Thunder Bay to Marathon, Ontario

Posted on August 16, 2023 by admin

On the first day of August, I made the acquaintance of Terry Fox. In bronze, anyway, and perhaps in spirit, since he’d been dead for over 42 years. Died very young; he’d be 65 now, had cancer not taken him away. A contemporary.

Apparently every Canadian knows who he was. Ignorant as I am, I didn’t, but I learned some remarkable things about him after seeing his memorial, which is just off the Trans-Canada Highway not far east of Thunder Bay.

It was a foggy morning in northwest Ontario. The memorial features Fox as a runner, which he was. But not just any runner.

He had only one leg, the other amputated to prevent the spread of osteogenic sarcoma, bone cancer, from his knee.

“In the fall of 1979, 21-year-old Terry Fox began his quest to run across Canada,” the CBC says. “He had lost most of his right leg to cancer two years before.

“[He] hatched a plan to raise money for cancer research by running across Canada. His goal: $1 for every Canadian. Fox’s plan was to start in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 and to finish on the west coast of Vancouver Island on September 10. With more than 3,000 miles (5,000 km) of running under his belt, he was ready.”

So he ran almost every day early that year, gathering attention as he went. By the time he got to Toronto, the nation was watching. But he didn’t make it all the way to the West Coast.

“As Fox headed towards Georgian Bay, his health changed. He would wake up tired, sometimes asking for time alone in the van just to cry… On August 31, before running into Thunder Bay, Fox said he felt as if he’d caught a cold. The next day, he started to cough more and felt pains in his chest and neck but he kept running because people were out cheering him on. Eighteen miles out of the city, he stopped. Fox went to a hospital, and after examination, doctors told him that the cancer had invaded his lungs… He had run 3,339 miles (5,376 km).

“Terry Fox died, with his family beside him, on June 28, 1981… Terry Fox Runs are held yearly in 60 countries now and more than $360 million have been raised for cancer research.”

My goal that day was much easier: drive to the town of Marathon, Ontario, from Thunder Bay, about 300 km as things are measured locally. I actually like having road distances measured in kilometers on lightly traveled Canadian roads, since they seem to go by quickly. For example, 50 km to go? Ah, that’s only 30 miles. The conversion is easy to do in your head – half + 10%.

Though I have to stress that kilometers should have no place in measuring U.S. roads. Miles to go before I sleep; You can hear the whistle blow 100 miles; I’d walk a mile for a Camel. There’s no poetry to the metric system.

(The conversion of U.S. to Canadian dollars is pretty easy these days too: 75%, or half + 25%. That way a $20 meal magically costs only $15.)

East from the Terry Fox memorial is Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park, which I visited as an alternative to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, which is highly visible from Thunder Bay but which looks like an all-day sort of place. I preferred to spend the day on the road, stopping where the mood struck.

Ouimet Canyon is striking. A easy walk of 15 minutes or so takes you to the canyon’s edge. Foggy that morning but worth the stop.

There was another place to stop in the park: a pleasant river view seen from a bench not far from the road, but tucked away behind some greenery, so that the road seemed far away. There was virtually no traffic anyway. I sat a while and watched the world go by not very fast. Or at all. I had to listen carefully to realize just how quiet the place is.

Also, the fog had started to burn off. Temps were very pleasant, whether Celsius or Fahrenheit.

The Trans-Canada is King’s Highway 11 and 17 at this stretch. Highway 11 eventually splits off and goes way around to Toronto, including Yonge Street, while highway 17 hews closer to Lake Superior, and is the longest highway in the province. It is the one I eventually drove all the way to Sault Ste. Marie.

Much of the roadside is uncultivated flora. I took this to be fireweed, which meant I was far enough north to see it. I saw it in a lot of places in this part of Ontario.

But sometimes fauna, of the non-wild sort.

I found lunch in Nipigon, pop. less than 1,500. I could have had my laptop repaired, if it had needed work, or bought worms and leeches, if I were in the mood to go fishing. I never am.

