Feels like home!

       In days past when I was living in the condo in Minneapolis The Little House felt like a place to visit. The tables are turned, now the condo seems a place to visit and The Little House feels like home. Mission accomplished; saw a soccer game, had dinner with friends, saw my family, did some business and filled the freezer. It was a good trip!

        A beautiful drive home. The trees in the Twin Cities are at their peak of color, the sun was out, harvest is in full swing, fall tillage relies less on moldboard plowing so the soil is more protected, beets are being lifted...my county roads route has very little traffic. There are fewer red leaves here than in Mpls but some maples have been planted over the last few years so there is more color than there used to be. 

    I'm blessed and happy to be in The Little House!

Takk for alt,

Al

                                                                              The Little House.

Former life...

    Being back in the condo in Mpls feels like a former life. On the one hand it feels perfectly natural to be in the space, almost as if I never left. Yet, there's a feeling like, 'this is a former life', which I suppose in some ways it it is. 

   It's always great to connect with family and seeing a granddaughter's soccer game for the first time ever is very special. Tonight I had the opportunity of a dinner with friends, outside in a safe manner, and that was very satisfying. It seemed almost normal. No one here cares how many rocks are in the field. This little outing is just more evidence of the blessings in my life. Yes, I'm very grateful.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS:  I suggest you read Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste; The Origins of our Discontent...likely one of the most important books in a decade.

                                                        A beautiful evening for soccer.

New location!

    It's to be a quick trip, to Mpls, where I am now, and back to The Little House on Wednesday. The weather's too nice to dawdle long in the city when there are rocks to pick and other outdoor activities in South Dakota. My crop survey estimate is that 10-20% of the beans between here and The Little House remain to be harvested with much fall tillage completed. It appears that 10-20% of the corn has been combined. 

    A golden eagle feasting on road kill on the bluff above the Minnesota River gave me a good view. It seems I'm more likely to see bald eagles than golden. A turkey vulture was flying away, chased off by the eagle?

    This visit allows me to catch my granddaughter's soccer game, pick up some food, see family and attend to some business matters. The convenience of a condo is 'turn the key and leave'. With COVID downtown living is less appealing. But, as some famous person once said, "This too shall pass."      

    Now with access to my desktop perhaps it's an occasion for some random pictures. 😜

Takk for alt,

Al

                                                                      Sunset from the condo. 

                           The only corn picker I've seem with two elevators.

                               Another view of the picker, seen at Mount  Pleasant, IA, threshing show.
                                                                                         . 

Age factor...

      An article in the Minneapolis StarTribune, from the Washington Post, said that the silent generation, i.e., over age 74, report a low level of pandemic stress. Only 5% reported severe stress from COVID. A huge caveat would be those in long term care facilities.

       Why is my cohort relatively comfortable. Assuming adequate finances there are factors making our life easier, we do not have actively parent nor worry about job security and mot of us don't even have to go to a job. Perhaps, too, in elderhood we've seen enough of life's ups and downs to have helpful perspective. Things happen, we know, and "this, too, shall pass" is a likely mantra.

     It was a helpful reminder to me of how fortunate I am which reminds me to grateful. Yes, yes, yes, I am blessed.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS: My friend Peter sent me the email note reprinted below. You may remember him from his previous poetry book: Adding the Subtractions: Poems of Love and Grief,  P.M.F Johnson, which were composed while his father was dying.  

"I just want to let you know I have published a new book of poetry, A Life in the Day, on Amazon (both in paperback and as an eBook). It's a life's journey through poetry, from the naivete of youth through the rigors of age, a wry but generally upbeat look at what can go right, or wrong, over a lifetime. I kind of think of this book as my greatest hits, as these poems have sold to many markets over the years."

                                          The frosty view of the cemetery this morning at sunrise.

Marker

       For the second time in a month I attended an auction of property of a contemporary. In conversation with another peer at today's auction, in reference to the sale, I said "This is in our future." He replied "I know."  What did I buy? some chain and a box of miscellaneous tools, $24 so you see a big spender. 

      It was at an historic homesite for caucasian settlement in the area. Mark, the seller's grandfather was one of the first white settlers in the community. It was in that home that the first church services in the community were conducted. None of the original buildings remain and Mark is in a long-term care facility.

