OK, under construction

June 1 is a summer day. It just is. On this June 1 there just wasn't any doubt.

There is something about the way the sun shines at mid day in summer. You get that beating straight down effect and as a result, the angles and sun reflections that make spring and autumn photography especially interesting just are not there. But this is obviously not a complaint. Today was a gorgeous summer day.

Here is a moment near the end of MY ride. This is in an area of the Fairgrounds still referred to as Machinery Hill even though the days when farm machinery was parked there during the Fair have passed. For example, as you can see by the sign, this area on what I guess could be called lower Machinery Hill is now occupied by Ford.Not satisfied with the tent that they have used the past couple of years, Ford is putting up a building. It changes things, changes things quite a bit for old timers.

For old timers as long as those blocks on Machinery Hill sat unbuilt upon during the Fair we could still imagine the huge tractors and the combines, the giant machinery that used to be displayed there during the Fair. Gazing upon those huge heaps of steel which were so unlike any other thing an urban dweller would EVER see during day to day urban life was part of what made the Fair an event for ALL of Minnesota. When you put up a building for the display of, just guessing here but check back with me on Labor Day and see if I was right, Ford pick ups, you have erased even the possibility of imagining the block full of Internationals (red), the block full of Minneapolis Moline (yellow), the huge display of Case (a lighter red than IH with accents of yellow), the Allis Chalmers (orange), the block full of John Deere (green and to be fair to the Fair, Deere already has a building), it just can now never be the same. The Fair more and more just looks like another extension of the suburbs.

*sigh*

The Guest Rider is serious about this bicycling thing, having announced an ambitious schedule of at least twice a week bicycling. She rode again today and rode farther than she rode on her first outing. This is, of course, the protocol, extend the distance a bit each time out. I took her to a lake today, her first on a bicycle lake of the year. She insists upon lakes.That is Lake Owasso. Her preferred destination is Lake Vadnais but Lake Vadnais is still outside of her range. She was doing OK at Owasso but started to lag a bit as we neared home. To be fair, the last bit was uphill and into a strong headwind.

But we stopped and got the first of these for the year.The corn is ankle high on a college professor for June 1. We are all expecting knee high on Paul Bunyon by the Fourth of July.

Perhaps you can see in the background some examples of the strips of green that are found throughout the corn. These passages between the various corn plots, besides whatever their agricultural experimentation station purpose might be, are paths used by those who chose to walk to the Fair from our house. Closed circuit to Mrs. Smith, now would be a good time, before the corn gets too tall and obscures vision, to do a little investigation into exactly which of those paths is the most direct to the Fairgrounds gates.