Potpourri

Last week I entered a photo in one of the weekly contests on the Pentax Forum. The theme that week was to put a photo to song lyrics. There are many people with a lot more talent and ability than I in the photographic arts and I love looking at their pictures. They give me inspiration to go out and try to find and create something memorable that says those thousand words a picture should. Sometimes I get inspired in a "different" way. You can imagine pictures to go to "The Wind Beneath My Wings", or "New York, New York", but my mind went elsewhere. On the way to work I stopped by the Municipal Campground/Rec Park and took some photos.  The song that I remembered was "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, but I remember it like this:

Don't go out tonight
Well, it's bound to take your life.
There's a bathroom on the right.

I won the humor award.

Then I went to work. We don't have cubicle farms in small towns, but more homey kinds of settings. This is my office. At least the roof doesn't leak. Here is my desk and a typical lunch.

I can tell by your ooohs and aaahhs that you are impressed with my extravagant executive style and exquisite taste in decor. And you all thought I was just another country bumpkin! Guess I showed you how impotent
important I am! At least it is a lot like family as most of us (out of 8) have worked together for the last fifteen or twenty years.

Recently our first batch of barn swallows fledged. We may get three batches this year with the early start. Here they are outside the barn with mom and dad keeping an eye on them. They remind me of Moe, Larry, and Curly, but with parents that aren't ashamed of them yet.

And now for something completely different. About a week ago we heard from our friend Andie that her former supervisor, with whom she worked closely, was accused of (or maybe it was charged with) murdering his third wife. At about that same time my brother told me a five year old child was shot and killed across the street from where he lived until last August. It appears as though our world hasn't changed much. I am very glad both Andie and my brother literally dodged that bullet. I would be happy to build them each a small house on the farm where they could get away from that world. Better yet, here's one just up the street a short distance that some might consider a fixer upper. It could use a little TLC and maybe a roof.

The good thing was that Andie called and the Cooker and Stitch were out doing other things. I had her conversation all to myself, although there was a message to convey. In the words of Chief Dan George, "My heart soars like a hawk".  Good to know it can still react that way.

Here is a place on the deck that we use for reading or just marking the passage of time. A little respite from the world outside.

 Always remember and never forget that "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like bananas."

Rain

If the rain comes 
they run and hide their heads 
They might as well be dead 
If the rain comes 
If the rain comes 

When the sun shines 
they slip into the shade 
and sip their lemonade 
When the sun shines 
When the sun shines 

Rain, I don't mind 
Shine, the weather's fine 

The Beatles. 

Some of you may have heard we got some rain up this way. The worst was about 120 miles Southwest of here by Duluth with nearly 10 inches (25cm). We only got  about 4 inches (10cm) all within a 24 hour period. For about 12 hours our communications in the Northeast corner of the state were cut off from the rest of the world because the washouts broke the cables and fiber optic lines. No 911, no phone outside the local exchange, no internet (except satellite), and no cable anything. It made for a quiet morning at work so I cleaned my office which doesn't usually happen in the summer. We have a new waterfall on the way to town that only flows when we get heavy rain. I took this on the way to work.

But by the next day as they were assessing damage down Duluth way, things had pretty well settled back to normal-ish around here. The creeks had subsided to a nice flow.

Soon after there was the usual morning commute to town and the 5 or 10 vehicles that constitutes our "rush hour" along with the occasional bald eagle was back to normal. this is what my morning commute looks like on a normal day.

If you click on the pic you can see "the little town that time forgot and the ages cannot improve" toward the left in the distance about 6 miles (10k) in the distance. The light was nice so I pulled over and shot it before getting back into the car and heading to work. It is probably one of the prettiest commutes in Minnesota heading toward town with the Sawtooth Mountains in the distance. They were allegedly 10,000 feet tall before the last ice age. When time travel becomes affordable I'll check that out.

