Remembrance of things past

But not the Proust one, definitely NOT the summarize Proust one.

More along the lines of it seems like pretty deep in the past when I last rode a bicycle but given an opportunity today I was able to remember how to do it.

I last appeared on a bicycle on Friday, August 23.  It was hot that day but not TOO hot, a nice day for roofing.

Saturday was 90 with oppressive humidity and the beginning of a National Weather Service Heat Advisory, you know, the old no strenuous exercise and old people stay inside in the air conditioning thing.

I complied.  Turns out that was my last even reasonable opportunity for a while.

Sunday 98.

Monday 97.

Tuesday 96.

Wednesday 93.

Thursday 95.

I am nearly to nodding acquaintance status with the other old fellows walking around the mall in the early afternoon.

I don't really know today's temperature yet except that it was plenty OK for bicycling.  I am pleased to report that I still know how.

I rode out to the Highway 96 terminus of the Snail Lake Park path.

I ride through there on weekdays without any qualms whatsoever.  The traffic is pretty light, hassles are few.  Saturday is a completely different deal, of course.  But today it was a nice shady spot for a ride on a nice sunny day.

I am going to have to sign off now as I believe I am next up in the local Summarize Proust competition.

Just for fun

It was very hot and very windy today.

Maybe I could have but I didn't.  I believe from what I have heard from other sources that at least one member of the family and her SA got in a morning ride.

I didn't.

So just for fun, here are a couple of photos from 2011 when my brother and I went to Paris.

We stayed at one of Glenn's places.  I think this one just might have been the day we ventured over to the Tuileries for the final stage of le Tour de France and I think it is possible that it has been published before (in 2011).

This one is for those who don't believe in the power of kraut.  I am pretty sure I published the companion to this in 2011 but I don't think this one made it on to the intertubes.  The companion is the meal that Jim had, this is what I had that night.

Lots of sauerkraut, in fact, a HUGE amount of sauerkraut, two boiled potatoes, a couple of link sausages, another sausage, and a big piece of fatty pork.

Ummm, good.

But I am glad that that is NOT a regular feature of my diet.  It's great stuff in the moment but perhaps a bit unwise in the long run.

Another nice day for roofing

The roofers finished yesterday but today we had still some roofing residue to deal with, mostly installation of the new gutter guards.  It was a plenty nice enough day for that which means, perhaps obviously, that it was another nice day for bicycling.

The wind was from the southeast, dictating a ride down into the big city.  That whole Fair thing provides a massive obstruction along the route that I usually use to ride south.  We had to improvise.

Well actually, there was very, very little improvisation.  I have ridden this route at least a few times before.  We rode through some extremely troublesome people trying to park on the street relatively near the Fair hassles but eventually got out to Como Park near the pool and wandered on down to Lexington for the path leading to the new bridge over the railroad tracks and Pierce Butler.

We crossed over into Saint Paul and looped past the Emily tree and on over to the campus.  Some will know that the GRider has been involved in a pretty stressful move from the office she has occupied over there for many years to a building that, unlike the old one, hasn't actually been condemned.  In fact it looks pretty modern.

That's where she will be officing and apparently sometimes teaching.

Not as funky as the old but from the outside it looks like it may be functional.  I really don't have any credibility to comment, I don't actually have a job.

Once in that neighborhood I set out to find this historical anomaly.  This alley runs diagonally through the block bordered by Aldine, Wheeler, Blair and Van Buren.

The alley is one of the very few surviving reminders of Territorial Road, once the main road between the settlement at Saint Anthony Falls and the settlement at the upper landing in what is now Saint Paul.  It is a remnant of the old ox cart trail that linked those two communities.

We rode down the alley on our bicycles.

I like that old timey stuff, the ride through the block on that alley felt way cool to me.

We continued on south until we came to streets quite recently chip and sealed.  We got a bit of stuff on our tires and were pretty quickly discouraged from trying to head farther.  We turned back after reaching the bell tower at Macalester.

