On Friday YA made our annual trek to pet deer and goats and llamas at Fawn-Doe-Rosa. The route to get there is straight through Lindstrom, which is a pretty little town with deep Swedish roots and one of the cutest water towers ever (see photo above). But it turns out that it’s not actually a water tower any longer.
Back in 1992, the city built a new water tower because the original was no longer able to meet the demand. At that time, the older water tower was “repurposed” as the world’s largest coffee pot. A local business owner funded the conversion – adding the spout, handle and knob along with repainting it. Initially there was a steam function but it hasn’t been working for years.
Several months ago the city council approved an initiative to spruce up the paint job and also to restore the steam function. This time around, much of the cost was raised by the said of small water tower replicas. Four weeks ago, the steam poured out of the pot again for the first time in years.
Just by luck, we were driving through Lindstrom at exactly 10 a.m., which is one of the two times per day that the steam functions. YA was telling me about all this so I did a quick u-turn so we could circle back and get a good look. There were folks hanging out on the street corners to watch as well. It was cloudy, so while we could see the steam, I think on a clear day it would be more impressive.
A fun tangent, I recently read Off Main Street by Michael Perry and one of the essays is called “You Are Here” which is about water towers in the Midwest. It was entertaining and I learned there’s more to a water tower than meets the eye. Highly recommended reading. Fun confabulation of reading and traveling!
Have you seen any fun water towers? Ever climbed up one?
Barbara said last week (Where in the World is VS) that there was a book festival in Viroqua the weekend before. Did anybody make the connection?
The first weekend of March I spent some time with my friend David, who lives in Viroqua. His cousin lives in the Twin Cities, so I do get to see him several times a year. In March he mentioned that this year he was the chairperson of the Ridges and Rivers Book Festival – he’s on the “board” and this year was his turn. Is this right up my alley or what?
I put the festival on my calendar and then got busy reading. There were about a dozen presenters and I tried to get ahold of the book that they were featuring; if not, some other recent book. I volunteered to go down on Friday and help set up as a thank you for David putting me up. There were a LOT of volunteers so it was actually short work. I checked out the Viroqua Co-op for dinner – very big and nice for a small town.
On Saturday, the day of the festival, I had five presentations to go to. The first was Keith Lesmeister talking about the EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories. Very compelling speaker.
Next up was Maggie Ginsberg, whose first novel Still True won some awards in 2023 – she spoke well but quickly, maybe a bit nervous?
After lunch it was time for Erica Hannickel who has a fascinating book about orchids – her presentation was really well put together and included a great powerpoint with lots of pictures.
The fourth author was William Kent Krueger in the Historic Temple Theatre. WKK hasn’t been my favorite author; I actually realized on Saturday morning that all of his books that I’ve read have been his standalones. After listening to his talk, I decided to give his Cork O’Connor series a try.
The last author of the evening was also at the theatre – Michael Perry. I’ve read several of his books but have never heard him speak. He was SO funny. His presentation was over 2 hours and all of us in the audience were just howling.
In between presentations, I walked through the book vendors and author tables. Bought a handful of items – that was a foregone conclusion. Had Fried Sweet Potato Swirls for lunch from a food truck and fabulous gelato from a coffee/gelato shop in town. Really the only downside of the entire day was that I couldn’t expand time to see more of the author presentations. Oh and the very scary 30 minute drive back to David’s house in the dark. Geez, it’s dark in the country.
Had breakfast with my godson and his family on Sunday morning before heading back to the Twin Cities. I will definitely go again next year!
Here’s what I read in preparation:
The Fastest Drummer: Viola Smith by Dean Robbins. This is one in a series of great kids books that feature women. Great illustrations as well.
Forty Acres Deep by Michael Perry. Not his usual funny stories but a remarkable look at depression at a farmer struggling with depression. Absolutely 5 star material.
Halloween with Morris and Boris/Morris and Boris at the Circus by Bernard Wiseman. These kids books came out in the 70s. There are twelve of them altogether. Charming and funny.
