Sucker River

 

Today I joined 9 other Master Naturalists for a snow shoe hike up the Sucker River. I drove north of Duluth for about ten miles and took a left on Homestead Road. Once on Homestead Road I took the first left on old North Shore Road and drove to the dead end. There I parked and put on my shoe shoes. Even though this was advertised as a snow shoe hike and it snowed 3 inches this morning, everyone else chose to wear boots. The path was packed down enough that boots were easier. Eventually I removed my shoe shoes and left them standing upright in a snow bank and picked them up on my way back. Here are 3 people ahead of us going up the waterfall. This is my first time actually hiking on top of a fast moving river.

Sometimes we saw open water. At some spots the water was low and we could see a few inches of air space between the bottom of the ice and the top of the river. We could see the ice was a good 5 or more inches thick. In other spots the water came close to the bottom of the ice. In other spots we could hear the water running but not see it. I think if I could tape the muted sound of the water running under the ice it would be a good sound to go to sleep with.

Eventually the path on the river got to be too dicey so we took another path on the shore. This path took us high above the river. When the path turned into some private property we turned around and headed back. A two hour hike was just the right length of time.

First pussy willows of 2021. This is a sure sign of spring.

Nothing To See Here

 I was the mood for a humorous book and so I chose Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson. The story starts out with two roommates at an elite boarding school. Lillian is there on a scholarship. Madison is from a wealthy, influential family. Madison gets in trouble in school. Madison's family pays Lillian's mother to take the fall for her. Lillian leaves school in disgrace. Aside from infrequent letters, Lillian and Madison aren't close until, ten years later, Madison asks Lillian to be a governess to her twin ten year old step-children. Lillian agrees to do it and in the process finds out she had skills and ingenuity she never knew she had. She comes to love her twin ten year old children. The children have a special power (or is it a disability?) of becoming aflame when agitated. Flames dance off their skin but don't actually damage their skin. Their clothes and everything around them can catch on fire though. Lillian helps them gain control of their fiery feelings. She comes to realize that she needs these strange children as much as they need her. I am in awe of an author who can make such an absurd plot seem realistic and believable.

The Book Of Two Ways

 As a fan of Jodi Picoult, I read her latest book, The Book Of Two Ways, that was published in 2020. Unlike many of her other books, this one is not about a social issue and did not involve a courtroom scene. The main character in this story if Dawn Edelstein. Dawn is employed as a death doula (yes, that is really a thing).  Coming back from a trip to Europe to fulfill the final wishes of one of her clients, her flight has a crash landing. Facing possible impending death, her thoughts turn to Wyatt, a man she studied with and worked with as an archeologist in Egypt. Surprised by the fact she didn't think about her husband and daughter, she decides to go to Egypt after the crash landing instead of home. This book had a crazy amount of technical information about Quantum physics, hieroglyphics, and Egyptology. I just skimmed over the technological parts. I did enjoy the story about Dawn and the decisions she made in her life.

Bog Visit

Today I visited the Sax Zim bog. At a bird feeder at the Visitor Center I saw some Pine Grossbeaks, Black Capped Chickadees, Crows and Gray Jays.

The Pine Grossbeaks are very colorful. I went driving around the bog looking for owls. The drive was very peaceful. I had a map from my last visit in the summer. At Larry's feeders I saw Redpolls eating from a thistle feeder. I might have had better luck seeing owls if I stayed until dusk but my car was low on gas and I felt the need to get to a gas station before dark.

 

The Exiles

 Years ago I read a book by Christina Baker Kline called The Orphan Train. I liked it so much I gave it to my father to read and he liked it too. Now I read another book by the same author titled The Exiles. This story takes place in the 1800's and is about women exiled to Australia or Tasmania as punishment for crimes committed. And also because they had exiled so many men already they needed to provide women to create a settlement that would last. The story starts out with Evangeline, a tutor who is seduced by her employer's son, and is sent to Newgate Prison and later sentenced to transport to Tasmania. Evangeline is the daughter of a deceased Vicar. She is kind and gullible. She meets a younger girl, Hazel, who is exiled to Tasmania for stealing a spoon. Hazel is also kind but not gullible. She is trained in midwifery and how to use herbs for healing. The story of what they went through was incredible. This story means more to me because I have traveled to Tasmania. I have been to Hobart. I toured a museum about the exiles and read their stories. Starving children were exiled for stealing a loaf of bread. Children working in clothing factories were exiled for having a piece of cloth in their pockets. One night we even stayed in a building on a farm where the exiles were housed. I think this is a fantastic book of historical fiction.