Nice church. The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church. Closed, of course.

Nipigon has an observation platform just off the highway, free and open to all, and completed only in 2018.

Naturally I climbed to the top for the vista. I need to do that kind of thing while I still can.

The Trans-Canada crossing the Nipigon River. Elegant, but with a troubled recent history.

The bridge was also completed in 2018. Or rather, it was reopened that year.

“[The reopening] comes nearly three years after the bridge, described as the first cable-stayed bridge in Ontario, failed in January 2016, just weeks after it opened,” notes the CBC. Oops. Apparently no one died as a result, so there’s that.

“Engineering reports found that a combination of design and installation deficiencies caused the failure, which effectively severed the Trans-Canada Highway. Improperly tightened bolts on one part of the bridge snapped, causing the decking to lift about 60 centimetres.”

Further to the east: Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. Another short walk to a nice vista. Another thing to like about this part of Canada.

All together, it was a leisurely drive, but even so I arrived in Marathon, pop. 3,270 or so, before dark – long summer days are a boon up north – and took in a few local cultural sights.

Just the exterior of the curling club. Wok With Chow, on the other hand, provided me dinner that evening, inside and at a table. Good enough chow, and demonstrating just how deeply ingrained Chinese food is in North America.

Dublin, Barcelona, Then Venice

Posted on July 9, 2023 by admin

After a mostly dry June here in northern Illinois, early July saw some rain, but not quite enough to end the dry spell. Out beyond the grass and gardens of the suburbs, it’s a “stressful time for corn and soybeans.”

June 25, mid-day, at a cornfield in southern Wisconsin, which is suffering a drought as well. Moderate drought for the county that includes this field, at least as of the end of June.

The field looked healthy to my untrained eye, but for all I know that’s what a stressed crop looks like a few weeks into a drought. I might be up that way again next weekend or the next, and I’ll stop by for a look at the same field if so.

I had the opportunity to spend most of a weekend in Los Angeles in early June, so naturally I did. To visit some of the places that I considered but didn’t have time for in pre-pandemic 2020, because that’s how I think, though I didn’t make it to La Brea Tar Pits this time or earlier. Like the Cloisters on the other coast, it’s a place that still eludes me.

On the other hand, I made a point of going to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice this time.

Though named for the place in Italy, Venice has a distinctly American history, invented as it was ex nihilo by a real estate developer looking to reference the Old World in the newest part of the New World, namely California. Not just any developer, but one Abbot Kinney, whose career was circuitous and strange, the way business men could be in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Not only that, the arc of history in Venice is very much American: an initial flowering, subsequent decline, much demolition and disfigurement in the name of modernization, years of scraping along the bottom, an effort to save its meager remnants, gentrification and insane property values – all within the span of about a century, specifically within the 20th, though spilling into the 21st. Which is an affluent time for Venice of America.

“When it opened on July 4, 1905, Venice of America boasted seven distinct canals arranged in an irregular grid pattern, as seen… in Kinney’s master plan for the community,” KCET says. “Totaling nearly two miles and dredged out of former saltwater marshlands, the canals encircled four islands, including the tiny triangular United States Island. The widest of them, appropriately named Grand Canal, terminated at a large saltwater lagoon. Three of the smaller canals referred to celestial bodies: Aldebaran, Venus, and Altair.

“Soon, a second set of canals appeared just south of Kinney’s. Linking up with the existing network through the Grand Canal, these Short Line canals (named after the interurban Venice Short Line) were apparently built to capitalize on the success of Kinney’s development. Their origins are uncertain, but work started soon after Venice of America’s 1905 grand opening, and by 1910 real estate promoters Strong & Dickinson and Robert Marsh were selling lots in what they named the Venice Canal Subdivision. Built almost as an afterthought, these six watercourses are the only Venice canals that survive today.”

The rest, the originals in their irregular grid and with their celestial names, were long ago filled in and paved over – that would be the demolition and disfigurement.