Riding back through the campus at Hamline we came to this sign at the corner of Hewittt and Snelling.

I confessed to the GRider that the sign left me uncertain about what it exactly was that I was supposed to do.  I could understand that I, being a bicyclist, was to stop on, what, I don't know, something, and although the sign appears to be missing a verb I believe I was to (wait) for green.

Communication is fraught with peril.

A nice day for roofing and a nice day for bicycling must also mean a nice day for going to the Fair and it appears that lots of my fellow citizens today availed themselves of that opportunity.  The Fair provides "park and ride" shuttle bus service from a raft of relatively nearby patches of asphalt to the front gate of the Fair (actually I think a side gate, but I digress).  We are within a mile or so as the crow flies of the Fair which makes the nearest park and ride to us look like a this is a pretty good spot to lots of people who live farther away than we do.  The parking lot almost always fills up and there is some overflow parking on the nearby streets.

Well, we are a complete two blocks from the bus stop (a quarter of a mile for those keeping score) which means that parking in front of our house doesn't seem to me like it should be that attractive an option.

Numerous of my fellow citizens disagree.

This is the suburbs.  Typically the street is completely clear.  If there is even one car parked in the street those of us who live on the street look at it quizzically and wonder who is visiting the folks in whichever house the car is parked in front of.  Not so much today.

Who the heck are all these people?

Looks to me like a possible record attendance at the Great Minnesota Get Together.

We will be going some day next week.

A great day for roofing

I expected to ride yesterday but events interceded.

To start from the beginning we got a call from Rob very shortly after we arrived home.  For those keeping score the actual agreement was that we would call him as soon as we got home.

Rob had to call because he had already ordered a dumpster (known to the delivery man AND to roofers as a "box") to be delivered Wednesday (yesterday).  Rob's dilemma was that the best time estimate for delivery that they would provide for him was sometime after 7am.  Rob has pretty specific desires for placement of the "box" and he thought it extremely important that someone be available to enforce his desires.  Further he was under the impression that the homeowner has to sign some sort of acceptance of liability waiver before the "box" can be placed on the homeowner's driveway.  Apparently lots of concrete driveways crack.

Well, we got our driveway when the city was doing a street curbing project in our area.  Since the contractors were going to be in the neighborhood anyway laying concrete the city made available to us a process for ordering a driveway with concrete mixed according to city code requirements for curbing.  This insures a higher grade of construction aggregate with much less spall (go ahead, look it up, I didn't know what it meant until I spent a lot of time around the geology guy and Heather).  Consequently our concrete driveway is quite a bit stronger than just ordinary run of the mill suburban concrete driveways and WAY less likely to crack.

Too late to make a long story short but it turns out I didn't have to sign anyway.

Waiting for the "box" delivery turns out to be a whole huge amount like waiting for the cable guy.  He came at 3pm.

Which was OK, I think.  It was sultry yesterday, hot and humid, not really a good day for bicycling.

But today everyone showed up early and we all got down to business.  Here's what it looked like as I headed out for a ride at about 12:30pm.

Need I mention that a good day for roofing is also a spectacular day for bicycling.  Temperatures crept up past 80 while I was out there but humidity is low, a moderate cool breeze from the northeast, everyone is pretty happy about the whole thing, probably especially the roofers.  Yesterday was sultry, hot and humid, early predictions call for extremely warm and humid tomorrow.

Our roofers hit the sweet spot.

We don't have any of the Great Lakes within easy riding distance of my house but we do have the Snail Lake Regional Park which includes this stretch of road off Rice Street near Sucker Lake.

I am pretty sure we can all agree on nice.  A nice day for a ride in the woods.

But here's what a two and a half hour bicycle ride can wreak on the roof of one's house, especially when there are six men working on said roof.

They started this morning, they will finish before they leave today.

There are six men on the roof, can you find them all?