Lake Wobegon Virus

 Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Virus was published in September, 2020. This novel is a retelling of the stories about the characters who live in this fictional town. The virus in the title is different from the coronavirus. This virus is from eating the unpasteurized cheese made by a bachelor Norwegian farmer out of dairy and reindeer milk. The main symptom of the virus is a temporary and complete candor. People suddenly speak their true thoughts which leads to hard feelings and resentments. This book was a little darker and sadder than the other Keillor books I have read.I do appreciate his ability to poke fun at himself. 

Days Of Distraction

Alexandra Chang wrote Days of Distraction, a novel about a 24 year old woman living in San Francisco. She is a millennial,  a recent college graduate, a daughter of Chinese immigrants, and is employed as a contract journalist writing about technology. She knows she is paid less than her coworkers. She repeatedly asks for a raise in pay only to be told to wait or ask someone else. She lives with her boyfriend, J, who is of Irish descent. He is a biologist applying to graduate school. When he lands a position in Ithaca, New York, she travels with him, giving up her underpaid position. She flounders in Ithaca. Unable to find a suitable job she tries to figure out her path in life and examines why she is in a mixed race relationship. When she describes the micro-aggressions she encounters she wonders why J doesn't take her side, why he tries to explain that there is nothing to be upset about. J throws himself into his graduate work and she throws herself into pursuing her identity. This story was entertaining and educational for me.  

The Silence

The Silence by Don DeLillo takes place on Super bowl Sunday next year, 2022. A retired physics professor and her husband are hosting a Super bowl party in their Newark, New Jersey apartment. One of her former students is there as a guest for the beginning of the game. Another couple who arriving after a vacation in Paris are late to the party.  At the very beginning of the game the television signal is lost. Cell phones and land lines stop working. The electricity goes out. At this same moment the plane arriving from Paris is still in flight over the Atlantic when electrical power on the plane fails but it manages to make a crash landing. The couple survive the landing. After being treated for a head wound, the couple walks to the Super bowl party. The five friends end up staying awake all night, not knowing what has caused this catastrophe. Some suspect it is World War Three. Imagine a world without cell phones. The book is about their conversation that night. They talk about bourbon, about Albert Einstein, and about a telescope in Chile.  This is a strange and ominous novel about an imaginary catastrophe.

A Rogue Of One's Own

 I chose to read A Rogue Of One's Own by Evie Dunsmore because it was listed as historical fiction. Set in Oxford and London during the 1880's it is about the women's suffragist movement. Women do not have the right to vote and married women do not have the right to own property. In the story, a suffragist named Lucie gathers a consortium of wealthy, independent women to buy a publishing house so they can publish suffragist materials. One person, Tristan Ballentine, keeps getting in her way. The story starts out when Tristan is just a boy. He is exploring the woods when he sees a huge horse approach. He hides behind some rocks. He watches as a young girl with long white hair dismounts and lies on the grass to rest. He approaches her. She is startled and slaps his face. That was Tristan's first meeting with Lucie. And that encounter sets the tone for most of their meetings. You know in romance novels when a man and a woman really don't like each other and end up falling in love? Yeah, that is what happens in this book. The book I thought was historical fiction is actually historical romance. I am not a fan of romance novels so this wasn't my favorite book to read, In hindsight, I should have gotten a clue just from the title that this was a romance novel.

Fifty Words For Rain

 Fifty Words For Rain is a book I could not put down. I am surprised to learn that this is a debut novel for Asha Lemmie. I was also surprised that the author is not Japanese. Most of the story takes place in Kyoto and Tokyo. An eight year old girl, Nori, is left at her grandparent's mansion by her mother. Before she leaves her at the gate, the mother tells Nori that she must obey. Nori is told that her obedience is more important than her life. Nori is taken in the grandparents but is hidden in the attic and beaten regularly. After three years of this another child enters the household. Akira is Nori's half-brother. Akira changes Nori's life. And Nori changes Akira's life. The story of the love between brother and sister is as epic as the evilness of the grandparents. 

The Kids Are Gonna Ask

 Gretchen Anthony wrote the family novel The Kids Are Gonna Ask. The family includes Maggie, the wealthy grandmother, and the 17 year old twins, Savannah and Thomas. The family resides in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis. Maggie is a widow. Her daughter died suddenly when the twins were 13 so she is raising them now. She encourages them to be curious and independent. Thomas gets the idea that he wants to find his father. Very little is known about him. The twins decide to find their father using podcasts and by interviewing people who knew her mother. Taking the journey to find their father public on the internet brings risks. Maggie helps then navigate those risks. The story is told with an abundance of dialog but also emails and texts. I was engaged by the story and kept reading when doing other things around the house might have been a good idea.