Travels and Wildlife

This past weekend I had a whirlwind tour quick trip down to the Twin Cities. I went down on Thursday evening and ran through a really exciting hailstorm about halfway down there. What made it exciting was that the air conditioning in my care decided to stop cooling and I had to have the windows open at 70mph. I didn't dare close them all the way or I would pass out from the heat, but that let some of the hail into the car. I had slowed to about 40 at this point because visibility wasn't so good and it looked like marbles on the road.

The reason for going was due to my brother's treatment for his prostate cancer. You might remember mine was last fall. He was just carrying on an old family tradition. He is doing fine, thank you. After we got back from the hospital at 4:00 pm I thought I better try to get the AC fixed. It was predicted to be in the low 90's for the weekend and I would surely melt. I had forgotten that the Big City holds all kinds of available services 24 hours a day and they all want you to use their offerings. To make a short story even shorter I  called a place at 4:30 and by 6 I was driving in the cool again for less than a hundred bucks! Here it would have been two weeks for the appointment and then another week for parts. It's all about trade-offs.

Speaking of deer, I stopped by our friend Andie's on my way out of the metro area and had a lovely breakfast and conversation the likes of which I rarely encounter. Andie lives in the midst of hardwoods and lakes and while looking out where her deck used to be 9Her house is in a serious remodeling phase) I thought I saw a rabbit. Well it was a pair of ears, anyway. Turns out to be a fawn with its spots wandering around. A minute or so later the mama deer comes along keeping an eye on her curious child. So the first thing I do when I get back home, after bidding farewell to her cuteness Andie is check my critter cam and found this on it.

Of course I also caught this critter on a picture in that same spot 2 days earlier in late afternoon.

Yes, that is a wolf about 100 feet from the house.

On the way back home I stopped in Two Harbors for a bite to eat. There had been a classic car show in Grand Marais over the weekend and there were still some stragglers heading home. This '57 Chevy Bel Air convertible was  pretty one.

 The Killdeer hatched its eggs and I got a shot of this one resting. It is about the size of my thumb.

Angry birds

Last weekend the Cooker, Stitch, and an interested party took the horses down to our arena to refine some of their skills with the horses. Everything was going well until a noisy Killdeer decided everyone was too close to her nest. When she made her nest she didn't realize that the arena was subject to rural renewal and that it was a multi-use area. She was not pleased. We put orange traffic cones around her little area so the horses and riders would not interfere with her motherly duties. She is part of the wild 99% who are struggling to keep their homes and their way of life from extinction. This is her defending her nest, which is just a hollowed out spot in the sand. Note the eggs to her right. (click on the pic for enlargement)

Last year a fox got to her nest before the eggs hatched, so you have to admire her persistence and never-give-up attitude. We will be careful, but she will have to defend her nest against everything else. I hope she has better luck this year. Now we can ride by without disturbing her too much.

I took a walk in the woods along the creek and amongst the cedar trees just to see if anything had changed. Everything is as it should be and the woods is still intact.

Forgive me bloggers, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last entry and I didn't mean to go that long, it sort of just happened. Sometimes it is just from procrastination (is there such a thing as anti-procrastination?) or just being tired from the long days. We have had some rainy days and so now I have come indoors. I found my desk just like I left it only with a little additional clutter added regularly until it looks like this.

I was playing with my new used remote from ebay and the camera went off in my lap. Thank goodness it wasn't an explosive device! The leather lens bags on the right are a score from a local garage sale, the bag in front has a USB connector, the Walgreen's capped drug bottle has about 10 Susan B. Anthony dollars, a gift card from Cabela's, Norwegian and Icelandic banners, a lens hiding behind a mouse, and the end of this keyboard. That is just in that small space. The rest looks just as bad. The rainy day is a good excuse to clean up the piles, but writing this is another exercise in procrastination. It's good to be good at something!

