Recommended by Opal

Opal said that it was the best cinnamon ever.  When she was a girl the Watkins man came to their farm and her mother Olga always got some cinnamon.  Best cinnamon ever.

Later on our beloved dafter worked for a corporation that was also the owner of Watkins.  When I first started buying this cinnamon it was at least partly because of the employee discount available to me through that offspring.  I buy in bulk directly from the name on the can.

Because it IS the best cinnamon ever and I use it exclusively.

Every year we get a coupon book for the State Fair that features a discount on a single 6 ounce can of Cannelle.  We get two of those coupon books and always make a swing down to that end of the grounds to purchase our discounted two tins.  Best cinnamon ever.

The last time I purchased directly from the name on the can I bought a very large amount.  I calculated how many cans I would have to buy to raise the amount of my order to the level where I would get free shipping.  I think it might have been something like 18 cans.  I know that the cinnamon comes 12 to a box and inside my shipping carton I had a full unopened box and several more cans.

Well, I am almost out.

I went to the website as I have in the past.  I don't really want that much cinnamon on hand at this point so I was going to order a couple or a few cans and figure out how to minimize shipping.  Something has changed at the website and now in order to figure out shipping before checkout they required that I call them.  I've been trying to get around to that.  In addition I decided that I should check the local grocery store price to be sure how many I needed to order to make the price worthwhile with shipping included.

The price at the website was $9 almost $10.  When I checked earlier today they were running a special for $8.54 per 6 ounce can.

After poker tonight I stopped at the grocery store for the sole purpose of visiting the spice aisle.

$3.99

I bought all they had in the store which admittedly was only three cans.

Best cinnamon ever.

Favorite pavement

Some of my favorite pavement is closed to me for a while.

I got out in the morning but by the time I got home it was too hot and starting to get windy.

GRider

In her occasional appearances in our garage BGR of late has begun to comment on "Grandma's bike hanging upside down."

Well, do not despair little girl, that problem has been remedied.

And, in fact, Grandma has been out for a bicycle ride.

She is now fully updated on the construction projects at the Fairgrounds.

OOTNDITHOD.

Kid from Minneapolis in a red hat

Lots of good stuff here, a tribute to the late George Harrison, an all star band playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Prominent in the first half of the video is the late Tom Petty.

The second half of the video is dominated by the not gently weeping guitar genius of a kid from Minneapolis, Prince Roger Nelson.

Andy wrestled him when they were both in junior high.

George Harrison's son plays guitar and is prominent in many of the camera shots.

PSPS

I rode on Saturday.  I got a photo but didn't post anything.

It was my first ride of the season to a destination.  A destination ride means you go somewhere.  Life experience dictates that you not go somewhere until you have confidence that you will be able to get back.

The first destination was Lake Como.  Here is LOOK at Lake Como.

Lighting for that photo may make it indistinct but the ice is definitely out.

Saturday made three days in a row, again something that I haven't done for a long time.  I took Sunday off.

But I was out again today.  I added a couple of miles to my previous distance and can now report that if bicycle fitness does not significantly degrade between now and August that I will be able to make the out and back ride to the PSPS.

I was just across Snelling heading to some JRA at the Fairgrounds when a young person on a pretty nice bike passed me.  He took the time to tell me that he really liked my bike.

So the old bicycle still has it even as the old bicyclist increasingly does not.

The extra couple of miles took me down to Dead Man's Curve.

That spot actually has been well within range almost from ride 1.  There didn't seem any reason to go there though as there isn't anything very close on the other side of the underpass to justify going through there.  What you get is some unpleasant traffic, an uphill I really don't care for and usually a bunch of broken glass in the bike lane.

The thermometer said it was 82 when I was at the Cattle Barn.

A nice day for a ride.

Auckland Rule

Today was much too windy for bicycling but I managed to eke out a ride anyway.

And it turned out to be a day of glorious scenery, starting with the quite nearby tulip yard.

Not even three weeks removed from 16 inches of snow.

I also circled by the tree that I mentioned last week.  The leaves are a bright and pretty shade of green.

Last week they were even more fresh looking but I think the shrub is still looking good today.

And sure enough the first sighting of some slightly pinkish flowers on someone's yard shrubbery.