A Beast In Paradise

 A Beast In Paradise is a French novel by Cecile Coulon. The English translation was just released this month. The story is set in northern, rural France. Paradise is the name of the farm. The farm has cows, pigs, chickens, gardens, pastures, and fields. The farmer is Emillienne. Emillienne hires Louis, a local boy, to help with the farm. Emillienne's daughter and son-in-law come to live with her along with their children Blanche and Gabriel. When Blanche is five and Gabriel is three, their parents are killed in an automobile accident leaving Emillienne to raise them by herself. Blanche models herself after her hardworking Grandmother. Staying on the farm and keeping it running is imperative to Blanche. Gabriel is saddened by the loss of his parents. Sadness stays with him constantly. Although he loves his family, he is not attached to the farm. When Blanche turns thirty, a beast comes to the farm. Only Louis recognizes that the beast is dangerous. This was wonderful story about family, love, farm life, and vengeance.  I was sad to come to the end of the story.

The Art Of Keeping Secrets

 Rachel Johns wrote The Art Of Keeping Secrets, a novel set mostly in Perth, Australia. Three women become friends because their boys go to the same school. Each chapter is from the point of view of one of the three friends. There is Emma who is a divorced mother of three teenagers. Emma is a travel agent. There is Genevieve (Neve) who is a single parent of her son. She is a make-up artist. And there is Felicity (Flick) who is married and has two children. Flick is a taxidermist. Each one of the women are keeping major secrets. When Flick decides to go to New York City for a week to come to terms with her secret and try to make things right, Emma and Neve come along too. In New York City, all the secrets are revealed. The friendship of these three women is incredibly strong and healing. At one emotional point in the story I was actually crying crocodile tears and I usually don't cry when reading books. I enjoyed the story and it confirms my position against keeping secrets because secrets can make you sick. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Happy Valentine's Day! Since this polar vortex makes hiking unsafe, I decided to get my steps in at the Miller Hill Mall again. I was on my fifth lap around when a handsome registered nurse approached me with a question, "Would you like to get a Covid 19 vaccination today?" Turns out they had four doses left and wanted to use them up instead of throwing them away. What a lucky Valentine's Day for me! I had been on a waiting list with the state department of health. The handsome nurse got me hooked up and with ten minutes I had my Pfizer vaccination completed and I had an appointment to get my second dose too. The injection did not hurt. I have been watching people getting their injections on the news for months now and I have come to the point where I can't watch it anymore. I especially don't like to watch people getting injections in arms covered with tattoos. So I didn't watch my injection either. I am very grateful to get this vaccine.

Last Of Her Name

 I read another collection of short stories. This one is Last Of Her Name by Mimi Lok. These stories take place all over the world. All the stories involve women of Asia or Asian heritage. In every story someone has moved and is looking to find comfort or belonging in a new place.  Some of the characters are young. The last story in the book is more of a novella than a short story. The story involves Grandma Ng. Grandma lives in her Tokyo home with her son and his wife. She hears them talking about putting her in a home so one day she moves to a local homeless encampment. The homeless community takes her in and she feels more comfortable in her tent with the homeless people than she did in her own home. One day the homeless are asked to leave the park so she goes to a different park. When asked to leave there she boards a bus that takes her out of town. When she realizes she will be moving so far from Tokyo she impulsively gets off the bus. She finds a little park by a highway and sets up her tent. Rain falls that night. She notices a home across from the park. She watches closely and comes to learn that a single man lives there and he has a cleaning lady come in once a week. One day when she knows he is at work, she climbs into the house from the kitchen window to use his bathroom to take a shower and wash her clothes. When she returns to her tent, someone has taken all of her stuff. So she goes back into the man's house and hides behind some boxes in a spare closet. During the day when he is gone she cleans his house and mends his clothes. Sometimes she cooks food for him and she pretends the cleaning lady left the food. She comes to like the man who lives there even though he practices his clarinet (badly) for twenty minutes first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. After a time the man becomes suspicious because of the missing food. He sets up security cameras. When he sees a tiny woman walking around his house he calls the police. When the police come they find the woman in the closet. She answers all the questions honestly. The man is shocked to learn she has been with him for over a year. She is taken to the police station. After thinking about it for a few hours the man decides not to press charges. Her son comes to pick her up from the police station. A month passes and the man realizes his cleaning lady is terrible and he lets her go. He decided to find Grandma Ng and ask her to move back with him. He tracks her down. Her son has already placed her in a less than reputable nursing home where visitors have to make appointments 48 hours in advance. That story about Grandma Ng had me thinking about her all day long. That is what a good book is - a story that stays in your head long after you put it down.

