• Category Archives Anoka County

  • Railbirds

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                                                       Most Heat Moon

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    A warm summer evening, a true northern summer evening with just a hint of coolness after the sun went down. The Woollies gathered at Running Aces: Mark, Scott, Warren, Frank, Bill and Tom. Most of us were novices at betting the horses, but we made up in enthusiasm what we lacked in knowledge. Normally, you would expect such a situation to favor the house, but I’m sure as a group we took home more money than we bet. Warren hit a boxed exacta and so did I. Between us we won over $215.

    The food is good bar food and we had a window table with a clear view of the finish line. We discussed betting techniques: what a cute name, color, odds by Ricky, odds by trackman published at the bottom of the program, looking at the racing history of the horses. Names seemed a dominant choice.

    I bet on Hooray Katie. Lost. Frank bet on Hanna. Won a quarter. Tom and Mark bet on Kissmelikeyoumeanit and won. Mark won an exacta. Bill won a couple of times. I think Scott won, too.

    These horses, pacers and trotters, are Standardbreds. This means that they trace their ancestory to Hambeltonian 10(pic). If thoroughbred racing is the sport of kings, harness racing, the same source of information says, is the sport of the people. The people were out there tonight, cheering and drinking, enjoying the summer evening. And the Woollies were part of it.


    Anoka County Sport Woolly Mammoths

  • Nipping and Dipping

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                                          Most Heat Moon

    Took myself out to breakfast this morning at Pappy’s Cafe. This is an authentic small town gathering place just off Round Lake Boulevard. When I walked in this morning at 9 am, the heads turned to see the new arrival and they were all gray. It was like coming down to breakfast at Andover Independent Living (AILing).

    The bacon and cheese omelette was not beautiful, but it was tasty. As you would expect. The waitress called me baby and touched my shoulder each time she came to fill the coffee cup. This is small town service and I liked it.

    Bought a few groceries at Festival Foods, but our coupon shopper is out of state, so I stayed to the list. Mary’s coming tomorrow and we’ll pick up a few things for her then.

    Ace Hardware for oil for the lawn mower. All this on a sunny October morning, it’s 65 here so far this a.m. The dogs are playful, smiling, running with toys in their mouths, nipping and dipping as dogs do when life is good. I feel the same way.


    Anoka County Dogs

  • A House With A History

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                                         Summer Moon

    IMAG0531Why not write a history of this spot, this hectare? An ecological history. It can start with the glaciations, consider the flora and fauna since then, focusing in more tightly once the first nations began to arrive, then even more tightly as Minnesota began to emerge.

    Another starting spot would be today, or from Kate and mine’s presence here. How we decided to be here, why. Go over decisions we made early on like hiring a landscape designer at the beginning. Recount our twenty years, the good decisions and the bad ones, the easy ones and the hard ones. The other historical and geological material could be worked in as backstory.

    It would be good for people to view an average approach to the land, one which changed over time (though its roots were indeed in the back to the land movement) and which took advantage not of a particular approach, but of many. An approach that is dynamic, 06 27 10_beekeeperastronautchanging with new knowledge, the seasons, aging, new plants and new desire.

    The flavor of “Return of the Secaucus 7” with some Scott and Helen Nearing, Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry thrown in, too. Ah, perhaps it could be a sort of third phase update of the movement years, an upper middle class idyll moving against the grain of upper middle class lifestyles.

    Not sure whether to pursue this or not, but it could be interesting. Might even help sell the house. A house with a history.

    A structure based on the Great Wheel might be interesting.


    Anoka County Family Garden Great Work Memories Minnesota Our Land and Home Retirement Sierra Club The Move Third Phase Writing

  • Nighttime Fireworks

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                                 Summer Moon

    It’s night time in the exurbs. The full summer moon lights up the neighbors lighting up the sky. With fireworks. Yes, our neighbors have a fascination with fireworks, a fascination that seems to strike them most often around 10 pm. And no, I don’t know why.

    We have two dogs with mild thunder phobias and the fireworks often set them whining. I don’t blame them. They make me whine, too. The dogs though can’t know that the neighbors are, for the most part, peaceable and friendly. The other part being the 10 pm fireworks, of course.

    They seem to have gone silent. Nope. Another one. Gertie’s upset. The nights around the 4th and the night of the 4th itself are the worst.

    Just let Gertie in the bedroom. That’s her safe place when there’s thunder or fireworks. Rigel’s ok if she’s with her sis, Vega. If not, she heads for the small hallway coming in from the garage. Enclosed and dark.

    It would be nice to find a place without even these signs of human habitation. Out there. You know. Colorado.


    Anoka County Dogs Friends Minnesota

  • Harness Racing Evening

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                           Summer Moon

     

    An evening at the races. The harness races. Though we went early, a reservation for dinner at 5 pm, so we could watch the Belmont Stakes. Kate got very excited during the Belmont. She was, and so was I, saddened by California Chrome’s inability to make up ground. We wanted to see a Triple Crown win. After all, we’re not getting any younger.

    Running Aces, the harness track up here not far from us, has a two tiered seating arrangement like the tables at Canterbury Downs, each table with its own TV that can be tuned to a closed circuit channel once the local race card begins.

    The evening began cloudy but the sun came out, shining on the wetland that sits in the track’s center, mallards and egrets taking off and landing while the horses in their hobbles pulled their sulkies behind them, warming up, jockey’s pulling back on long reins, leaning way back to get leverage. Since my family has been in harness racing for three generations, I have some memories associated with the sport, though I only went to the races a couple of times in Indiana.