I arrived in the neighborhood fairly early in the morning, early enough – I realized later – to park on Venice Blvd. within walking distance of both the canals and the beach, which is more difficult later in the day. Venice Blvd., near the ocean at least, also happens to be the locus of a handful of residents living in parked RVs and, for those who can’t swing that, tents in the boulevard median.

The canals form a neighborhood unlike any I’ve seen and, I have to say, flat-out gorgeous in our time.

Public sidewalks run between front yards and the canals, with occasional footbridges crossing the canals. This arrangement, I’ve read, is the result of renovation that occurred in the early 1990s. The only vehicular street running through the neighborhood is Dell Ave., which connects with alleys behind the houses with the wide expanse of LA streets. The way residents drive in and out of the area, that is.

The yards are lush, at least they were in June. Temps weren’t that warm the day I visited, and the skies fully overcast and sometimes drizzly, since southern California seems to be in some kind of weird weather bubble these days. Made for a good walking environment, though.

Hard to believe the area spent much of the 20th century as a slum; a quick look at Zillow’s estimates puts no property along the canals at much less than $2 million, and many a good deal more, with a scattering of new houses under way as well. Such is real estate across the decades.

Barcelona Scraps

Posted on June 29, 2023 by admin

One of these days, we might have a string of holidays and quasi-holidays from Juneteenth to July 4, the warm equivalent of Christmas to New Year’s Day. Anyway, back on July 9 or so.

Not as much smoke today, though it is still an air pollution action day, according to the NWS. Curious term. You’d think it would be an inaction day, at least as far as outdoors activity is concerned.

Barcelona city trucks. Specifically, neteja (cleaning).

The Temple d’August, which is tucked away on a narrow street in the Gothic Quarter.

The only Roman ruins we saw on the trip. Toyed with the idea of going to Tarragona to visit its extensive ruins, but that didn’t happen.

“The uniform columns of the Temple of Augustus inside are 9 metres tall and comprise an imposing relic of one of the temples from Barcelona’s Forum, which stood on a corner site at the rear,” Visit Barcelona says. “The temple was built in the 1st century BC and, as its name suggests, it was dedicated to the worship of Emperor Augustus…. The temple was reconstructed by the architect Puig i Cadafalch in the early 20th century.”

La Rambla, near one end. The end near the ocean.

Columbus still looks out to sea at that point, as he has done since 1888. Monument a Colom, the maps call it, and efforts to take it down have been unsuccessful so far.

There was also a lot of construction in the area, with blocked off sections. I can’t see a sign like that in Spain and not be reminded of no pasarán!

The context is just a little different in this case, however. “Do not pass,” the dictionaries tell me, as opposed the more emphatic will not pass!

I expected to see fast food in Barcelona, but Five Guys was nevertheless a surprise, across the street from Sagrada Familia. Five Guys’ web site tells me that there are currently seven locations in the city, and 28 in Spain all together, with 13 of those in greater Madrid.

Model of Jesus’ head, on display in the small museum in the basement of Sagrada Família.

Cava sangria.

“This variation of sangria called Sangria de Cava in Spanish is made with the sparkling wine Cava, which can be white or rosé,” says Allrecipes. “The name Cava is a protected designation of origin in the European Union, which means that only sparkling wine produced in certain areas of Spain may be sold under that name. To make Cava Sangria, you can use another sparkling white wine instead. The rest of the ingredients is pretty similar to sangria. Cava Sangria often includes orange liqueur.”

Stickers on a wall in Barcelona. A common thing to see. No Buc-ee’s sticker. Not yet.

I took a picture of someone taking a picture of seemingly uninterested musicians, in Parc de la Ciutadella.

Sometimes you’d see the independence flag. Not that often, however. The latest effort at independence fizzled, after all.

Near Palau Güell, you can find the Gaudi Supermercat, Art Gaudi Souvenirs, and the Hotel Gaudi.