The Lions Of Fifth Avenue

 Fiona Davis writes another historical fiction novel in The Lions of Fifth Avenue. The lions are concrete statues of lions situated outside the New York Public library. Inside the library, the superintendent's last name is Lyons and he lives in the seven room apartment with his wife, Laura, and their two children, Harry and Pearl. The year is 1913. Laura decides to go to graduate school at the Columbia School of Journalism. She investigates the Heterodoxy Club. At this club feminists gather together to talk and to listen to speakers such as Helen Keller and Margaret Sanger. Although the people in this story are completely fictional, the library and the superintendent's apartment and the Heterodoxy Club are real. The other part of the story takes place in 1993. Sadie is a librarian at the New York Public library and she is the granddaughter of the superintendent and Laura and also the daughter of Pearl. She has just been promoted to curator of the newest exhibition. When important books (like the last of Virginia Wolff's diaries) goes missing, Sadie tries to figure out who is stealing from the library. In her investigation she learns that books went missing in 1913 as well. Besides this book being historical fiction, it is also a book stealing mystery. Fiona Davis is an excellent writer.

To Be A Man

 To Be A Man is a collection of ten short stories written by Nicole Krauss. The ten stories take place all over the world including Switzerland, Germany, California, Tel Aviv and Japan. The stories include men and women of Jewish descent. One story is about a grandfather, just home from a long hospital stay, goes to his daughter's apartment for his grandson's bris ceremony. Before the bris begins he takes his grandson out of the apartment and up on the roof of the apartment building. In another story three teenaged international students are sharing a room in a boarding house in Switzerland. One of the girls go missing for three nights. Her father comes to find her. In another story a girl asks her German boyfriend if, had he been born at the right time, would he have become a Nazi. He replies that he probably would have become a Nazi. He adds that he would have killed in battle but would not have been able to kill in any camps. In another story a woman from New York inherits both a New York apartment and a Tel Aviv apartment when her father expectantly dies. While she had always considered the New York apartment as her father's primary home, once she gets to Tel Aviv and stays there, she realizes the Tel Aviv apartment was most likely his real home. Only one of the stories was about being a man. The stories were interesting, entertaining, and somewhat sad in nature.

What Are You Going Through

 Today I had some errands in Minneapolis and Roseville so I had a five hour drive. That was the perfect length of time to listen to What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. This is a fascinating novel about friends and personal connections. The author talks about her experiences with friends and other women she meets. One section is the life story of a rescued cat owned by the host of an Airbnb she uses when she comes into town. Some of the experiences she hears about are incredibly sad. In her opinion no one's life is boring. She also writes about being a writer. She questions the morality of using other people's experiences as fodder for a book.  She claims that just by asking "What are you going through?" is showing your love for another person.

Once A Midwife

 Patricia Harman wrote Once A Midwife. This is actually the third in a series about Patience Hester who is a midwife married to a veterinarian in West Virginia during World War Two. They live on a farm with their four children, horses, cows, chickens and two dogs. In the back of the farmhouse they have a baby house where expectant mothers can labor, give birth, and rest for a few days before going home. Her husband has a thriving veterinary practice and all seems to be going well until Daniel is asked to sign up for the draft. He already served in World War One. At age 42 he will not be called to serve. Daniel saw much action in Germany in the first war and he vowed to change. Daniel is now a pacifist. He could sign up as a conscientious objector but he refuses. Eventually he is put in prison. Patience has to deal with the farm, the family, her work as a midwife, and the people who scorn her and her children because her husband is a draft dodger. I listened to the audio version of the book which was fine except sometimes it included songs. The person who read the story would sing the songs aloud. She is not the best singer. And when she imitated one of Patience's children singing a song, it was terrible. All that is fine if I am at home or walking alone on the trail. With the colder weather and the dangerous wind chills, I have been walking inside instead of outside. So when the "This Little Light of Mine" song starts playing out of my phone in the middle of the Miller Hill Mall, it is downright embarrassing. I should really get ear buds or blue tooth or something so no one else can hear my book. I enjoyed the story; just not the singing.