    Dan Patch, from Savage, was a champion of champions in the harness racing world and a much larger than life size portrait of him greets visitors as they go through the doors at Running Aces. Immediately to the right are the poker tables, blackjack and other dealer led games. Midway in, also on the right, just beyond and above the card room, is a bank of televisions tuned to different race tracks all across the U.S. Bettors who want to wager on those races can use computers lined up in three rows, computers on either side of the row. The serious horse race betting goes on up there.

    Running Aces betting tellers are further in and to the left. While dining, employees will come to the table and place bets for you. The atmosphere is low key, but the peculiar tension associated with gambling, the dream of the win, dejection with a loss, thrums in the background.

    The only time I got excited during the races was when Cowgirls RocknRoll raced in the third race. She had a wonderful blue combination of colors, including the sulky and the wheels on the sulky. I’m convinced the jockey threw the race or she would have done much better than fourth. She was, though, without a doubt, the prettiest entrant in that race.


    Anoka County Sport

  • Crawling

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                        Bee Hiving Moon

    What a day.  Sunshine, blue skies, warm temperature.  A perfect day to take in the North Studio Crawl.  Or so you’d think.  Kate and I went to a garden art studio, a metal worker, a glass blower with jewelry, a potters and woodworker with jewelry and finally a blacksmith. We made the final three stops last year, but the first two were new for us.

    We bought something at each place: gifts for the grandkids, a ceramic container for tea, a greenman in concrete, an interesting toad stool, a metal turtle, a necklace and a metal treble clef that functions as a dinner bell.  Not a high aesthetic piece among them, but pleasing to us and we support local artists.

    The most gratifying part of the day is seeing actively creative people who live here in Anoka County.  Down many streets and roads and lanes there are folks working with glass, clay, wood, metal, photography, paints, even concrete in interesting ways.  And these are just the ones who sign up to be part of the two day event.  Who knows how many others are here?  Kate and I are.  She in her sewing room, me at the computer.  Lydia, our neighbor across the street makes shirts, bustiers and angel wings which she sells largely on the Renaissance Fair circuit.  We discussed being a stop next year.  There were no textile artists this year and I’m thinking about making chapbooks.

    I said so you’d think because some of the artists said traffic had been slower this year.  In spite of, or because of, the beautiful day.

     


    Anoka County Art and Culture

  • Melting

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                                Hare Moon

    It’s melting! It’s melting!  Yes, like the wicked witch in the land of Oz the snow built up and preserved for so long has begun to melt.  It runs down gutter spouts, leaves crusty holes in the various hills of snow around the house.  The sun smiles and as it has grown higher in the sky its smile has increased in warmth.  The Great Wheel may have been slowed a bit this winter, but it seems to have gotten better purchase.

    This does not, though, for those of you far away in warmer lands, release us from the grip of winter.  The ground stays frozen as long as there is snow on it and after the snow leaves it takes a while for the soil to warm up.

    Outdoor gardening work won’t start for at least another month, maybe a bit longer.  Some forestry tasks might get done after I get back from Arizona.  The momentum has shifted and the new growing season is struggling to get born.


    Anoka County Garden Weather +Climate

  • Cork

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                        Seed Catalog Moon

    Kate and I went to a new fine dining restaurant in downtown Anoka, Cork.  It’s located in a former breakfast place, a long time gathering place for Anokans.  It’s a little rough, the ambience is still made-over breakfast place, the service is sketchy though friendly and the wine pours happen from a refrigerator unit mounted against the far back corner of the dining room.

    But.  The food is good.  Kate had giant risotto meat balls and sea scallops.  We shared shrimp and lobster wontons and I had chicken marsala.  I prefer veal but the chicken was good.  It was pricey, probably too much for the whole package, but I’m glad its in town.  Our only other fine dining place folded during the great recession.  Thanks, Wall Street big bankers.

    It’s nice not having to drive all the way into the city just to eat out at a nice place.  We have three pretty good places:  Osaka, Azteca, Tanners and a bunch of ok, but usual:  Famous Daves, Applebees, Kam Wong’s Chinese, Dino’s Gyro.


    Anoka County Cooking

  • Switching Rails

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                               Winter Moon

    In late January when this kind of cold usually comes a few days of it can bring on an intense desire to be outside, be anywhere other than inside.  This is the condition often called cabin fever.

    Having this deep, long cold spell come up front in winter, though, has not produced the same kind of grousing and low murmurs as a January dip.  This is still bracing.  Or, well, what do you expect?  We live here, don’t we?  Ruth, our financial advisor, said a mutual friend, Larry Schmidt, the late investigative reporter for WCCO, told her winter cut gang activity out for a season which he said, “Gives us an edge over L.A. and Detroit.”

    This kind of seasonal change switches rails in the roundhouse of the mind.  No doubting now that the growing season is far behind us and the earth’s orbit has swung us into different astronomical territory.  We can concentrate on activities like snowshoeing, bird feeding, igloo building, cross-country skiing, ice-fishing, dog-sledding.  There’s even the few, the hardy who have sails rigged on “boats” with ice-skate like runners.  Others will go winter camping, hiking in the boreal forest.  And, yes, there will be snowmobilers, too.

    Some will concentrate on feasting, reading, indoor games.  This is the concert and theater and dance season, too.  And all those holidays with their bright lights and festive music and gift giving and family and friend get togethers.

    And the cold says winter.  Time for all that winter offers.


    Anoka County Art and Culture Great Wheel Holidays Weather +Climate

  • Just Us Mammals

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Samhain                                                    Winter Moon

    I have posted before about sharing this land with other animals.  A good while back I posted photos of an opossum who visited me late one winter night.  Well, here’s a few photos from this afternoon, taken from my study window.  This guy did not mind the camera at all.

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    Anoka County Our Land and Home