It is a late spring but having finally arrived the season is definitely now moving rapidly.

I also realized that I did not report yesterday's largest piece of bicycle content.

It is now May and as I have made a few rides since the blizzard I have been monitoring the street sweeping.  Most of Roseville has been swept including my street and the nearby streets that make up my usual egress and ingress from my neighborhood.  Lauderdale has not been swept yet but most of Falcon Heights has.

We had day care pick up on Wednesday, I did not ride.  But on Tuesday I had noticed that the nearby streets in Saint Paul that I ride a lot, the streets between here and the Fairgrounds, were posted for no parking on Wednesday, strongly suggesting that those streets were going to be swept.

I went all in, figuring that the sweeping of the streets meant that the season had arrived and I could ride my summer bicycle.

I was determined but, and here comes the bicycle content, I almost didn't get to ride at all.  The tires on FirstLOOK needed to be pumped before I could ride that bicycle and my pump didn't seem up to the task.

It took a while and a bit of fiddling with three different pumps but I eventually got the tires up to a pressure sufficient for riding.

Last evening I embarked on a project involving my main pump.

What the heck was the problem and was it something I could fix?

The metal parts comprising the pump head needed to be tightened and indeed that was something I could fix.

A tiny bit disappointing.  When you set out to do something expecting that it will be a project and it ends up being way too easy you don't get the big satisfaction reward of having conquered something difficult.

*sigh*

But I did get to ride today.

South wind at start. north wind at finish

Which means head in wind in both directions.

*sigh*

But by starting out into the south wind I passed by a couple of things that I mentioned the other day but which I had previously failed to photograph due to user error (I forgot to bring my camera).

So here is the many times previously pictured first flowering shrub that I encountered this year, and many other years in the past.

Less than three weeks after 16 inches of snow.

This one is a different species but pretty showy.

The white flowers come first, the blossoms with some color seem to take just a bit longer.  But soon enough there will be some pink and then some darker pink and all sorts of springtime joy.

One last look though, here is the State Fair parking lot approximately across the street from the Toro building.

Even with temperatures into the 70s that pile has not quite given up yet.

I would be surprised to find anything there tomorrow though.

The garage thermometer today reports 77F.

Hooray, hooray!

But I forgot my camera.

I saw a really pretty fully budded out tree, a couple of flowering shrubs and a parking lot at the Fairgrounds that still has a fair amount of snow.

I rode a couple of days ago and got this picture of the last bit of snow in our yard.

Even that bit has now vanished.

So it must be May.  Let the outdoor activities resume.

Ice on the water

And fire in the sky.

This is a small pond that I often pass by on rides to the north.

The effects of the fire in the sky should be fairly obvious.  It doesn't look much like winter out there anymore.  Even so the ice has not completely left the pond and the local recreation department seems comfortable with the idea that it is still winter.  When they closed that set of stairs they were dang serious.  Those are 2x4s NAILED to the head posts at the top the stairs.  A crowbar will be required to reopen those stairs.

Further suggesting that it is still winter is that I am still riding my winter bicycle.

Today I tried for a couple more miles.  Too windy,  really hard.

It is a process.

Camp day

Three days in a row proved to be an obstacle that I chose not to attempt.  Two days was pretty hard.

Instead we had a date at the local book store.  The local newspaper published notice of the appearance of our favorite writer within a mile of where we live.  I immediately started to re-read his most recent Davenport novel.  I have not read the most recent Flowers book yet and with the new Davenport it looks like we may be setting up for a classic reading festival with most of the readers not having read either of the two most recent Davenport and/or the most recent Flowers.  That will be three books for the rest of you while I will only have two.

Left to right, one year old Davenport, most recent Flowers, brand new Davenport.

He is an interesting guy in addition to being our favorite writer.  Every time I attend one of these I note and find interesting that the audience has many people who have often been there before but also a sprinkling of very young people who were probably not yet able to read when his first novel was published.

He talks for a few minutes but prefers to answer questions.  One of the first questions revealed that he is within a week or two of completion of the writing of the next Flowers, to be published in the fall.  He says that he writes nearly every day and thinks about the writing projects every day.  He said that his biggest problem is devising interesting villains.  He has one in mind for the next Davenport book some of the plot of which he shared with this gathering of his fans.  He has a working title, "Neon Prey".  The plot line that he does have in mind includes a starting point in Minnesota, plot development in Los Angeles with a conclusion in Las Vegas.