We Could Have Been Happy Here by Keith Lesmeister. Short stories, heavy on the theme of missing parents (literal and figurative). Very nice.
Still True by Maggie Ginsburg. Two women in a small town – one in an unusual marriage, one in a more traditional marriage. Both have secrets that could rip their lives apart. Really intriguing.
The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger. This is his latest standalone – and it’s actually my favorite of all that I’ve read. A not-well-liked character is found dead by the river. Lots of secrets uncovered as the death gets solved.
Driftless Gold by Sue Berg. This was my least favorite read for the festival, although it wasn’t bad. I think this slots into the cozy mystery genre a bit, although the main character is a male – solving a mystery involving some lost gold treasure. This is part of series.
Orchid Muse by Erica Hannickel. Fabulous look at our fascination with orchids, including some history, some art, some individuals who’ve made orchids their life’s work. No mention however of Nero Wolfe!
EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories. Enchanting collection of short stories having to do with rural life. I’m not always a fan of short stories, but these were all excellent. The anthology was curated by Keith Lesmeister and I think he did a great job.
There were a few others I would have like to have gotten to, but couldn’t get them in time. Maybe next year I’ll start earlier!!
The big local news here lately is that the public high school mascot/logo is being retired. We are known as the Dickinson Midgets. We have apparently been Midgets for 100 years.
What is even bigger news is that virtually no one is protesting the change. The school board tried to change the name in 1996, and the whole board was recalled in a special election by disgruntled citizens who wouldn’t stand for a new mascot. This time, things are different, and students talk openly about how embarrassing the mascot is. Another good reason for a new mascot now is that they are renovating the gymnasium, and they can incorporate the new mascot logo into the gym floor. It will save money in the long run, you see. It will be good to have this little guy put to rest.
The superintendent asked for ideas for a new mascot and had 850 entries. A committee of students and faculty settled on two: The Defenders or The Mavericks. Both ideas seem pretty palatable to me, and seem to go well with our Old West ethos out here.
What was your school mascot? What are some of the sillier mascots you have heard of? Make up some new school mascot names.
I was rather amused to read the account from March of the conviction of some British guys for the theft of an 18 carat gold toilet from Blenheim Palace.
The 6 million dollar toilet was part of an art installation titled America by an Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan poking fun at excessive wealth. The Guggenheim Museum, where the installation started out, had reportedly offered the work to 47 during his first term after he asked to borrow a painting by Van Gogh. The toilet has presumably been melted down and sold. The artist suggested, using the Clue game, that the chief suspects should have been the Butler, the Chef, or a family friend.
I am an Impressionist sort of art person, but I also like Renaissance art and Aboriginal art.
Ok. Help me understand modern art. I don’t understand Brillo boxes as art. What is your favorite art?
I got a text from our daughter the other day asking if we still had the Flower Fairy books. I told her we had taken them with all the children’s books to our grandson in Brookings. I also told her I would order her another set, and did so.
I don’t know how many Baboons are familiar with these lovely books by British author and artist Cicely Mary Barker, but they have been family favorites since our son was born. Barker wrote and illustrated the books from 1923 to 1948. There about eight of them that feature seasonal flowers and flowers in different settings. The flower illustrations are quite accurate, and each flower is set with a fairy figure whose clothing corresponds to the flower in the illustration, along with a short poem. Barker used children from her sister’s Kindergarten as models for the fairies. Most of the poems were written by her sister.
We found these poems and illustrations wonderful for bedtime reading, as well as a great way to teach our children the names of flowers. We still recite “Scilla, scilla, tell me true, why are you so very blue?” when they pop up under the bay window in the spring.
What were your favorite childhood stories and poems? How did you learn about flowers and plants?
As happens often, a book sent me down a rabbit hole last week. Martyr by Kaven Akbar has been highly lauded recently – New York Times Bestseller & Best Book of the Year as well as finalist for the Waterstone Award. 4.2 rating on GoodReads and the same on Amazon. Only 3 stars for me. It was well written but the protagonist was exceedingly annoying and unbelievably full of himself. It had a plot twist that I saw coming about a million miles away and the ending wasn’t very satisfying at all. Oh well….
