Neighborhood Buck

 

Look at this handsome buck I saw just two blocks down hill from my house! His antlers are covered in velvet. His neck looks thin to me so I would guess this is a young buck. The road on the right side of the photo runs along the edge of Chester Creek so this buck has plenty of wild and wooded hills to meander.

Willowgreen

 

Tonight Willowgreen was playing at the Chester Creek Bowl. I walked up to listen to this band that plays music from Ireland, Newfoundland, Canada and Scotland. They were pretty good and the park was crowded with people.

From The 100 Yen Store

 

For Christmas I got this egg timer. The timer is in my kettle with four eggs. My family bought it at the 100 yen store which is the same as our dollar stores. Here are my hard boiled eggs finished.

Here is what they looked like before I started booking them. Notice the pink area below the chicken face is all pink? When the egg is hard boiled only the top semi-circle is pink. This is a cute little kitchen gadget but I am not going to stand over the pot and watch it change from pink to white. I will just set the timer for five minutes of boiling like I usually do. When I visited Japan I walked through the 100 yen store several times. I saw many interesting gadgets but nothing I really needed. I thought about buying some chair socks. They sell 2 inch socks for chair legs so the chair doesn't scratch your floor. The socks come in colors and animals such as pandas and elephants and lions.

Cold Storage, Alaska

 Normally I am not a fan of crime novels but I am a fan of this one. Cold Storage, Alaska by John Straley is not a typical crime novel. This book is more of a screwball comedy crime novel. The story centers around two brothers. Clive is older but not wiser. He decides to  move home to make amends to his younger brother, Miles, who has been caring for their mother while Clive was in prison for seven years for dealing cocaine. Clive plans to give up on crime. Meanwhile Miles, a former military medic who served in Iraq, acts as the paramedic and only medical professional in the town of Cold Storage, Alaska. In his spare time Miles like to fish for King cod unsuccessfully. Miles has a very old Evinrude boat motor on his skiff and to get the engine to work he thinks he has to remain calm and speak gratefully to the motor. Clive's reappearance disrupts life in the isolated community which is filled mostly with alcoholics, depressives and drug addicts. Reading this book was like riding an emotional rollercoaster and I enjoyed it very much.

Amur Cork Tree

 If you look up amur cork trees in Wikipedia you will learn they have some amazing properties. Most interesting to me, amur cork trees can prevent the loss of cartilage in osteoarthritis patients. Maybe I should go chew on some branches right now! I could do that too. Although amur cork trees are native to the Amur valley in China, Korea, and Japan, there are several planted just ten blocks down the hill from me on Fourth Avenue in Duluth. The city planted amur cork trees because they are tolerant to living in city boulevards. These cork trees are not only tolerant, they like living in Duluth. In fact, they like living in Duluth SO MUCH that although the city planted only male trees to prevent the spread of a non-native species, some male amur cork trees can actually CHANGE THEIR GENDER to female so they can reproduce. Wow.  A plant that can change it's gender sounds like a character in a Marvel comic book to me. Along side Captain America, Black Widow, the Incredible Hulk, and Zeus will be Cork Tree!  So the city of Duluth is now going to remove those Amur cork trees. City workers are going to yank those 18 gender changing non-native trees right out of the boulevards and discard them. I vow to plant only native species from now on except house plants and except annuals.

Nice Day For A Paddle

Today I took my kayak out after lunch and put in on Minnesota Point again. So far I am meeting my goal of kayaking once a week. I saw a common tern willing to pose for a photo.

This tern was very photogenic.

I riled up mama mallards as I floated by. They squawked and chased their babies away from me. Three times I caused mama mallards to panic but that was not my intention. See the mallard on the log?

This female mallard didn't have any babies so she just sat on a log and pretended I wasn't there.

I paddled past the Duluth Rowing Club. I would really like to try out one of those rowing boats to see if I'd like to join a rowing team.

My kayak got close enough to cause the security lights to come on. I was snooping at their boats.

I was snooping at all the houses I saw too. I love how a weeping willow looks as the branches hang over the water. This is a lovely tree.

I kayaked for a little over two hours today. While I let my kayak dry so the sand would fall off into the grass, some herring gulls came by to check it out.

 

My trip today is shown in red although it's not entirely accurate. I hugged the shore much closer on the way down. This is the view of the peninsula from the Wisconsin side. I went from the Sky Harbor Airport to Lafayette Square park which according to google maps is 2.3 miles apart. I could have gone further if I hadn't drunk so much coffee this morning.

