• Category Archives Anoka County

  • Why I Live Here

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                             Thanksgiving Moon

    I have decided, over and over again, to remain here in Minnesota.  Leaving occurs to me from time to time, more often now the direction considered is north, beyond our borders where the politics, health care and weather all seem more sane.  Even with those attractions, and they are considerable, Minnesota and in particular the Twin Cities Metro always trumps any competition.

    The arts here are a wonder.  Having the MIA and the Walker in a small market city like Minneapolis doesn’t amaze us, because, after all, they are here.  But it would if you considered them in a national, even international light.  The Guthrie is only the most visible island of a large theatrical archipelago, boasting more seats than any other metro area in the nation outside of New York City.

    The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is a gem.  Again, nationally.  The Minnesota Symphony used to be an internationally renowned organization, as recently as two years ago, before dimbulbs began a series of self-inflicted wounds.  Dance, local rock music, glass and clay arts, printmakers and galleries all thrive here.  Jazz, supported by KBEM of internet renown, flourishes.

    There are substantially more dining options now than when I moved here in 1970.  More than Kate and I can visit before they disappear.

    Writers in Minnesota consistently publish and make the national book news.  The Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Loft provide outside academia support for the literary community.

    Healthcare is as good as it gets. Anywhere.  Hawaii and Minnesota are tops in the US and good US healthcare is as good as there is anywhere.

    When policy makers divided the land in the Upper Midwest and created Minnesota they included the intersection of three US biomes:  prairie, deciduous forest (Big Woods) and the boreal forest.  The Wisconsin glaciation scoured out numerous lakes and the Great Lakes.  Though flat our terrain is remarkable for its diversity and its  pristine nature in the north where the moose and the wolf still live.  At least for now.

    Where else do you get all these things?  Nowhere else.  That’s a large part of why I stay. Another, equally large part, is friends.  The Woolly Mammoths, the MIA docent class of 2005, the Sierra Club and various past political activity has peopled my life with friends. They’re here and I am, too.

    In the past, too, I valued the Minnesota political culture which showed compassion to the poor, effectiveness in government and sound stewardship of the state’s natural resources. A long desert of mean policy makers, eyes and hearts captured by the great god money, have devastated much of that culture though I continue to believe it exists.

    The common good, defined broadly, is just that.  Our future depends on an educated work force, receiving a decent wage, a hand-up when life turns sour and a healthy environment in which to work and live.  These have seemed and still seem to me the necessary elements of a civil society.


    Anoka County Art and Culture Minnesota Our Land and Home Politics Sierra Club

  • Folks I Trust

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                     Samhain Moon

    Got a new bar for my chain saw a couple of days ago and in the process discovered Lehman’s Power Equipment.  The driveway for it slopes steeply down off East River Road, hiding the building from view as you drive in toward Anoka from Mercy Hospital.  When you get down to the bottom, Lehman’s Power Tools turns out to have a large bait wing, too, including a self-service bait shack open 24 hours.

    The outside looks like an up north mechanic’s shop, the kind that has hubcaps and old Marathon and Sinclair signs tacked to the wall.  Maybe a rack of moose antlers, too. Inside the shop has chain saws, snow blowers, lawnmowers, lots of orange and red.  Most important to me this is a Jonsered dealer, so they stock parts for my 20 year old chain saw.

    A dog gets up a bit creakily from its tan rug to greet us.  I make some comment about the dog and the guy behind the high counter says, “Yeah, been here the whole time.  Gettin’ old, though.”  I reply, “Yeah, me too.”  The counter guy smiles.  “Yep.”

    Another, younger version of counter guy brings out two different bars, one more expensive than the other. “What do I get for my extra $19?”  “Well, this one’s reinforced and milled.  It’ll last longer than that one.”  Last longer always sells me, so I pick up the new green bar, Kate gives him the family credit card (I lost mine somewhere in the house.) and we settle up.

    Outside we pick up a couple of used pallets from a pile with a free wood sign.  The sign goes on, “Don’t take sign.”  We’ll use this wood in our Samhain bonfire.  Gonna celebrate the end of the growing season with a big fire.

    When we pulled away, I remarked to Kate, “I feel better having found that place.  Folks I can trust.”