The Eternal Zero

 The Eternal Zero is a book set in Japan and a best selling paperback in Japan. Naoki Hyakuti's novel was also made into a film. The story is about a 24 year old man and his slightly older sister. Together they investigate the life of their grandfather. They never met their grandfather because he died in world war two as a Navy pilot. After contacting some veterans groups, they head out to interview six men who knew him. They learn from the interviews that some people liked him and other people disliked him and that their grandfather was an unusual man. He was a talented fighter pilot. He was polite to all which was not typical of all pilots. Through the interviews they learned much about the Japanese fighter planes called the Zero. At the beginning of the war the Zero's were the best fighter plane on the planet. By the end of the war the Americans had faster and safer fighter planes. They also learned that the Japanese military did not value the lives of the military men as much as the American's did. Their grandfather was also unusual because he openly told people that he did not want to die. He had made a promise to return to his wife and daughter. Other pilots thought he was a coward. So how was it that at the very end of the war their grandfather died as a kamikaze pilot? You will have to read the story to find out. I really enjoyed the book even though much of was technical details about airplanes. The book delves into the culture of Japan before and after the war. The role of the media is discussed. The competency of Japan's military leaders is explored. The biggest question of this historical fiction is whether kamikaze pilots had a choice. This was an excellent novel.

Goodnight Beautiful

 Aimee Malloy wrote Goodnight Beautiful, a psychological thriller/humorous novel. In this story Sam Statler and his new wife, Annie Potts leave Manhattan and move to a small town in upstate New York. Sam grew up in this town and wanted to return to a simpler life and also care for his mother who has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. Sam's father left the family on Sam's 14th birthday. Sam and his mother have been close. He starts up a private practice mental health counseling office in the lower level of a restored Victorian home. The home owner lets him use the space free of charge in exchange for helping with household chores. Annie teaches literature at the local college. What Sam doesn't know is that his office landlord is listening to his private sessions through a floor vent. When Sam goes missing one Friday night during a storm, many people suspect the wife. Annie is desperate to find him and she is the only one still trying to locate him after the police and others assume he left of his own free will. I liked Sam but Annie is my favorite character. Her sarcastic banter is better than any comeback I have thought of two days after the conversation. This book has a record number of plot twists and turns. Goodnight Beautiful is very entertaining.

The Bell In The Lake

 The Bell In The Lake is a novel set in a remote village in Norway in 1880. Lars Mytting wrote this tale about Astrid Hekne. Astrid's ancestors had, centuries before her, given birth to a pair of cojoined twin girls. The mother of the twins, also called Astrid, died giving birth. The girls grew up sharing a body from the waist down. Their talent was weaving on a large loom. The twins could weave wonderful tapestries with intricate designs that told a story. When the twins died their father chose to honor them by commissioning two large church bells to be installed in the local church. The bells made beautiful sound and were known to ring as if by magic before calamities such as floods occurred. Astrid goes to this church with her family. During a Sunday service on a cold New Year's Day, a woman sitting next to Astrid, dies of exposure. The priest decides a new church is in order. He decides to sell the town's stave church to a University in Germany in exchange for money to build a new one. This has been a very cold winter. The ground is too frozen to bury the dead. The cows are beginning to starve. Desperate to keep the cows alive, the villagers feed the cows horse manure because they know the horses don't digest all the grain they eat. Astrid goes to a sunny side of a local slope to pick tree branches and twigs for the cows to eat to tide them over until spring. Astrid doesn't think it is right that the church is being replaced. She especially doesn't like the fact that the bells are leaving for Dresden because they were a gift to the town church from her family. The story of Astrid and how one of the bells ended up in the lake is a mixture of Norwegian folklore, religion, superstition, and duty. I loved it.

The Queen Of Hearts

 Kimmery Martin is a physician living in Charlotte, North Caroline. She wrote The Queen of Hearts, a novel about two female physicians living in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the doctors is Zadie who is a pediatric cardiologist (get it, Queen of hearts)? The other is her best friend, Emma, who is a trauma surgeon. Zadie and Emma met at a summer science camp in high school. They attended med school together where they worked hard and partied hard. The med school section was like reading Grey's Anatomy. Both women have some personal and professional regrets from those years. But now they are both happily married and successful in their jobs. When a guy from med school shows up in town and joins Emma's practice, neither Emma or Zadie wants anything to do with him. He stirs up memories of a tragic incident that happened in med school that involved Emma and Zadie that has the potential to break up their friendship. I enjoyed the book and reading about the patients and the science of medicine.

The Herd

 The Herd is a book written by Andrea Bartz. In the story Herd is a woman's coworking space. I didn't know this was a thing but it is. For example, the Coven in Minneapolis and Saint Paul is a coworking space for women and non-binary people to get together to work or take classes or network. The cost is $225 per month. The fictional Herd is located in New York City and costs $300 per month.  The founder of Herd is Eleanor. Eleanor and a group of friends from college all work at Herd. Herd is supposed to be a female empowering type of place but as I read this feminist mystery thriller I realized most of these supposedly elite women were ruthless and cutthroat. The plot is complicated and twisty. I didn't really enjoy reading it but I stuck it out to find out who did what to whom.