Visitors!

 

My neighbor has several bird cages outside and I thought they all contained pigeons. Yesterday, thanks to Offspring #2's very curious hound dog, I noticed one cage has ten bobwhite hens inside. Next time I see this neighbor I have to ask her about her birds.

Yesterday Offspring #2, her hound dog, and I explored downtown Duluth. We had brunch at Sara's Table at Chester Creek. We walked the short distance to the restaurant and had our meal on the patio where I had a good view of Lake Superior. I ordered something I never cook for myself which is pancakes. Buttermilk pancakes with almonds and maple syrup were delicious. I could only eat one of them and I ate the second one this morning for breakfast. She had a vegan BLT and we bought a loaf of their famous wild rice/cranberry bread to take home. After walking home and playing a great game of scrabble (which I won! This leaves me with a record of 12 losses and 1 win) we drove to the Rose Garden to smell the roses. We walked the Lakewalk toward Canal Park. The wind was blowing strong and magnificent waves were crashing on the shore and sending lake spray into our faces. The dog enjoyed meeting new people and hamming it up to get petted. She also enjoyed meeting and smelling all the other dogs. I got a little nervous when we approached a husky. Offspring #2's dog both loves and is scared of huskies so her reaction can be extreme. This husky was wearing a black muzzle and the owner used crutches. The black muzzle gave us pause. The owner wore a military hat so I guessed she might be a veteran. She saw us coming and sat on the short wall on the Lakewalk so her dog wouldn't pull her off her feet. She invited us to meet her dog and said her dog wears the muzzle to prevent overeating of food out in public. So the dogs met and all was fine. I guess I was nervous for no reason. We stopped at the beach to search for agates. The wind was so strong we could hardly hear each other talk. I didn't find any agates but Offspring #2 got 8 or so interesting rocks to take home. We saw no ships coming under the lift bridge today which is unusual but maybe the strong winds prevented people from going out. That evening, actually every Wednesday evening, there is a sail boat race but  I guess it was cancelled because we saw no sail boats today. In the distance, we could see people kite surfing near the 14th street beach so we vowed to drive over there before going home. We went down Superior Street for "Sidewalk Days." A band was playing and the streets were crowded with people. We saw a giant Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man. We were hungry so we walked to Canal Park Brewing. Unfortunately Canal Park Brewing is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We ended up eating at outside at Fitgers. I had the chili platter and she had a wild rice burger. The food was good. Aside from a winery in Door County, today marks the hounds first two visits to restaurant patios and I think she did very well. I have to lean my torso tight against the table so she can't get her nose into my plate but otherwise she displayed polite behavior. After a long day of walking out in the sun and the wind we were exhausted. We drove from the Rose Garden to the 14th street beach. We walked up the steps and over the dunes to the edge of the water. An elderly chihuahua was off leash and came up behind the dog to greet her. The hound dog didn't know the dog was coming and promptly smacked the tiny dog in the face with her tail knocking her back. We all had a laugh about that and the two dogs seemed to like each other. The kite surfers had had enough and were packing it in. We watched as people wearing wet suits and carrying kite surf boards walked through the sand to their cars. They looked tired. We had a fun day. Today we changed things up and hiked around the Hartley Nature Center. The Nature Center had some kids attending nature classes. Both classes were near the lake which has a dam. One of the classes had kids fishing off of a dock. The other class were listening to the instructor. We walked over the dam which has a metal grate covering the dam. I walked over the metal grate. Offspring #2 walked over the metal grate. Her dog has anxiety about walking over metal grates so Offspring #2 had to pick up her 50 pound dog and carry it over the metal grate which was about 12 feet long. We totally disrupted the nature classes. When I turned back I saw all the kids and both instructors had their eyes locked on the sight of a fox hound being carried over a metal grate.  I offered an explanation to the watching crowd. "The dog has anxiety!" I hope they understood. We walked along the lake into the tall pine forest and around the nature center. This nature center is a great place to wander around and bathe in the forest beauty. The dog is a hound and she loves to smell things. She smells rocks. She smells trees and will stare intently at a tree and we suspect she can smell that some animal climbed that tree and left a scent. She loves to smell inside culverts. She loves to smell under bridges. When she gets in hunting mode she is hard to walk with. Most times she can walk and smell but not when she is in hunting mode. I had a good time hosting company and showing off the beauty of my new town.