robins

The past week or so I've had an large number of robins visiting my yard.  These robins come to harvest the crabapples off my trees and drink water out of the bird bath.  They are especially large - larger than the blue jays who come to get a drink.  I guess we don't have to worry about West Nile virus killing off all the robins because I've had plenty.  I hope they save some apples for the cedar waxwings.

Organizing

I organized my garage this weekend.  I installed a kayak hoist so I could suspend the boat from the ceiling and get it out of the way.  I read the directions carefully.  I enjoy reading directions and putting things together.  It's similar to following a recipe.  Attaching the pulley assembly to the ceiling joists was easy because the instructions were clear but hard because my arms got tired holding them up to work above my head.  Threading the rope through the pulley assembly was easy because it was physically easy but hard because the instructions were not clear at all.  I'm a knitter and a crocheter so I know when instructions are not clear.  Eventually I got it done and the kayak hangs safety out of my way now until I want to use it again.  I had hoped to get one more last kayak trip in but the recent cold weather has made that impossible.

Scream

This morning I was swimming laps.  Swimming can be both sensory stimulating and sensory limiting.  With my goggles fogged up and my ears covered with silicone plugs and a swim cap, I can't see or hear very much.  I swam along, lap after lap, staring at the dark tiles that keep me centered in my lane.  About 45 minutes into my swim I heard a scream.  The children's swimming lessons must have started over in the kiddie pool.  I never heard anyone come in but that scream cut through the water, the swim cap, and the silicone ear plugs.  This very annoying child kept screaming, 2 seconds at a time, at intermittent intervals about 12 times.  Dang!  How annoying can one child be?  Just think how much more annoyed the people are who aren't wearing ear plugs.  I considered screaming back just to scare the kid into stopping.  Then I remembered I loved to scream when I was a child.  My parents made me do it outside so outside I would go to scream and scream and scream.  I loved it.  My friends and I would go inside my playhouse to scream.  Yes, we had a playhouse.  A miniature house with the same shingles and siding as our larger house, our playhouse had a door, a picture window, some cabinets and some chairs.  The wallpaper in our playhouse was adorned with scenes of boys and girls and dogs frolicking.  We sat together and screamed in unison until we achieved a blasting harmony that made our ears ring. Screaming was such great fun.  We must have sounded like a murder scene but we were outside so we were free to do it.  By the time I thought this through, the child in the swimming lessons had stopped screaming.  I wasn't annoyed anymore.  The screaming kid brought back a good memory for me.

Review

Last night at book club it was my turn to review a book.  The group chose The Beginner's Goodbye by Ann Taylor.  We ended up having a great discussion.  The group was really clicking along.  People were adding comments that were short and on topic making the discussion move almost magically around the table.  I love it when a good plan comes together.  In the book a romance develops.  I totally did not see it coming.  I read the book twice and even knowing a romance was in the making, I still didn't see it coming.  Other people in the group did see the romance blooming.  Our group was about 25 people and 5 saw the romance coming.  They claim it was a comment the man made about the woman's physical presence.  I'll read it again to see if I can find it.  I am sometimes gullible and a little oblivious on picking up on social cues.  If I can find signals in a novel, maybe I will be able to find more signals in my real life as well.  One can hope!

Junco's Return

My Junco's came back this weekend; back from Canada and Alaska where they  migrated, mated, and raised their young.  They look particularly crisp, cheerful, and well rested hopping about on the deck while eating up the left-over canary food.  The white feathers on the sides of their tails are very evident when they fly.  With their pink bills and dark eyes that blend into the color of their heads, they look blind to me.  I have no way of knowing if these are the same birds that were here on my deck in 2011 but it makes me feel good to think they were here before.

Finally Got It Done

A tree fell in my driveway in August.  Finally I got it cut in half and moved out of the driveway.  Buying a 12 inch wood cutting blade for my reciprocal saw did the trick.  It was a big log!  I put my little motorcycle key on top so you can see how big it is.

Cue Snoopy happy dance!

Conclusion of Summer

Last night Jack Frost called it, the season is over.  Roll up your hoses, empty your rain barrel, toss those annual and leaves into the compost heap.  Give up any attempts to grow your own food.  It's all over now.

West of Here

Jonathan Evison wrote West of Here, a novel about a town on the rugged Washington coast called Port Bonita.  The story skips back and forth from 1860 to 2006.  Each character is introduced thoroughly so I didn't feel overwhelmed by all the names and personalities.  About half way through this entertaining story, I realized, like after staring at one of those magic eye pictures, that things were starting to fit together like a puzzle.  A odd young native boy in 1860 is linked with another at-risk youth in Port Bonita High School who engages in risky behavior.  A man named Thornburg who builds the dam on the river in 1860 that forever blocks the salmon is related to the Thornburg who manages the local fish canning factory in 2006. Krieg was one of my favorite characters.  He works in the canning factory, believes in Sasquatch, drives a GTO, and seem very lonely.  He's related to a minor character in the 1860's who is known as a hero. Except for uncomfortable flashes of misogyny, I enjoyed the authors description of the people and the land. Even the side story about Sasquatch wasn't too distracting.