Hint:  That's Rob over there just above the ladder.  Rob DOES do some work but mostly he supervises, watching to be sure that the job is done to his standards.  That's what we pay Rob for.  Rob isn't cheap but the job gets done right.

Here's a little strictly bicycle content.

Last year when I showed up in Michigan we discovered that the glue binding the leather cover to the plastic seat body of the saddle I had on the Michigan bicycle had given up all along the back of the saddle.  It did not affect in any way the rideability of the saddle, all the parts were still there, the loose part didn't interfere with any of my pedaling action.

All it was was unsightly.

I rode it anyway last year but this year I retrieved from my spare parts drawers in the basement the original equipment saddle for that bicycle and took it along to Michigan.  I re-installed that saddle and brought the unsightly one home.

My plan is rubber cement and clamping.  It looks like it will be a three step repair.  Here we are deep into the second of three separate glue and clamp segments.

Looking carefully perhaps at the area to the left of the clamp in the photo and at the bottom of the saddle you can get some idea of what the problem was.  That is the still not yet glued piece.

Do you tip roofers?

What blueberries look like in Michigan

Note to all Minnesotans who think they have to stoop down over ground hugging low bush blueberries in order to quell their desire for fresh blueberries, here's what blueberry bushes look like in southwest Michigan:

Guest Rider for scale.

At that exact location but on the other side of the pavement strip they have these purple flowers.

I have no idea.  Maybe someone else knows.

GRider for scale.

Shortly after that we had a loose dog incident.  He didn't really chase us, it was more like he wanted to run along with us.  As all bicyclists know but probably especially as known by someone who has run over a dog while riding a bicycle (that would be me), riding next to running dogs is fraught with peril.

Fortunately for me, the dog understood the voice of authority and responded appropriately to my forceful use of a one word command.  By dropping back but then deciding that he could run alongside the GRider.  We could hear his nails on the pavement and I turned my head to see him closing  in on the trail rider.  I delivered a forceful NO a second time and the dog dropped away.

Pretty benign encounter but proximity to running dogs while riding a bicycle is fraught with peril.

Here's one last thing that you never see in Minnesota.  The party store selling fuels with an attitude has a pump where they sell unleaded gasoline WITHOUT ETHANOL.

The price there today was $4.50 per gallon, the ethanol laced variety at the other pumps was going for about $3.50.  Probably ethanol free unleaded is not a HUGE seller given that the 40 percent price increase is going to offset your approximate 10 percent increase in miles per gallon that can reasonably be expected if your gasoline isn't cut with corn alcohol.

Just sayin'.

More miles in Michigan than in Minnesota this month

Considering that the month was off to at least an even par start before I left Minnesota it constitutes something of an achievement for the blue Michigan bicycle to move into first place for miles ridden this month.

And that's not even my major bicycle achievement of the day.

We rode down through the woods with the intention of trying to get close to the water on the other side of Pine Creek Bay.  We got sorta close but really not very.  I had my cheap pocket camera with me.to try for a photo.  That camera has a mechanical zoom and a digital zoom.  The results with the mechanical zoom are fairly predictable but I have never, ever gotten a decent photo with the digital zoom.

Still, here it is, a full mechanical and probably about half digital zoom of a place where people we know used to live.

We rode out towards the old horse pastures at the end of the point.  No horsies, just really expensive houses.  We passed this.

Well, yeah, OK, but why even put up a sign saying "cottages" if it is private?  Couldn't you just go with "private" or even with nothing at all.  The sign seems like an invitation to come in and then turns into an invitation to stay the heck out.

Seems not very Minnesotan to me.

Which is probably not unreasonable here.