    Anoka County Our Land and Home

  • Commuter Man

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                         Samhain Moon

    Living in the northern burbs there are two main ways to get into the city, 35W or 94.  After years of construction, it is now possible to get on Highway 10 within 3 miles of our home and have no lights, no intersections all the way to the center of Minneapolis on 35W.  Most of the time, however, trips from here take us more toward the west side of the city going to the Walker or the MIA, so 94 is the best route in.

    The problem is that between Highway 610 and Highway 94 lies 252.  252 is 7 or 8 miles of at grade intersections, traffic lights and heavy traffic.  And going in tonight it was down to one lane.  Now, I know, that’s part of Minnesota and that’s true:  winter and road construction, but geez.  20 minutes to go 7 miles.  First time I had to put on my commuterman persona this year.  Lean back, breathe deep of those exhaust fumes and enjoy the internal combustion moment.


    Anoka County

  • Ceramics and Wolves

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                   New (Samhain) Moon

    Kate said she likes this time, when the gold colors have just begun to appear, because “it seems like Robert Briscoeall of fall is ahead.”  Yeah.  I like it in the rain and mist we had today, an atmosphere that makes me think of falls gone by, the ones I thought of as normal.

    (Briscoe’s showroom is the building at the rear.)

    We drove up to Stark, Minnesota today to Robert Briscoe‘s home and studio.  He has a fall sale, a 24 year tradition.  It includes other potters.  This year Jo Severson,  Jason Trebs and Matthew Krousey.  His home and studio sit on a high point surrounded by a maple, beech and birch forest.

    Long, maybe 20 feet long sawn boards, 2x2x18, placed on metal sawhorses held the pottery.  Some it was under a white tent, but most of it sat out in the rain.  We bought a large vase and I poured two inches of rain water on the ground.

    Briscoe is a big bluff former Kansan.  We talked about tornadoes.  He said his dad would gather the kids on the front porch and point out the funnel clouds as they descended from the sky.

    All four potters make pottery meant for home use.  We bought bowls and plates, the vase, a small bowl with a top and two cups.  Having handmade items, varied in design and color, makes each meal special.  Too, we get to know the people who made them so the pieces are personal, not anonymous.  Both things appeal to me.  A lot.

    After leaving Stark, we headed back down Highway 65 to Anoka County 18.  18 runs through the largest nature reserve in the metro area, Carlos Avery, and on the grounds of Carlos Avery is the Wildlife Science Center.  Today was an event there called the Harvest Howl and sounded very interesting.  Local vendors.  See wolves and other wild animals. Support good work.

    The center is just beyond two stone and cement pillars topped with an old worked iron arch that says Carlos Avery Game Farm.  It was better in my head than on the ground.  It was wet, for one thing, which lifted the urine and feces scent from the ground and distributed it.  For another, the center focuses on real science.  That is, they train DNR, Animal Control personnel on how to handle bears, wolves and other critters.  They also train scientists in how to tranquilize and examine various species.  What I’m trying to say is the area is not spiffed up for an afternoon’s stroll on a wet day.

    It looks clunky, down at the heels.  It’s a shoe-string operation and it shows.

    Worth going to once.  Probably not for a return visit.  Except maybe in dry weather.


    Anoka County Art and Culture

  • A Riff on Rain That Got Away From Me

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                    Harvest Moon

    Rain.  Creates a hole up in the burrow and sleep, slowdown sort of feeling.  We went out for a small lunch, took a nap.  Business meeting in the morning, partly dividing up money from the recent stock surge.

    The soil here in the Great Anoka Sand Plain (a former river bank for the Mississippi as it detoured around the Grantsburg Lobe of the Wisconsin Glaciation) allows rain water a clear path to aquifers beneath it, including one from which we get our water.  Not great for gardening unless there happened to be a peat bog atop the sand like the Fields Truck Farm that surrounds our development.

    So, there’s a trade off.  Good water resources for tillable soil.  The small crop vegetable grower and orchadist, however, can amend the soil with organic matter and top soil. We’ve done that.

    The aquifer from which we get our water, the Franconian Ironton-Galesville, (see pic) underlies much of eastern Minnesota, much of Wisconsin, some of Michigan, Illinois and Indiana is hydrologically connected to Lake Superior as you can see by the map on the right.