    Standing around the sale was more tiring than picking rocks! Auctions are entertaining, seeing who will pay what for things. Some of the buyers buy to resell. Of the 200(?) people there I knew less than 20. When I left at 3:00 it appeared that it would take 2 more hours to sell everything. For much of the day selling was going simultaneously in two rings. The weather was good and it was fortunate that the strong winds previously during the week subsided.

Takk for alt,

Al

Thornes, thistles and...and rocks!

     "...cursed is the ground becasue of you; in toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you..." Genesis 3: 17b-18a. Perhaps if the Garden Of Eden had been glaciated God would have added "rocks" to the thorns and thistles with which he admonishes Adam.

      As a boy I remember that Canada Thistles were so rare that we'd stop the tractor to pull them by hand (using pliers to avoid the stickers).  We know now that pulling only annoyed them becasue they grew again from the roots left in the soil. Now Canada Thistles are ubiquitous.   My brother, the late Richard, after Alfred Hitchcock released the movie Birds, said "a horror movie should be made about thistles." More recently musk thistles have joined the fray. At least rocks don't reproduce even though it may seem that they do. I'm reframing rocks as good exercise in fresh air. 😁

        When I was living in North Dakota fifty years ago farmers told of using russian thistle (famous as tumbleweeds) for hay during the drought in the 1930s. Harvested when green they had enough feed value to sustain livestock without other feed available.

       Maxine Kumin says it poetically.

Why There Will Always Be Thistle
by Maxine Kumin

Sheep will not eat it
nor horses nor cattle
unless they are starving.
Unchecked, it will sprawl over
pasture and meadow
choking the sweet grass
defeating the clover
until you are driven
to take arms against it
but if unthinking
you grasp it barehanded
you will need tweezers
to pick out the stickers.

Outlawed in most Northern
states of the Union
still it jumps borders.
Its taproot runs deeper
than underground rivers
and once it’s been severed
by breadknife or shovel
—two popular methods
employed by the desperate—
the bits that remain will
spring up like dragons’ teeth
a field full of soldiers
their spines at the ready.

Bright little bursts of
chrome yellow explode from
the thistle in autumn
when goldfinches gorge on
the seeds of its flower.
The ones left uneaten
dry up and pop open
and parachutes carry
their procreant power
to disparate venues
in each hemisphere
which is why there will always
be thistle next year.

Takk for alt,

Al

                                      How far did the glacier roll this rock to make it round?

Recommended reading.

        There are books that are fun to read and there are books that are fun to read while making you think in new ways. I am neither a physicist nor a Buddhist so a novel that combines quantum theory and Zen Buddhism stretches my mind. The book jacket says about Ruth Ozeki's A Tale For The Time Being, "On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, a Hello Kitty lunchbox washes up on the beach. Tucked inside is the diary of a sixteen-year-old Japanese girl named Nao Yatutani. Ruth--a writer who finds the lunchbox--suspects that it is debris from Japan's 2011 tsunami. Once she begins to read the diary, Ruth quickly finds herself drawn into the mystery of Nao's fate. Meanwhile in Tokyo, Nao, uprooted from her home in the U.S., bullied at school, and watching her parents spiral deeper into disaster, has decided to end her life. But first she wants to recount the story of her great-grandmother, a 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun,  in the pages of her secret diary."

      There are interesting juxtapositions in this tale. Fictional Ruth, of Japanese descent, is married to fictional Oliver. Author Ruth's mother was Japanese and Ruth is married to Oliver in real life. The fictional couple live on an Island northwest Canada. In real life Ozeki lives in British Columbia and New York.

      The book is very engaging and the diary sections are a fascinating look at life in Japan. In fact the diary entrees were some of the most interesting and readable parts. Ozeki, herself is a Zen Buddhist priest. Her posing quantum theory next Zen Buddhism is mind stretching. In an appendix she gives a very clear explanation of Schrodinger's Cat. Can a thing be observed without the observation changing the thing observed? The fictional couples' fictional cat is named Schrodinger. 😀

       Well written, engaging, one reviewer said "it's bewitching, intelligent, hilarious and heartbreaking often on the same page. It was finalist for the Booker Prize, it's Ozeki's third novel. Yes, I definitely recommend it!

Takk for alt,

Al

It's Jimmy Carter's birthday today.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Jimmy Carter said: “A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.”