He told a story that I had heard before.  Before he was a novelist he was writing for the local newspaper and produced a series that won a Pulitzer prize.  The newspaper responded by giving him a raise that left him still making less than two writers on the sports desk.  He said that he didn't really resent the sports guys, they were both really good writers.  But he did note that even with the raise he wasn't going to be making enough money to pay for his two kids to go to college.  He started fishing for some non-newspaper writing projects.  He got an agent, wrote some stuff and kept working.

A member of the audience asked when he knew he had found something that he could do outside the newspaper.

His response was that it occurred when his agent asked if he could produce something more along the lines of what he had already written.  His agent informed him that if he could that he would be paid $200,000.

That was the moment.

When we got to the front of the line the book store staff took my phone and produced a quite satisfactory photo of the three of us.

I have been several times, TOPWLH not as many but she is not a new face.  We both had heart felt exclamations to the author about how much pleasure the reading of his work has provided for us and our family over the years.  Praise which he graciously accepted.  During our very brief moment with him TOPWLH volunteered to the author the name of our daughter and received in return the expected response that his daughter has the same name.  We knew that.  He autographed his newest book for our daughter.

We had a nice night out at the local bookstore.

Rubber legs

First back to back in quite a while.  It was hard.

The temperatures are returning to average but we still have this much snow under the mail box.

It was windy this morning and I hesitated but finally I was pretty determined to participate.  When I started it was cool and windy.  As often happens this time of year the warming of the atmosphere led to an increase in turbulence.  By the time I reached home it was entirely too windy to allow bicycling.

Bicycle fitness is poor, the wind was punitive, the result was legs of rubber.

At long last

At this time of year the sun is high in the sky and even a record breaking April snow fall turned out to be really no match for those powerful rays.

My bicycle has been ready for a while, today it was finally dry enough (and plenty warm) for a bicycle ride.

There is still a little snow here and there at the Fairgrounds but 63F is going to make even those traces disappear in the next day or two.

The tulips are up at the tulip guy's yard but it appears that he has something else in there too, some early bloomers until the tulips are ready.

It was a beautiful day.  My bicycle fitness level was not good but it never really is on the first ride of the year.  It was hard, very hard but it was really good to be out there.

Snow records

Done for now.

The 14.9 inches of snow since Friday is the all time record for largest single snow fall in the month of April

The total for April to date of 25.2 inches is also a new record.

And the total snowfall since January 1 of 70.3 inches is a record for snowfall to start a calendar year.  Here is a final look at the deck this morning with the skies finally having turned to blue.

Here is a look out the kitchen window at the weird snow overhang. 

That patch of snow hung on until about 4:48pm.  I was in the garage heading out to do an important errand when I heard the resounding *thump* indicating that gravity had prevailed yet again.

The important errand I was headed out for was related to the extremely important task that I had running in the background throughout all of the snow removal activities.

Taxes.  I pay on line but I file paper forms.

It was all completed today.  I just got back from dropping those two envelopes off at the local post office branch.  Mailed today will be postmarked tomorrow.

The weather forecast indicates possibility of 1 to 3 inches more of snow for Wednesday.  Based on how quickly the 15 inches we just got dumped with is receding from plowed surfaces I believe that if we somehow dodge that bit on Wednesday that bicycling may be possible by the end of the week.

Ride report

I got really close again.  As a footnote I helped out at BGR's house on Monday when they had a day care problem.  When I arrived there were no footprints on the sidewalk leading away from the house.  There were bicycle tire tracks.  Bicycling seemed theoretically possible, at least for the young and strong.

By Friday it looked really good even for me, the only problem was that it was raining and I do not ride in the rain.  A glance out our back door reveals a clear deck, a bare picnic table and grass.

The front view shows bare driveway and street, a completely bare grass field and only a relatively small pile of snowplow residue snow.

This is Saturday during pretty much full on blizzard.  The school building across the field is only vaguely apparent.

By Saturday evening this is the picnic table.

Sunday morning.

In front the municipal plow has done its work and we are marooned.

