Wildlife news

When I set out yesterday I had been promised by the local weather channel that it was a bit windy and that I should expect west winds at 10 to 20mph.  That's brisk but manageable if one keeps riding directly into the wind to a minimum.  It was only after being nearly blown off my bicycle while on the return home that I did a recheck of the weather channel.  The wind report now said gusts of 33mph.  If I had seen that before leaving the house I doubt that I would have.

Today promised light winds from the west.  I left the house expecting to ride over into the biggest city around for perhaps a visit to Lake of the Isles.

Instead I found that riding towards the west was a bit difficult.  I decided to make it instead a north south route.  There are a couple of flags in parking lots as I approach the Snelling Avenue crossing.  It felt like and the flags confirmed that the wind was indeed mostly west but also just a tiny bit north.

So naturally I rode out to Lake Vadnais.  Which is about as far from Lake of the Isles as it is possible for me to be without increasing the distance of my rides.  Which I am not yet ready to do.  Maybe sometime this summer but not yet.

I took a slightly different route out there though as I am a little put off by the make over of the intersection of Victoria and County Road E where that new apartment building is going up on the shore of Island Lake.  There is now a roadway straight through where there didn't used to be and it further it now feels like the amount of pavement safely claimable by a bicyclist has diminished.  One has to be a bit more assertive now which is always iffy for a 16 pound bicycle in the presence of multi-ton motor vehicles.

I deviated over towards the west and rode instead around the other lobe of the lake, a route which leads me along this path through the woods.

It's pretty in there and like most multi-use trails it is plenty safe during the week.  I met one other old timer just at the entrance as he was walking out and then didn't see another soul along the course of the path.  That seems to me better than playing chicken with SUVs.

The path eventually leads out to a neighborhood where you ride for two blocks on the street and then you plunge back into the woods.  This is the fishing dock on the western lobe of Island Lake.  That's Island Lake School down at the far end and Island Lake park off the the left a bit.

There wasn't anyone fishing at this moment, obviously, but as I rode out towards the parking lot I met a guy carrying a rod and a tackle box.  So I met one person at the entrance and one person at the exit.  No one's feelings were bruised in either instance.

I rode on out to the usual turn around and started back through Sucker Lake.  In years past I have often photographed broken car window glass in the parking lot at the south end of that part of the park.  I haven't seen any broken glass yet this year despite the fact that I look every time.

It occurred to me that a smash and grab small time thief would be better served by moving his operations to the new top of the lake parking lot at Lake Vadnais.  It is within a half mile, is farther from the street and bonus, requires negotiating around a slight curve as one travels from the main street to the parking lot.  Any police presence would have to be actually down in the parking lot to be effective, there isn't any possible way for someone just passing by on the main street to notice anything down there.

I am still a little conflicted about the new Vadnais layout.  Totally removing cars from the lake has resulted in a loss of caution from the pedestrians along the lake.  And because it is such a nice spot and because it is such a good deal for pedestrians to be able to use this lake shore without having to worry about cars, well, maybe this place is like some of the more urban lakes where they have two paths.  Pedestrians and bicycles are NOT a good mix no matter what urban recreation planners think.

And then there is what they have done down at the bottom end of the lake.  This used to be a really nice tree shaded dirt shoreline.  There were several huge cottonwoods but they were all removed.  I suppose that this is a big improvement for the resource but it renders what was a charming spot pretty much charmless.

The wildlife news from Lake Vadnais today is mixed.  Most prominently there has recently been a very significant dragon fly hatch out there.  Those largish black dive bombers were out in great numbers today.  It actually made riding through there feel dangerous.  At first I swerved a bit and waved my arms trying to dodge the big black bombers.  Eventually I deflected five or six of them (there were A LOT) including a couple off my helmet and one off the frame of my sunglasses.  I discovered that they may LOOK big but there isn't much actual mass there and furthermore they don't have any of the heavy armor that certain other of their flying insect buddies do.  You can pretty much bounce a dragon fly and go ahead and ignore the consequences because there are likely to be none.

At least that was my conclusion today.  I am pretty sure next time I will be swerving and waving.

Then on the way past Lake Owasso Bambi's mom stopped for a photo opp.

I haven't had a photo of this particular species of vermin for quite a while as usually they are at least a little bit shy.

This one walked right towards me, took a good long look and then effortlessly bounded over that fence and away.  She wasn't the slightest bit impressed by me.

Bambi's mom is obviously plenty used to having people around as should be quite evident from the surroundings in which she has today allowed herself to be photographed.  That's very, very clearly the suburbs, not the wilderness.

Vermin.