Public Art



35 W Bridge back lite blue

 August 1, 2007, the 35 W bridge collapsed as the evening rush hour was winding down.  Scores of people were seriously injured and too many died. 

A year later the new two-span bridge was open and dedicated.  Depending on the evening I have driven West Mississippi River Boulevard into or out of downtown, it has been back lite in pink, blue or greeen.  This week, however, in honor of Gay Pride Week, it is a "Rainbow over the Mississippi."  It is a very cool and gray June day that I am confident will be made brighter once I drive down the boulevard and under the "Rainbow over the Mississippi."  Makes me smile just to think about it!

Summer 2011 MISSING

I am postive that this "rook" is screaming at the top of her lungs calling summer to COME!  Leapin' lizzards...June 24th and it is down to the low 50's overnight and fighting hard to reach 70 during the day. Usually the weather does not get to me but this week it IS getting to me!

This afternoon, I took my computer out to the deck believing I'd sit there and work then put it away and stay out there doing anything.  After an hour though I ... the lily livered wimp ... packed up my stuff and came back into the house.  Couldn't I just be powerful this once and CALL summer into being?  I mean mid-70's would suffice. 

And if being outside wasn't enough of a dream that is not coming warmly true this afternoon, I made the gargantuan mistake of turning on the TV only to SEE and HEAR Whoopie Goldberg appearing in a variety of costumes talk about "leaking."  Why do thy save body function commercials for the leading up to and into the dinner hour?  Or maybe they don't ... maybe they are on all the time, I just don't know it!  I am particularly grateful that my children are grown and my grandchildren are seldomly here at the dinner hour so I don't have to figure out how to answer their question when the commercial showing the forever youthful blissfully happy couple celebrating that he is taking the right pill so "they will be ready" when that "special moment comes. 

Leaking...ready for special moments...all I want is 70 degrees and sunshine.

A week without TV

Yes, I am so old I can remember when we did not have a television of any kind.  In fact, I don't remember a radio in our house and know for a fact we did not have any kind of a phonograph.

Though no picture of the first televsion our family bought in approximately 1955 exists, this one is pretty close to what I remember us having.  How could it be little black and white people and animals scooting across "it" and making all the sounds people and animals made.

How could I have known that "it" would become the bane of my existence and it would also become on different levels at different times of my life a habit- that in the new millennium 'it" would have people of all colors from around the world looking and sounding different in colorful and amazing other parts of the world with birds and animals I never saw in an encyclopedia (oh, ya, just dated myself again) speaking and living from "it." 

Last week we had strong thunderstorms that produced lightening and thunder that literally shook the house.  I unplugged two TVs and DIRECT TV "box, two computers, one printer/copier/fax and telephones that run through the computer.  The next day I reconnected everything but the two TVs and DIRECT TV box.

Tonight I plugged in one of the TVs, flipped through the channels for about five minutes and shut it off again.  Already I feel better!  Somewhere in the distance the dishwasher hums and outside my den window traffic all but whispers by.  Storms are predicted for tonight with the possibility of high winds and hail.  Guess it is time to unplug the ginormeous  high def with sound so real you'd think the people are in the room and the river is running in the corner next to the TV and the DIRECT TV box.

I am going to my room to continue savoring my book where my ancient imagination creates the people and birds and animals and houses and sounds and rivers and ... just like I did before we got the "talking picture box" that has become a pathetic habit to which I hate to admit!  Wonder how long this "new habit" will last?  So far... a week.

About Pot Gardens

Well, yesterday I potted heirloom beefeater tomatoes in a large pot and dropped seeds into the old grain tub we used to feed animals on the farm long long ago and then I removed all the wood chips from three gardens, removed the weeds (gratefully only a few) put down landscaping mesh and then raked the chips back onto the mesh.  I even "washed the border rocks" that my grandson "picked" from their farm in Dakota County.

This morning everything hurts more than anything else!  My shoulders are screaming that they hurt SO much more than my hips and knees and back.  Ridiculous.  This is an equal high level pain morning with a chorus of muscles screeching and screaming and ouching their way into every bend and twist and it really does feel GOOD.  I can still do it!

Looking out my windows, stumbling out into my yard holding on to stair rails are pure joy!  Ya, I know it is late in the season to be doing this work...but this season is LATE.  I was going out to take pictues of my potted tubs but discovered there are other people who plant in tubs, so I just grabbed this one off google images.

Today, I "want" to finish up but my body is arguing against that plan.  There will be another day.  Think I will explore other options like reading a good book or checking out the new Swing Bridge Park in Inver Grove Heights or calling family to do some summer kind of exploring here at home or ...

All a Week Can Be!

COOKBOOK-Festival Recipes

A ride down country roads in southestern Minnesota to the Lanseboro, MN, Annual Rhubarb Festival complete with a rhubarb stalk toss and songs by The Rhubarb Sisters from Prairie Home Companion fame...

A ride on the back of a Harley Davidson with my son watching the blazing sunset over fields of spring wheat and sprouting corn...

A meeting to "read scholarship" applications and determine the successful applicants at St. Catherine University... 

The great gift of celebrating a dear friend's 71st birthday at the Copper Dome where the wide variety (pumpkin for sure, I forgot to look to see if they have rhubarb) of pancakes and waffles are less than a block away...

Looking out my living room window to see that the hot winds on the record breaking 103 degree day Tuesday broke a large branch of the maple tree in front of my house and being SO grateful that the dying triple maple tree in the backyard was taken down last fall or it too may have been downed by the winds...

Planting heirloom beefeater tomatoes and flowers in pots in the back yard and arranging them on a rickety paint peeling old iron table where the ginormous maple tree once stood...

Trying to get my head around temperatures that went from 103 degrees on Tuesday to 53 degrees overnight on Thursday morning...

"Dead-heading" the petunia pot in the front of my house and hearing the tiny tiny tiny sounds of the brand spanking new Chicadee babies coming from the bird house in front of my den window...

Welcoming the white squirrel back to the neighborhood...

Norwegian Cemetery Story

No picture ... story first picture will come later!

Spring Grove, Minnesota is the first Norwegian settlement in Minnesota and there are many ways other than historical documents that attest to its Norwegian roots.  Among them...
A week ago I took a trip to the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery, Spring Grove, Minnesota where according to regional lore, the old Norwegian caretaker of the cemetery years ago tired of mowing around the grave stones - so he just picked them up, moved all of them to the northeast corner of the cemetery and placed them in neat and tidy rows leaving the rest of the cemetery one green open easy to mow space for the practical man.  And there they stayed until 1975 when the Church did a restoration project placing cement under the stones - two deep in three sections with space between the sections for people to walk among the them.  Then they recorded/engraved in a large book that rests on a stand near the church the names, birth and death dates and location of the actual grave in the midst of the great green open space created by the everything must be in order and easy to care for naturally practical Norwegian caretaker.

Lest you think this is something I just made up, I will post pictures below - as soon as I get them downloaded...!  Though half Norwegian, I am not nearly as practical as the caretaker. Sometimes it takes a picture to make such a tale real.  Later...today or in a day or two.  It is a gorgeous day and I must get outside.