There was a good story embedded in it though about a Persian poet named Ferdowsi who wrote an epic poem in order to get money from the king to rebuild a bridge in his town. Akbar ended this section saying that the king built a bridge like no other and it is known as the Poet’s Bridge.
You know this was more than I could resist. Looked up Poet’s Bridge and discovered that there is such a bridge in Isfahan, Iran but it was built considerably later than Ferdowsi lived and is called Poet’s Bridge because “it has been a popular meeting spot and a source of inspiration for poets and artists, with many beautiful poems written about its beauty and the surrounding area.” However Ferdowsi was a poet and wrote The Shahnameh, one of the world’s longest epic poems (50,000+ couplets) and the longest epic written by a single person. Here is one of the most famous lines:
“Though you have little wealth, fear not the decree of fate; for the ocean of the sea was once a drop of rain.”
It was written between 977 and 1010 and there are some resources that suggest there may have been a bridge involved, but it’s pretty shadowy. And clearly any bridge built in Ferdowsi’s time is not the Khaju Bridge which was built in the mid-17th century. But the Khaju Bridge is gorgeous and is a significant landmark. If Akbar had not named the bridge in his telling of the Ferdowsi story, I wouldn’t have found the Khaju Bridge. Not sure if this was Akbar’s intention or not, but I’m glad it happened.
Any favorite bridges? Do you have any worries about long, tall bridges?
I went to the post office to buy stamps. This happened awhile ago, so I was looking for stamps for Christmas cards.
I looked at the bulletin board that had the available stamps displayed. There was a design I liked, with a deer, a rabbit, a fox, and an owl in winter settings. Appropriate for Christmas or Solstice, or whatever.
While I was waiting in line, my thought was that I would ask for the stamps with the woodland creatures. It’s a design theme that’s been trending in recent years.
As my turn was approaching, the postal worker behind the desk turned and called out to the back room, “Hey, Judy – can you bring me some more of the critters?”
I felt inordinately delighted by this. When it was my turn, I asked, “Could I get a book of critters, please?” and it made me happy for reasons I can’t quite put words to.
My post office receipt had a QR code that took me to a survey, and I gave my postal worker top scores.
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I’ve traveled internationally more in the past year than ever before in my life. I’m not used to it. I get anxious over airports and flying, but I’m getting better at it.
My friends, Jim and Nancy, invited me to join them for a week in Mazatlan. They extended the invitation last fall. I’ve been trying to get some of my older friends to go places with me since I retired, but it’s been like herding cats, so when Jim and Nancy invited me I accepted immediately.
I arrived at Mazatlan on Saturday afternoon. Jim provided detailed instructions, and I had them in hand, for getting through the airport, getting a taxi, and getting to their place. I was able to give the driver the address in Centro Historico in Spanish. After an exciting cab ride through the city, Jim and Nancy met me at the gate of Villa Serena. It’s a block of apartments with a maze of tiled outdoor hallways, pools, birds and trees. Their apartment was on the third floor and had more windows, fresh air, and natural light than most. They told me it was the biggest apartment in the place. I had my own room and a shared bathroom.
There were hummingbirds and orioles at a feeder hanging outside the windows. The red tiled areas in front of their white washed apartment were open to blue sky, and the tops of palm trees. It was colorful and lovely. There was a view of a central courtyard in front of a large, golden cathedral. There were bells chiming frequently throughout the day, often on the quarter hour, especially on Sunday. No one can figure out the pattern for the chiming, or the reason.
One evening, just after sunset, there was a tiny gecko on the window screen. It was only about an inch and a half long. It charmed me to my toes.
Jim and Nancy are friendly, outgoing people. They have lots of friends there. Most of the people I met were from Mexico, followed by British Columbia. There was one couple from Prince Edward Island. I didn’t meet any other Minnesotans. Some of the people who stay at Villa Serena gather for a daily happy hour. Jim and Nancy attend it sometimes, but not while I was there. I met lots of people and learned lots of card or dice games, including a fun game called Mexican Train.