Not everything in the area had Gaudi’s name slapped on it. If we’d been hungry, we might have bought kebabs from this fellow.

Elsewhere, more Barcelona flowers.

Finally, manhole covers. Like Dublin, Barcelona had some good manhole covers.

Which is tapa de clavegueram in Catalan, at least according to automated online translation. Now you know.

Parc Güell

Posted on June 19, 2023 by admin

It has happened to me in a lot of places over the years, and I can’t quite account for it. In various parts of the United States, but also in Europe and Australia – anywhere I might blend in with a crowd, including places where I don’t speak the language. What happens: a stranger asks me directions. It happened in Barcelona, too, during our return from Parc Güell (Güell Park), down a fairly steep slope in the Gràcia district.

This street wasn’t our actual path, but branches off from it and gives some idea of the hill you need to climb – partly assisted by an outdoor escalator at one point – to reach the park.

It was a neighborhood of political graffiti as well. A whiff of old Barcelona, I guess. Much of it in English for some reason.

While coming down the slope, Yuriko had gotten somewhat ahead of me, so I was walking alone for a few moments. A woman with some small children in tow asked me directions to the park in Catalan (or Spanish). I was able to point in the direction I’d come and say “park,” which conveniently is the same in all the relevant languages. She seemed happy to hear it, and I was certain I’d given her some correct information.

Parc Güell is a large place, though only a section of it includes architectural elements by Antoni Gaudí. The city has charged admission to that section for the last 10 years or so.

“[Industrialist and Gaudí friend] Eusebi Güell entrusted Gaudí with the project of making an urbanization [sic, neighborhood] for wealthy families on a large estate he had acquired in the area popularly known as Muntanya Pelada,” the park’s web site (machine translated) says. “Its situation was unbeatable, in a healthy environment and with splendid views over the sea and the Plan de Barcelona.

“In October 1900, the land began to be leveled and the works went at a good pace. On January 4, 1903, a description published in the Yearbook of the Association of Architects stated that the two pavilions at the entrance, the main staircase, the shelter or waiting area, the external fence, the viaducts and part of the large esplanade, as well as the water evacuation system [sic, were complete? Under way?]”

In any case, only two houses were ever sold, so as a new neighborhood, the place was a failure. Eventually Güell’s heirs sold the would-be development to the city. The common-area work that Gaudí did remained, to great acclaim in future years.

A path from the entrance leads to a large esplanade, or perhaps best called a terrace, originally planned as a place for outdoor shows.

An undulating bench marks the edge of the esplanade.

It offers a sweeping view of Barcelona, plus other Gaudí structures in the park.

It’s a popular place.

Gaudí collaborator Josep M. Jujol did the bench mosaics.

Stairs lead down from the esplanade, which is supported by 86 columns that form the Hypostyle Hall. It was supposed to have been a sheltered marketplace.

From there, the Dragon Stairs. The figure is actually a salamander, I’ve read.

At the base of the stairs is the Porter’s Lodge, which houses exhibits about the 19th- and 20th-century history of Barcelona. Its interior walls are bright colors.

Other parts of the park include the paths and viaducts that Gaudí designed. We did some wandering.

I was reminded a bit of Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, but the similarities aren’t really that deep.

Lush bursts of flowers adorn parts of the park.

Springtime in Barcelona. There’s a romcom in there somewhere. Probably not a very good one, but how many are?

Irish Greens

Posted on May 26, 2023 by admin

Our hotel in Dublin was on a street of Georgian townhouses, and as far as I could tell it was created from an amalgam of at least two such structures. One of the city’s two tram lines runs down the street, with a stop a two-minute walk away from where we stayed.

St. Stephen’s Green was about five minutes away on foot in the other direction. Often enough we’d forgo part of the tram ride for a stroll through the greens of the park on cool and bright May mornings.

“This nine hectare/22-acre park, in Dublin City Centre, has been maintained in the original Victorian layout with 750 trees, extensive shrub planting with spring and summer Victorian flower bedding,” says Visit Dublin.