Chickens

Meredith (at top) is larger than the Orpingtons.  Notice their fluffy bloomers.

Such a dreamboat!

The females look so much alike I can't tell them apart yet.

The buff Orpingtons behave differently than the Amercaunas chickens I had before. For one thing, they scratch at the ground more. You know how chickens scratch the ground? They paw once with the left foot, twice with the right foot, peck at what they have uncovered, and repeat. Every day when I give them fresh water, I have to empty an inch or more of mud from the water bowl. The chickens scratch up so much dirt it flies through the air and some of it lands in the water dish. I have been moving the coop and run every week as usual. These Orpingtons scratch so much that the grass is not recovering like it used to when I had all Americaunas. I have many bare spots in my lawn now.  Other than the scratching, the two breeds are both docile and tame which I do appreciate.  In the winter, when they stay in the same spot for months at a time, will they continue to scratch up as much earth?  I hope we have some good snow cover this winter. If we don't I am afraid these chickens will dig a run-sized hole in the ground-possibly six feet deep!

Weather Permitting

I've been a good soldier lately. I've been going to the gym after work every night, breathing in that stinky, sweaty, used up air and exercising my heart and lungs even when the nice weather tempted me.  But last night I didn't.  A friend wanted to show me a new route on the motorcycle.  Exercise be dammed, we took advantage of the nice weather and went for a ride.  We took the back roads up to St. Frances, passing a llama farm. We saw an adult and an immature cream colored llama run full tilt through a field, through a gate and into a barn.  Wow, llamas on the run.  We took County Road 72 north of St. Francis.  When we got to the edge of town and the warning sign said curves ahead, my friend poured on the gas.  Her Harley pipes throttled loudly and I knew she liked this road.  With a smile on my face I tried to keep up with her.  Vrooom Vrooom.  The road curved past maples, oaks and birches.   I am taking the curves at the posted speed or sometimes a little above that.  Corn was being harvested in the fields.  The roadside ponds are ringed with black mud indicating they used to be deeper.  In our 60 mile trip I think we crossed the Rum River 7 or 8 times between my house and Dalbo and back again.  The sun was playing hide and seek behind a large cloud.  The air was warm.  The quiet roads were curvy and a little hilly.  A man stands at a crossroads out in the country under a tree.  He looks at my friend as she rides by on her Harley.  I wave but he doesn't notice.  He's watching her blond ponytail waving in the breeze from under her helmet.  Who wouldn't be jealous of us?  We're having the time of our lives.

Orange is My Favorite Color

I like yellow and green.

I like red and scarlet and crimson.

I like gold too.

Harvest Time

Mystery vegetable-squash or watermelon?

On Sunday I harvested the garden.  I dug out one row of red potatoes and two rows of Yukon gold potatoes.  Digging potatoes is an odd annual experience.  One the one hand the shoveling and repeated bending are hard on the back.  On the other hand, you can never predict what size potato will come from each vine.  The biggest vines may have the smallest spuds.  A puny, spindly vine may have 2 or 3 good sized potatoes lying beneath it. Harvesting potatoes is almost like unwrapping presents only in this case the wrapping is dirt.  The surprise factor makes me forget the hard work.  My carrot crop was nothing to brag about.  My whole garden was nothing to brag about his year.  I did get an odd looking harvest out of my bigger compost pile;  one of those unplanned, unplanted surprises.  I perched the vegetable on a fence post for a photo.  The shape is close a butternut squash but also a little too wide.  Most butternuts have a definite waist and hips on them (like the other one next to my red bucket in the second picture).  The skin of this mystery vegetable looked like a watermelon to me.  I composted both squash and watermelon so it could be either.  Was this some kind of butternut/watermelon hybrid?  I cleaved it in half and found the inside was not watermelon  and not a hybrid but pure butternut squash.  I baked it and now I have about 12 cups of cooked squash.  

Bluebirds Touring Their Own Stomping Grounds?

On Sunday afternoon I was doing some yard work when I glanced toward the east side of my house where I keep one of my three bluebird houses.  A bluebird was perched on the house staring into the hole.  It left and perched in my cherry bush and another bluebird flew out of the cherry bush and it looked into the hole of the bluebird house.  A movement of blue caught my eye and I saw another bluebird in my garden.  It picked up a potato vine that I had just pulled out of the soil and flew off with it.  Carrying nesting material is a sign of breeding behavior.  Between the nearest oak, cherry bush, black spruce and the bluebird house, I saw a total of eight bluebirds.  Each of them took turns peering into the hole of the bluebird house.  It was a bluebird reunion!  I've never seen that many bluebirds congregating together before.  Were they confused by the nice weather into thinking it was time to start nesting again?  Or were they headed south in a group and just stopping by to see the old home place one more time before heading to Texas or Mexico?  I tried to get closer with my camera and they all took off.  The bluebird extravaganza was over; fleeing but awesome.