We walked a lot. We walked to the Mercado several times. Nancy bought lots of fresh food there: fruits, veggies, spices, and some large pieces of red snapper. I was fascinated by all the things there were to see, including a pig head with eyes.
We walked a few miles to a beach called Stone Island one day and spent the day there. It was lovely. There were stray dogs who were friendly but so thin. It wasn’t hard to give some of my quesadilla con pollo to a sweet dog with warm brown eyes who put her chin on my lap. I wanted to bring her home with me. I looked for sand dollars but didn’t find any. Some people swam in the ocean. I didn’t swim, but I did wade a little. I identified some birds, including an American oystercatcher, an orchard oriole, and a cinnamon hummingbird.
Nancy and I walked to the “Malecon” one day and just walked along the beach. I was struck by the persistence and determination of the many people who approached us asking if we wanted refrigerator magnets or sunglasses or blankets or ball caps with visors. A young girl selling pistachios said “Pleeease?” We gave a little boy some pesos but didn’t take the candy he offered. He ran away calling, “Mama! Mama!” I learned to say, “No, gracias,” and keep walking, even though the disparity was hurting my heart.
They’re getting ready for Carnaval there. There were huge, colorful, papier-mâché statues on the Malecon. Nancy took my picture with my arm around a bronze statue of John Lennon, the other three lined up behind me. I don’t think the likenesses were very good, but it was a fun memento of the trip.
We went for gelato in the evenings. It was really beautiful walking through the squares at night. There was music and light everywhere. The gelato was delicious!
There was a lot of noise, all night, every night. There was music, people laughing and singing, dogs barking, horns honking, and roosters crowing. It took three nights before I could sleep through it.
I brought my mandolin along, packed tightly in my big checked bag, so Jim and Nancy and I played music a few times. One day we took our instruments and walked a mile or so to a friend’s apartment. He played fiddle and we had a great time playing music together.
On Friday late afternoon, we began hearing the explosions of fireworks. It was very close and loud. Jim said it was probably coming from the central square area in front of the cathedral (an area that we passed through often). There was still daylight so we couldn’t really see the fireworks, but we could certainly hear them. That was followed by some up-tempo music, then a very loud, very long and colorful parade. Nancy thought maybe they had chosen the princess for Carnaval, but we really didn’t know for sure. The festivities lasted two or three hours.
We played Yahtzee every afternoon, then played music, then went out for gelato. They told me they weren’t very exciting and had a routine they followed. It was fine for me. I’m just glad to go somewhere like that. I liked that we were in the central historic district. I got a big dose of culture, language, music, and art, and I enjoyed it very much.
What activities do you enjoy with your friends? Ever played Mexican Train?Where in Mexico would you want to visit?
I never used to drink coffee. Notice the past-tense there. This week I’ve had it two different mornings. It started about a month ago with a morning meeting and all they had was coffee, so I had some in a Styrofoam cup that was more cream and sugar than coffee. I learned coffee in a foam cup gets cold really fast. Like, REALLY fast. And then this past Tuesday at the college was AED day. Nope, not the defibrillator thing even though that’s what we all thought of. All Employee Development day. And again, coffee. In a foam cup. I do tend to drink it fast in this case. When I make tea at home and put it in my 20-ounce travel mug, I might not finish that until 2 o’clock in the afternoon and it’s still warm-ish. But the coffee I drank fast because I didn’t want it to get any colder. And then on Thursday morning, I stopped at Kwik Trip, and there I was looking at all the coffee flavors. I tried a machine that was supposed to mix French vanilla and caramel and something else, but when I hit the ‘dispense’ button, I got about 2 drips and that was it. Even their cardboard cups with a lid on it didn’t keep it warm for long. I don’t know that I need to get addicted to coffee right now. I’m not sure that’s what I need in my life at this moment.
I heard an ad on the radio say something about remember when the hardest thing in your life was whether to file your Marshall Tucker album under M or T?