The GRider has a rental bicycle with Shimano 105 components.  She reported to me (and I could occasionally hear it happening behind me) that the rear derailer often was declining to shift the gears of the bicycle, particularly when she was moving towards the larger cogs on the rear cassette (the gears easier to pedal in).  I can and have done some Campagnolo wrenching but not really any Shimano.  However, based just on over 50,000 miles of being on and around bicycles I was pretty confident that there was going to be an adjuster on the rear derailer.  When we stopped for the turn back point I took a look at her rear wheel.  I noticed right away that the derailer did not seem to be in alignment with the cogs on the cassette and that there was an adjuster right there where the cable joined the derailer itself.  I knew from Campagnolo that turning the adjuster towards the hub of the bicycle should move the derailer body in that direction.  Because shifting in that direction was the primary problem I was pretty confident that moving the derailer in that direction would cure the shifting problem.

A couple of turns of the adjuster screw later the derailer body lined up with the cog.

She rode back to the mountain, the derailer without any incident shifted the gears to what she needed to get back to the top of the hill and she made it home easily.

We rented a bicycle and while we had it under rental I fixed it.  THAT's my major bicycle achievement of the day.

Here is what happens when you arrive early on a Sunday and park your boat and trailer not in a trailer parking area but way, way down at the end of the car parking area.  I assume he did it because parking there is free (Dieppe reference, GRider will get the joke, probably no one else).

Parking may be free but on a Sunday that street side parking area eventually gets parked completely full and sometimes even spills over into the neighborhood down there.

Boat or no boat, people are going to park and that boat is stuck there until those two other drivers come back or until he gets a crane to lift it out of there.

At least the parking was free.

FC Nantes lost today.  The game report says that they had a "lack of precision" that they will need to remedy to avoid a direct return to Ligue 2 next season.

*sigh* 

Supplement

The GRider wanted to ride out to the Pigeon River crossing where I rode yesterday.  We saddled up and headed out.

Beautiful day, sunny and warm, cross wind only, we never really had to face a head wind.

This view is upstream from the road end.  There was a canoe and a couple of kayaks headed that direction, the kayaks put in at the access where we were standing, the canoe came from down towards the lake.

After we returned the cast of characters received a supplementary infusion of talent.  It seems possible that this evening there may be several sunset photos posted.

Riding in the woods again

I don't believe I have ridden past this more than a time or two without zooming up the hill of the world famous Kiwani's Rest Stop.  Today I did.

It's pretty flat around here, I am usually always glad to do a little elevation gain.

I had a guide for the first part of the ride but eventually pushed on solo.  I found another nice cluster of cardinal flowers, out there quite near to the others on Sand.

I'm pretty proud of myself over this one.  Completely unguided I managed to find this spot.  I have ridden there at least a couple of times before but never before did I have to find it in addition to riding to it.

That's the former Pigeon River crossing at the end of Holly off Blair.

See,  I found it.

I am pretty sure this is an example of silk purse from a boar's ear.

I believe I am correct in my belief that this nice county park is a reuse of a hazardous waste Superfund site.

Warm enough today to at least feel like summer although still several degrees below average.  A nice ride on a nice day.

Another day, another bike ride

Still unseasonably cool overnight but a trip to the grocery store this morning seemed to put everything just about right for a very pleasant afternoon.  The GRider and I cycled down to the inland lake and back.  Down to the lake went pretty well, back was into the freshening on shore breeze off the big lake.  But it was sunny and plenty warm enough, it was a nice ride.

We stopped for photos at a couple of the highlights of the area, highlights seen less often over the years as our attention has nearly always been drawn by the big lake.  We rode through Waukazoo Woods.

There are houses in there, lots of them, it is a major residential area.  But in constructing the new neighborhoods great care has been taken to retain the old, mature trees, meaning that the area is still very much a woods.

We got all the way down to the end of the inland lake.  This view is back towards Lake Michigan.

That pile of bricks left center is a pickle factory.  In favorable wind conditions one can bask in a strong and at least for me pleasant odor of pickles in brine.

Research had to be done about that airplane in yesterday's post.

It is actually a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star.   It is a two seater, designed and used primarily as a jet trainer.  There's a Wikipedia article.