Since then the snow blower has been run and we can reach the street.  However, it is still snowing and the street that we can reach is rapidly returning to impassable.

The wind conditions are creating an overhang on the leeward side of the house.  A big chunk fell off just now leaving our deck looking like this.

It is still snowing.

I haven't seen any official totals since much earlier today but we were within a couple of inches of an all time record storm for the month of April even then.  The snow has occasionally lessened but right now it is snowing pretty hard.

No bicycling today.

Too much snow

Daily high temperatures are still about 10 degrees below average.  A significant factor in this is the still pretty significant snow cover.

The driveway and many of the streets are very near to being available for bicycling but not yet.

Sagan wins Paris-Roubaix.

As the days pass Froome and Team Sky look less and less credible.

Bicycling resumes

Almost.

Last Tuesday was quite a nice day.  It was sunny and one of the warmest days so far, above 50 if my memory serves correctly.  We had an outing, a dinner at a friend of mine's house, a friend of mine who happens to be married to TOPWLH's second cousin.  There is a fairly interesting story there.  The second cousin and TOPWLH were not aware of each other (their grandfathers were brothers) but the second cousin had done some genealogy.  She showed some of it to her new husband.  He (not she) recognized the unusual name and looking a bit closer noted that he also recognized the name of her husband (me).  So we are all cousins now.

Anyway, cousin and spouse were hosting a dinner for a college friend visiting from England (yes, that one) and a few other of his and our college friends.

We had a wonderful time reliving old times and catching up.  At least three of them asked if I had been out bicycling yet.

Well, actually no, but it felt like Wednesday was a possibility.

It was colder on Wednesday but I set out to make a ride happen.  I got my early season bicycle down out of the rafters and pumped the tires.  But then the amount of time spent collecting my early season costume from the six or seven places where parts of it spent the winter pretty much eliminated the possibility of a Wednesday ride.

But I was ready for Thursday.

Alas, Thursday was quite a bit colder than Wednesday even and definitely not the sunny and warm of Tuesday.  I hung on though, optimistic.

It snowed on Friday.

Saturday morning we awoke to a furnace on the fritz and more cold weather.

The furnace is limping along, we are okay for now.  But yesterday this April snow thing got really serious.

The rails on our deck were completely devoid of any snow cover last Tuesday.

And it is still snowing.

Certainly there will be some bicycling from my garage some time soon.  But obviously it will not be real soon.

Bath time

She has stayed overnight a couple of times before but this was the first time when overnight coincided with bath night.

Someone should ask Grandma why she thought a long sleeved shirt was a good choice for bath time.

Here they are in the bedroom in front of the mirror brushing out her hair.

We realized that we knew she had really pretty hair but until now we had not seen it right after it has been washed, when it is shiny and clean.  Suffice to say that clean and shiny is REALLY pretty.

Gasparilla

I had my camera with me but took almost no photos.

I did get this one on our visit to Gasparilla Outfitters.

What did they outfit us with?

A shirt, a cap and a hat if I recall correctly.

I am fairly certain that I recall correctly that it was very hot that day.

But we had lots of fun.

Chapeau to our hosts.

Winter storm temporarily maroons local couple

I am waiting until tomorrow to break out the machinery.  The plows have been here once but the snow is still falling.  With already a couple of inches since the plows were here I know that the municipal authorities will be here some time overnight for another round of plowing.  Neither of the people living here needs to get to work in the morning.  Snowblowing will commence after plowing is complete.

For now we are marooned.

Wind direction has this time caused some drifting on the picnic table in back.  It looks like a foot and a half or more on the deck.

The snowblower has a maximum cut of 22 inches.  I am quite certain that the cut through the snowplow furrow at the end of the driveway will include a pass or two where the depth of the snow exceeds the maximum cut that the snowblower can take.  The snowblower will go through under the top level of the snow.

But the blower has five forward gears and if I drop down to gear 1 and just let the machine work the blower will slowly work its way through even that amount of snow and then turn around to do it again.  This is a snow event well within the capabilities of available machinery.  This is what I have that machine for.

News flash in the city where I live:  Local couple is temporarily marooned.

Residue of fun

The little girl visited us again yesterday.

Well, we had fun.

We had so much fun that even after she left we could not bring ourselves to put her toys away.

We just left them out to help us remember.