I had the crate full of records. I may have even had two crates. And while I never had Marshall Tucker, I remember a few bands and not being sure how to alphabetize them. Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. I never alphabetize my CDs, but the records I did. I kept the plastic on them, the vinyl went inside the sleeve, placed back in the jacket with the opening to the top. Yep, I had to take the sleeve out of the jacket to get the record out. But that was OK, because I always liked the liner notes. Certain record album covers were pretty racy. Was it Queen’s, ‘Jazz’, that opened up to all the naked girls on bicycles? Pretty hot stuff for a teenage boy. The Car, Candy-O was another good one.
It seems like our bathroom and laundry room construction is pretty well done. Waiting on the countertops, and of course the plumber and the electrician to do their final connections. They did the countertop measurements on Wednesday and I think they said a week to 10 days for that. And there will be some tile to finish once the countertop is installed. We’re just hoping to get the washing machine back soon. We’re down to rationing our socks and underwear. We’re all kind of tired of this disruption. It sure does look nice though. It doesn’t even look like it belongs in this house. I think Kelly’s plan is to paint this weekend. I’ll post a picture once it’s finished.
Out in the shop, I installed Snirt Stoppers on Monday evening. See the header photo. A Snirt Stopper to keep out snow and dirt is just an extra piece of weather stripping that can go all around the garage door. At this point I only needed it on the bottom. The concrete that I had poured in the shop is not exactly level or flat. When I met the guy that did the concrete, Matthew, he had a real good business going and I used them at the theater for a couple jobs. When they got to doing my shop, he was starting a new branch of the business down in Florida and had left his brother, Max, in charge. It’s unfortunate that Max was not up to the task. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still thrilled to have concrete in here, but they didn’t do a perfect job by any means. Sounds like Matthew is now divorced, the company went out of business, and Matthew went to Florida and started over. So, a bit of a gap in a spot of the floor and the need for a Snirt Stopper.
I have been getting things cleaned up in the shop. I even revealed part of the workbench the other day! I moved out some stuff I’m not using, vacuumed a big part of the floor, and my fancy dancy lights were delivered on Wednesday, so I just need to get the electrician back to get the garage door opener and the lights all connected. It’s all coming together.
When I was in St. Louis, looking for place close to Nonny’s where I might find an old-fashioned roller shade, I discovered that Fleet Farm was doing a free craft day. Luckily it was after I got home since driving around in St. Louis after their big snowstorm was not my idea of fun. Also luckily the craft event was at all the Fleet Farms, not just the St. Louis locations.
I didn’t have anything scheduled for that morning so headed south to the Lakeville Fleet Farm – about 20 minutes in the Saturday morning traffic. Got there about 10 minutes early so wandered around a bit. Although I was technically first in line, a family with two young boys was right behind me; I left them go first.
It was a pretty easy project. Paint the little jar with modge podge (a kind of craft glue), roll it in fake snowflakes, glue on the two little eyes and carrot nose. Then twist together two pipe cleaners and pick out two cotton “earmuffs”. The staff hot glued the pipe cleaners and earmuffs on the cap of the jar. Then they gave us each a battery operated votive candle for inside the snowglobe.
As a planner at heart, I couldn’t help noticing how I would have done the craft day differently. I would have put modge podge and snowflakes at each of the tables to prevent the big glut at the beginning. I would have checked all the glue bottles to make sure the top notch was clipped off so the glue would come out. And I would have had at least three employees at the hot glue station.
Of course, these are big complaints… the craft was going as well as could be expected when most of the crafters were five and under. I was the first one done and I was walking back to my car, two different families stopped me to look at it, as they were on there way in for the event.
I didn’t really need to drive to Lakeville to do this. By looking at the photo I was pretty sure I actually had all the stuff to make this at home, except for the little votive candle. But it was a pretty morning, I had a good CD for the drive and got a nice coffee before I headed home. I used red and green pipe cleaners so it will be part of my Solstice décor in December. For the time being it’s still sitting on the kitchen counter where I can still admire it every day.
Trail Baboon 