There also is a major Wikipedia article about the F-86 and there is also an article on something called AcePilots.com where a former Korean War F-86 pilot compares the F-86 to its principal adversary during that conflict, the MIG-15.

So the whole exercise was not completely for nothing.

And it still is a handsome devil.

Has anyone arrived back from Europe lately?  Just askin'.

Red, white and blue

For the longest time I thought it was going to be red, blank and blue.  Nothing white appealed to my eye and I was making a solo final loop for a couple extra miles before the white appeared.

Probably best not to get too far ahead of myself here.

We had a guide for the first portion of the ride but important shopping obligations led to the guide turning back before we arrived at red.  The GRider and I were on our own by the time GRider began announcing that she was seeing cardinal flowers in the ditch.

The ditch is the natural habitat for this wild flower as the guide has previously informed us.  Apparently they only do well in an environment where the roots are perpetually damp.  These are on Sand just before it intersects with Van Buren.

You could Google map that if you are actually EXTREMELY interested.

I considered, given the post title going with white here next but I decided instead to retain chronological integrity.

We had deviated slightly from a strict out and back and found ourselves below Riley on 160th instead of the usual 168th.  You could Google map that if . . . blah, blah, blah, blah.

South on 160th takes you right past the side entrance, or maybe the front entrance, to our perennial favorite source of blueberries.

The confusion over whether the 160th street is the side or front entrance stems from the fact that although this certainly LOOKS like the front entrance, the entrance much more frequently used by the public (which would include us) is the blueberries for sale stand over on James.

There is newly expanded paved parking available over at the blueberries for sale stand and even though I am probably not in agreement with the Bowermans themselves, that rapidly expanding retail presence is going to feel like the front entrance to me.

I was almost but not quite desperate enough to photograph the white painted grandstand at the Ottawa County Fairgrounds and call that white.  Then I spotted this beauty.

I am no military aviation expert but I believe this to be a Korean War era vintage F-86, one of the very first widely used jet fighter planes.  The opposition in that war fielded MIG-some number, maybe 15s?  There is bound to be a Wikipedia article.

In addition to being mostly white and a handsome looking devil silhouetted there against the brilliant blue sky this particular photographic model also has the necessary color scheme to tie the whole thing together, sorta like the Dude's rug. Red, white and blue.

This one is will be understood best by the three whose name tags are displayed on the dining room table.

Not to worry anyone feeling out of the loop, the story will eventually be widely disseminated.  Perhaps even as soon as the comment section.  There is no way to keep this one out of general circulation.

Guest Rider joins

Sometimes it rains all day.

Then the next day seems just fine all morning.  The problem began as soon as we were out of the garage, even before we were actually on the bicycles.  A front passed through and during the actual time of passing a pretty severe cloud cover had both of us thinking "rain".  It didn't but when we rode out from under the clouds we discovered that the new air mass was a fair bit cooler than the old bit.

And it was windy.

All things considered it was still a plenty nice enough day for riding.

We swung past the local bike shop and headed on back towards the lakeshore.  Here is the Guest Rider and her rental steed, a fairly nice women's specific crabon fibre framed Specialized Amira Comp, light as a feather and twice as pretty.

Drawbacks?  The very lowest level of the line Mavic wheelset, pretty far down the list Shimano components and a compact crankset.

But all in all a pretty nice bike, especially for a rental.

I have mentioned previously that these things only come along once every 1,000 miles so when I hit a Michigan bicycle ownership milestone we stopped and got photo verification.

I tried about five different settings, taking a photo with each and eventually ended up with one in quite useful focus.

The challenge now will be to remember which of the settings was the one that produced this image.

We got home to discover that there was wildlife outside the window again, this time the deer appears to be wearing orange camouflage.

Actually, of course, that's my new orange jacket.  The reason why today's ride included a stop at the local bike shop was because I decided I didn't want to ride any farther feeling as cold as I felt.