Back to the weather. Usually talking about the weather is considered small talk, but not in Northern Minnesota! It is why we get up, or not, in the morning. We had about 3 inches of rain the other day and got some good runoff from it. This is what fills up Lake Superior. It's like a bathtub filling up so slowly that you fall asleep waiting and then it overflows, but that is another story. This is what that looks like after it stops and the sun starts to come out making a weird pink color in the sky.

 

But then the clouds dissipate at the horizon just before sunset and light up the trees for a few minutes before the sun slowly sinks in the west.

 We did have one nice day in the sun between the rainy days and I got to enjoy it a bit. I live for the moments I get to go out and play.

  Hopefully it won't be so long until the next time.

Spring things

So maybe I get a bit drawn in to things I can't change (re: my last entry).

 Oh, well.

Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairy tales
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind

That's about the only Jimi Hendrix tune I can almost play. The Cooker and I went out for a walk in the woods with our cameras. A few things are starting to come up, but not much flowering yet. The Painted Lady butterfly was from today, my buddy, Rune the Fjordhorse' picture was from last week before we took him to live with his sire and half brother outside of Duluth. He is too large for a normal Fjord as is his brother, but they will be an awesome driving pair. I missed the big full moon because of the cloudy weather, but got this shot a few days later in the middle of the day.

The birds are migrating back from their winter hiding places. The bugs are starting to hatch on the ponds and the warblers are starting to find them. They are really hard to get a photo of because they are small, skittish, and don't come very close. Here is what used to be a Magnolia warbler (I think) that is now referred to as a yellow-rump. I don't think it would have chosen the name change.

There was even a Baltimore Oriole at the hummingbird feeder for a few minutes this morning. Of course we have our own non-migratory birds. Which one doesn't belong in this group?

 Walking on we found where we had started up a bridge club about 10 years ago. It is about 24 feet long and I can drive our truck or tractor over it with confidence. It took a few days to build, but it should last quite a few years yet.

Until next time I bid you adieu.
 

Family and life

I finished Maggie's book about 6 A.M. on Thursday. It was an amazing tale of her life, so far. I am just impressed at her ability to get it all written down and organized. Some day, if I get lucky, I will get to meet her and her family. She is in a really great place in her life, physically, mentally, spiritually.

 I was conceived in Bergen Norway back in 1950, but transported in utero to America to become an American citizen before either of my parents. Life in Norway was tough back in the early part of the last  century until about 20 years after WW2. While visiting my cousins in the mid 60's I remember climbing around on the German bunkers on the mountains around Bergen. It was hard, as a kid, to imagine what went on there only twenty some years before.

My father, Otto, got to spend some time in the country visiting relatives when he was a boy back in the 1920's and 1930's. Here is a picture from that era with his younger brother, Audun, and a young girl called Alma. I always thought this was a cool pic from up on a mountain farm.

  I found out about fifteen years ago that I could have applied for Norwegian citizenship up until about my 21st birthday. I could have had dual citizenship like several of my cousins. Travel would be easier if I could afford to do it more often. Sometimes life takes you where you are without letting you take any scenic side trips. At least I got to take a few glances as I went by. I wish I could think of something clever to say about regrets (I've had a few).

Funny thing is I grew up in "the best country in the world" and I believed that for the first half of my life, but things have changed. There are empirical measurements that now show otherwise. While denial is a strong tool, it is only effective for so long. A few years back I saw that a baby born in Turkey had a better chance of survival than one born in the U.S. I could tell right away that the U.S. was in trouble. I guess the world can stop sending these, as we can no longer take care of what we have.
 "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The world has changed as it will always be destined to do. For me, it is a yearning to go to other places and drink them in. Maybe it is the viking blood in my veins or just a nagging in the back of my mind that things can be better than this. Sometimes I let the feeling take me there and at other times I just try and push it aside because of the practical realist that I have to be. It's not that I am unhappy, but just wanting a little more.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers! Without you all we couldn't be here and in reference to the latest news, breast feed your children as long as you want to, or not. It's no one else's damned business!