A Victorian-era creation. Of course. The site had been open land long before that, such as a marshy commons for centuries, then essentially a private green as its perimeter developed. In the 1870s, Baron Ardilaun acquired the land and donated it to the Dublin Corporation (the city). I had to look him up and the baron turned out to be – yet another Guinness, Arthur Edward, son of the renovator of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Another good use for beer money.

Part of the landscaping includes water features.

History wasn’t done with St. Stephen’s Green after it became a city park. In 1916, the green figured in the Easter Rising.

“The rebels dug trenches, probably at the four entranceways and other places – the written sources aren’t very specific about where they were,” University of Bristol reader in archaeology Joanna Brück told Irish Central.

“There has been debate over whether it was a strategically good location to take over or not,” she said, but in any case their presence at the green wasn’t any more successful than anywhere else that week for the rebels.

Decimus Burton

Toward the end of our visit, we made our way to another Dublin greenspace, one much larger (707 hectares/1,750 acres) in the western reaches of the city: Phoenix Park.

Though as a distinct tract of land, the park has a long history – site of an abbey that Henry VIII squelched, a royal hunting park – it took its modern form during the Victorian era (I’m sensing a pattern here). None other than Decimus Burton gave the park its current form.

I’d call him the Frederick Law Olmstead of the British Isles for his many parks, but actually Burton was a little earlier, and designed many structures as well. Still, as landscape designers, they’re clearly in the same league.

That afternoon also happened to be the warmest one during our visit, which added to the pleasure of the walk. We didn’t get that far, considering how large Phoenix Park is, but we made it to the gazebo near the zoo. An Irish gazebo, which are distinctive since independence for not having sides. Go ahead, look it up.

A picturesque water feature, with trees and bushes and birds to go with.

A scattering of memorials, such as that of Seán Heuston.

I didn’t know who he was, though I noticed that his name is attached to a nearby tram stop as well. I figured he died for independence. Yes, indeed. Led men in 1916 and met his end at Kilmainham Gaol not long after.

Not far away from Heuston is an example of de-memorialization.

The plinth remains, surrounded by trees that were obviously planted for the purpose of obscuring the site. There is still carving on the plinth, however, which is only partly readable, but I figured it out. Once upon a time (1870-1956), a statue of George William Frederick Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle, stood there. He was Palmerston’s Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for a couple of stints in the mid-19th century, and his statue wasn’t a relic of the Victorian era that at least some Irish cared to keep. It was bombed.

The obelisk honoring Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, still stands tall in Phoenix Park, despite him being born into the Protestant Ascendancy.

After all, Wellington was a Dubliner who gave Napoleon his final bum’s rush from the world stage, and supported Catholic Emancipation besides.

The bronze used for the plaques, on all four sides, is from cannons captured at Waterloo.

One reason I wanted to visit Phoenix Park was that I’ve known about it for so long, since ca. 1980. One day at the Vanderbilt Library, I discovered a microfilm collection of decades of The Times of London, which maybe went all the way back to the paper’s founding in the 1780s. Flipping through it more-or-less at random provided a fascinating pastime for me, because that’s the kind of interest in history I have (not a disciplined one of a scholar).

Completely by chance I came across a flood of column inches for days and days in the spring of 1882 about what would be called the Phoenix Park Murders. I had to look up the location of Phoenix Park, and more about the murders, and never forgot.

Our afternoon walk in the park was long, interspersed with rests on benches, of which there are too few, and sometimes by reclining on the ground. Such as on this daisy-covered slope.

Better, it occurred me on that sunny day in Ireland, to be pushing down the daisies than pushing them up.

April Flowers

Posted on April 25, 2023 by admin

Temps are expected to dip down to freezing tonight. Bah. But I expect our local April flowers are hardy enough to take it, unlike (say) July flowers that would wilt at a whiff of air below about 50° F.

April flowers at a park not far from where we live.

A lovely scene. Just needed a bit more atmospheric warmth to make an idyllic scene.