In an unusual business decision they let me wear the jacket out of the shop and return later in the day to arrange payment.

It helps a lot if your sister is one of the best customers that shop has.

Just waiting for sunset.

A huge advantage (to me) of FC Nantes now playing in the top flight

I can watch the highlights.

Available from 0001 CET the Monday after the weekend games.

Great start for FC Nantes.

Signs

I have ridden past this sign nearly every time I have been here.

It has always struck me as a bit unusual but today was the first time I got around to stopping for a photo.

I should add that I ALWAYS look and I have never, NEVER seen any dogs inside that fence.

Retour vers la Ligue 1

It's hard being a fan of a relatively obscure European football club, particularly so when the club is NOT from one of the big four soccer leagues in Europe (England, Germany, Spain and Italy) and even more so when the team I have been trying to follow is not even in the top league in France.  FC Nantes has given me a break though  by winning promotion to Ligue 1 and this year's season began today.  That's what the post title refers to, the return to the top league.  It is also the slogan captured on a t-shirt gifted to me by my French speaking dafter.

According to the official website, Ligue1.com, Nantes is back with a bang.  Last year's leading scorer Filip Djordjevic scored in the 23rd minute and SC Bastia contributed an own goal in the 90th minute. FC Nantes defeated SC Bastia 2-0.

I earlier today e-mailed the t-shirt photo to the aforementioned family French speaker.  She replied by text with bonne maillot or something like that although I believe that the French word for t-shirt is "t-shirt".

It was such a nice day that I broke the usual tradition of sunset photos with mid-morning view of the same scene.

 Aftgernoon rolled around and bicycling ensued.  I was out without my customary Michigan ride leader.  This CAN work because I have nearly 3,000 Michigan miles and I can find at least the most familiar of the usual sights.

The Port Sheldon Party Store because who doesn't want to have fuel with an attitude.

 Further north to the crossing of the Pigeon River although I am fairly certain they call it Pigeon Lake at this particular point, Lake Michigan out there beyond the mouth of the river/lake.

Everyone's real favorite, the West Olive One Stop.

The WOOS has a usually pretty taciturn staff and an "interesting" product selection.

And a slightly unsavory clientele.

Nice day, nice ride, fabulous Saturday on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Travel is hard

But actually, the cab driver drove fast but not dangerously so, the plane actually departed a couple of minutes early, we had a tail wind and made up time in the air and arrived in time for dinner.  Actual travel from out front door to parked at the beach house just a skoosh more than 4 hours.

And were around for a little just after sunset sky viewing.

And reported earlier by Wireless I am now getting two bars even up here on the mountain.

Bing gets binged

Yesterday felt like rain ALL DAY, every single minute.  But it never actually did.

Today dawned feeling a little bit the same.  Further more the weather predicting internet source currently highly touted by TOPWLH put the probability of precipitation at 60 percent or so, beginning at about noon.

Bing got binged.

According to the internet weather radar source that I generally refer to, the system split in two, part going past to our north, part going past to our south.

Pretty darn nice day.

I did show some deference to Bing by riding the don't get too far from home loop at the beginning.  THAT turned out to be a complete waste.

But the not too far from home loop leads me down past the cows and into the Fairgrounds.  Today I found the gates all closed,  entrée interdite.

Eventually I came across a gate with an explanatory sign.

Entrée interdite.

I circled around over towards Lake Como and then headed back down towards the front gate of the Fairgrounds hoping to find further explanation.  On the way I passed my favorite municipal rain garden in the Como neighborhood.

Usually I have to wait until I spend part of August in Michigan to spot a cardinal flower but today I saw the year's first cardinals in Saint Paul.

Here's the front gate of the Fairgrounds.

Oh, right, that figures.

A good reason why the grounds would be closed until August 21 is that the Fair starts on August 22.

The problem for me is, I think, that I am still sort of expectantly awaiting the arrival of spring and as a result I am pretty totally unprepared for it to be nearly the end of summer.