    In case you think the olden days have no impact now, you might consider aquifers.  The Franconian Ironton-Galesville aquifer came into existence during the middle Cambrian period of the Paleozoic Era, beginning some 540 million years ago and continuing to about 485 million years ago.  The water in this aquifer circulates around and among the area under all these states, providing the water from municipal wells throughout the region get the bulk of their water.

    Here’s another matter to consider.  Water cycles up and down, into the earth then up to the sky and back to the earth, sometimes ending up in aquifers and sometimes in lakes and oceans and rivers and streams and ponds and lakes.  This material from the Coon Creek Watershed District interests me.

    “The ultimate source feeding groundwater is precipitation. Actual
    aquifer recharge rates are not well quantified within the watershed
    which leads to uncertainty in assessing sustainable withdraws.
    Over appropriation is the result of removing water at a rate and or
    volume faster than the aquifer can supply. In cases where a water
    source takes 100 of years to recharge, appropriations are an
    irreversible withdrawal.”
    An important thing to note here is that in cases of drought, as now, there is no recharge possible.  That means that any climate change induced reductions in rain fall directly impact our long term capacity to draw our water needs from these ancient sources of water supply.

     


    Anoka County Great Work Science Sierra Club Weather +Climate

  • Interlibrary Loan

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                  Harvest Moon

    Certain last century, even last millennium information transfer methods still have traction.  After a frustrating search through various book selling websites, Loki in Scandinavian Mythology was not available.  There are also no e-books of it online.

    A library search did turn up a copy in the University of Minnesota Wilson Library.  But Andover occupies the exurban fringe, so close to the cornfields, so far from the U.  At first reading it at Wilson seemed like a good idea.  No.  Too much driving.  Hmmm.

    Aha.  Interlibrary loan.  Sure enough, I went on the Anoka County Library Website and located a way to enter a request for this book from Wilson library.  The system, for free, delivered it to my local library, the Rum River Library and on Monday I went over and picked it up.  It has to be back in three weeks, by October 14th, no renewals.  Doesn’t matter.  I’ll finish with it well before then.

    Let’s hear a cheer for physical copies and librarians.

    Yes, but.  Let’s hear another cheer for the folks busily scanning books in to great digital depositories so maybe the next time a hard to locate book is needed, it has a copy in the Great Library, the one in the Cloud.


    Anoka County Myth and Story Writing

  • Nice Day For A Walk

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                         Harvest Moon

    A guy trudged along the same trail I was on, dressed in full camo but with the jacket open and t-shirt spread wide by a belly yearning to be free. “Nice day for a walk,” he said.  “Yeah.”  He was a bow-hunter with six yellow feathered arrows and a compound bow.  When I got back to the parking lot, I saw his truck with a large sticker, Life Begins At Full Draw.  A bow hunter with his bow-string fully extended.  He had another large sticker, “Born to Fish, Forced to Work.”

    A bit further along a Hmong man in blaze orange vest with a rifle slung on right shoulder.  “Hi.”  “Hi.”  Only a moment before meeting the bow hunter I had decided to turn back.  I had no orange vest and wanted to be safe.

    When I drove up here, only 3 maybe 4 miles from home, I’d discovered that this new state owned land was a conservation area, not a scientific and natural area as I had remembered.  The difference is that you can ride snowmobiles at Cedar Creek Conservation Area.  You can hunt.  You can also hike of course, but…

    Armed with my smart phone I looked up Minnesota hunting seasons and found that it was bow season for deer and hunting for small animals and certain birds.  Didn’t seem I’d be confused for any of these since bow hunters have to be fairly close and have a good sight line, but out of, as the politicians say, “an abundance of caution,” I had begun my exit.

    It was a spectacular day.  64 degrees.  Clear skies.  A light breeze.  Just right.  As often happens in northern Anoka county, it felt like up north with woods and meadows.  Imagining myself on a trail outside of Ely was easy.

    Here are a few things I saw:

    IMAG0966

    IMAG0978IMAG0984IMAG0989

    IMAG0971

    This gallery contains 7 photographs in all as   photograph etc.

    Link to Category Gallery Leave a comment