Just carping about the temps, as I do. Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Among the new life of spring, a reminder of mortality.

A plaque I hadn’t noticed before. Because it’s all too new.

This young man, emphasis on young. Enough to set one’s teeth on edge, seeing that one of your children’s generation died so young. RIP, Jake.

Golden West Nuggets

Posted on November 3, 2022 by admin

This is the kind of detail that keeps the built environment interesting. A visible part of an alarm system of some earlier vintage, operable or not.

To be found in Placerville, California. You can also take a look at a small tower of some vintage in that town.

Placerville’s old bell tower. For use in the pre-electronic communication days, with a ring meaning something’s going on, come quick.

Wish I’d been hungry in Placerville, but no.

Some miles away, a Coloma plaque. I’m a fairly regular reader of plaques.

Another. I could post nothing but plaques, but that would be more granular than I want to be.

It’s a good-looking part of California anyway.

With recreational opportunities.

Mark Twain on Lake Tahoe (from Roughing It): “At last Lake Tahoe burst upon us, a noble sheet of blue water lifted some 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft a full 3,000 feet higher still.

“As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains, brilliantly photographed upon its surface, I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords.”

Enjoyable vistas for sure. It was good to see other people there.

I had breakfast my first morning in Reno at a restaurant for old people — except that’s me now, isn’t it? But on a weekday mid-morning, I was one of the younger patrons. Decent food, though a touch expensive (a contagion from California, no doubt, plus the inflation du jour).

After I finished, I went out to leave, but noticed a sign I had to see, not far away. I took a closer look.

Not in the market, but someone must be. If that isn’t local color, I don’t know what is.

When serendipity is with you on the road, that kind of sighting leads to others. That’s what happened that morning in Reno. This was nearby the wedding chapel.

“Bee Dance” by Andrea Greenlees (2019), according to its sign, which also said it was created at Burning Man that year.

On the next block — all this was on West Fourth Street in Reno — was a closed off place called Glow Plaza, an outdoor event space that only opened this year. Well, open for concerts on the weekends. It wasn’t open for me to look around, though there was some construction going on at an adjacent site (probably new apartments), so maybe that restriction was just temporary.

Anyway, I got a look from the sidewalk. New-looking sculptures.

Including vintage Reno neon, or maybe close-replica homages.

Speaking of apartments, this property in downtown Reno has the look of a 2010s adaptive reuse. I checked, and it is. It used to be a motel. The loss of an SRO property? Maybe, but I didn’t know there was much of that left.

Now it’s an “upscale micro-unit living facility,” to borrow a phrase from Northern Nevada Business Weekly. I checked again, and its rents range from $1,100 to $1,700 (the low end of the range is for about 250 square feet).

Could have done an entire posting of name plates on vintage cars at the National Automobile Museum. The familiar and the less familiar.

That last one’s an attention-getter. You can find it on a Krit Motor Car Co. auto, made years before jackbooted lowlifes shanghaied the symbol.

The Battle Born Memorial in Carson City, dedicated to fallen soldiers from Nevada.

At first I thought, iron? True, iron is at the heart of modern war. But as soon as I was inside, and looked up, I realized how fitting the material is. A remarkable memorial.

Especially when you gaze up at it.

The names of the fallen are inscribed there.

Eight hundred and ninety-five names, I understand. Punch Architecture did the design, which was completed in 2018.

Later I looked up Battle Born. I didn’t know that was a nickname for Nevada. Everyone’s heard Silver State, but not Battle Born State. I puzzled on that a while, but eventually realized that when Nevada entered the union (1864; Lincoln needed another two Senators), it joined the fight, as a state, to keep that union together.

A much smaller metal-work, underfoot in Carson City. Good to know I’ve been on the Kit Carson Trail.

Underfoot in Reno.

On the road to Virginia City.