But . . .

The big news of the day is in our back yard.

Today was only the delivery.  Actual installation will occur Thursday.  The delivery guy warned us that during installation on Thursday we should expect to be without power for most of the day, 4 to 6 hours he said.

I guess that's going to have to be OK, particularly when I consider the fact that after Thursday the power will NEVER GO OFF AGAIN.

That photo was after my ride, maybe 3:30 or so.  Pretty nice looking day for a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms would be my opinion.  Others might not agree but they would be wrong.

Big fella

I admit it isn't nearly as good a photo as you can get when a big doe sleeps in your yard but I still like this one of what I counted as a 10 point buck.  He was grazing next to the parking lot at the foot of the Sucker Lake trail, the parking lot often featured because of broken car window glass.

People who seek out antler sheds should be alert to that part of town, there are going to be some nice ones out there later this year.

I have been experimenting with settings on the pocket camera.  After the big white bird fiasco I thought perhaps the landscape setting would result in less unsatisfactory auto focus.

Nope.

Back to automatic at least for now, maybe P, maybe that red heart one which I suppose is favorite.

*sigh*  Time to read the manual again.

I think I have had fair results in the past with no flash but I quite sure that as a setting that is only on the good camera, it is an extra step on the pocket camera.

I am still quite obsessed with trees.  The images you get on yahoo images of the big pines are not usually of those trees as yard landscaping.

However, I ride a bicycle, I see lots of trees, some in plantings which only bring to mind my god what were they thinking (under power lines for example)?

Here is a pretty nice red pine at the corner of a yard.

State tree of Minnesota.

And a nice white pine about two miles from here.

State tree of Michigan.

It was another day when half the sky was socked in heavy clouds and a clearly visible half the sky was more than enough blue to make all the pants Dutchmen are ever going to need.  As luck would have it most of my ride was under the cloudy part.  It was weird though, the sun was so close to the dividing line (from my perspective) that I often rode out into the sunshine.

Nice day.

Hooray, hooray.

I use that a lot on the first of the month.

The big storm is rolling up on six weeks in our past but it is still plenty evident around here.  The trees that blew OVER have long one but there still seems to be some sort of tree service truck every couple of blocks.  They are now working on the ones like the one in our front yard that were killed by the storm but didn't have the self realization to actually fall down.  People who own the houses next to these trees are full on having them removed.  Here's a birch tree gone down about two miles from here, the men are still there with a smidgen of their truck visible frame right.

It is probably also evident from the photo that it was a gorgeous, gorgeous day, very suitable for mid June.  I rode all the way out to the northern lakes.  Thursday is a good day to go out there.

A comparison of this photo to a photo taken and posted on April 29 should reveal a couple of interesting tidbits.

Most obvious of course is the change of hue.  But equally interesting at least to me is that little trail of sticks crossing the waterway.  It is spectacularly good beaver habitat out there and it looks to me like they are back.

The new path at Vadnais resulted in the removal of several really nice old cottonwood trees down by the parking lot.  I got this photo about halfway up the lake near one of the new bench/fishing areas.

Another look at one of the trees in the neighborhood of a species that is under consideration for out front yard.  This one is a couple of blocks away.

Of course, we are also facing a could happen at any time loss of our two ash trees.  For replacement, if necessary, of those trees we are leaning towards deciduous.  I quite like the maple trees visible on either side of the conifer.  I believe they are Schwedler maples, I believe also known as Norway maples.

This is a European maple tree which comes with a little controversy.  It is considered an invasive species in some eastern states.  I dunno, we seem fine with Norway pine.

I like the leaves, it is northern European, likely to do just fine in this zone and turns probably mostly yellow trending towards reddish orange in the fall.

I was watching a soccer game after I got home from my ride and the play by play guy offered the opinion that the team behind by a goal was moving as if mired in treacle.

Didn't expect that.