The drive out from Virginia City to I-580 is along Nevada 341, and it’s a winding drop of a drive through arid landforms. This snip from Google maps illustrates the winding-est part of the road, called Geiger Grade Road at that point. The entire drop is from more than 6,100 feet above sea level at Virginia City to Reno’s 4,500 feet.

Light traffic on a sunny weekday afternoon. A fine drive if you’re paying attention. Almost car commercial driving.

This instead of a real map.

No, California. Don’t do this. It’s false economy. I don’t know how, I just know that it is.

I figured out my way around without a gizmo map. I even found a spot a few hundred yards from a parking lot, and a little off a nearby trail, where I could sit in the sun for a few minutes, and listen to only faint sounds. Almost as quiet as Joshua Tree or Big Bend NPs.

The Hotel Charlotte in Groveland, California. Now a hundred years old, it’s the kind of place that gives you a brass key, and lets you know there’s a fee for replacing it. Basic and comfortable, though the most expensive place I stayed on this trip; you’re really paying for near access to Yosemite NP.

Main Street in Groveland (California 120), just after dawn.

A few more images. Such as in Sacramento.

I had to look up lumpia: spring rolls found in the Philippines and Indonesia. And northern California, it seems. Too bad I wasn’t hungry. Also, it was closed. Not long after, I saw a Balinese restaurant in Old Sacramento. Still wasn’t hungry. Damn.

I was driving to the last place I was going to stay in Sacramento on the late afternoon of October 7, and I got a little turned around, wandering some neighborhood streets before the inevitable moment when I pulled over to consult Google Maps.

I chanced on this place.

What a garden it is.

An extravaganza of roses.

Go in the garden and ask the rose its meaning.

Late Bloomers

Posted on September 15, 2022 by admin

Summer is ebbing away, but it’s still warm. Looks to be for a little while longer.

Took a photographic survey of our back yard flowers this afternoon. The hibiscus are mostly gone, but other blooms whose names I don’t know carry on during the declining summertime.

Such as this blood-red bloom.

Less intense, but still a vivid color.

On to pink.

White.

One more — vivid red again, but this one was worth a look not only because it’s striking, but because its a bloom on what many people would probably disdain as a weed (before it flowered, that is).

The term weed ought to be specifically plants that interfere with agriculture, as well as old slang for cannabis. Mostly it just means plants people don’t like. There are plants I don’t like, and sometimes — when I have the energy — I uproot them. But usually I think of plants such as the one above as volunteers, whether they produce vivid flowers or not.

Dimming Summer Light

Posted on August 31, 2022 by admin

Goldenrod has started to turn golden out toward the back yard fence. I noticed that as the sun was going down for the last time in August 2022. It’s been an eventful month.

The dog was patrolling the yard at that moment.

Her patrols know no season, but various creatures to spy — including dogs beyond the fence — are more likely in the warmer months

In Indiana, You Take Vistas Where You Can Get Them

Posted on July 13, 2022 by admin

Our first back yard hibiscus of the summer. There will be many more for weeks to come, since the plants thrive with scarcely any effort on our part.

Before we went to Indiana this month, I got wind of the Hanson Ardmore Quarry Observation Tower in Fort Wayne. Turned out it wasn’t far from where we stayed, so after my jaunt to Lindenwood Cemetery, we took a look.

Tower might not quite be the word. It’s more of a fenced-in observation deck. But Hanson — a part of HeidelbergCement, a German building materials conglomerate no doubt controlled by shadowy billionaires — calls it a tower on the sign. The structure is at the end of a small parking lot that’s open to the public.

Regardless of the nomenclature, quite a view.

It was a Sunday, so the place was quiet. Still, Hanson has been digging limestone at this site for 80 years, and it is a big hole in the ground. Various sources, such as Roadside America, claim the quarry is 1,000 feet deep, but I don’t think so.

I’d say maybe 300 or 400 feet. Horseshoe Bend is 1,000 feet deep, and this is no Horseshoe Bend. Still, it isn’t something you see very often, a vista into a working quarry.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Flora