Warm Day

Birdwise, nothing out of the ordinary, just beautiful creatures. I took these this morning at Santa Ana, breaking now for lunch. I may go out to Estero in late afteroon. Right now, salad and sunshine.

Texas Home

If any of these photographs make this place look plush they are misleading. It is a very poor town and most of the money and the majority of the "Winter Texans" live across the expressway on the other side of town. There is a small sheet metal fabricator next door, miscellaneous barking dogs, an alert watch-goose, and railroad tracks across the busy street to the north.

All that said, the people of the neighborhood and apartments are friendly, we have a fairly large apartment with a functional kitchen, a bedroom with a comfortable king-size bed, views of beautiful gardens from covered verandas on both front and back, wi-fi, cable, laundry, etc. We get by.

View from front veranda.

View from rear veranda.

View of street.

Laundry door.

Stay warm, -G.

Used Boots

Hidalgo County where I am living is one of the poorest counties in the nation - Addy sent me this link the other day:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/11/09/too-much-of-too-little/

How poor is it? It's so poor they rent car tires. Seriously. 

But this isn't about tires. It's about Manly Footwear. I have not owned a pair of western boots since my kid brother Kirby died. He had "borrowed" my boots when he was working in Oklahoma, a pair of Tony Lamas and a pair of Justins as I recall. They went up in the fire that took him and it kind of took the wind out of my sails, bootwise - and in a lot of other ways. 

It is cold and rainy today so I went for a slow drive. I have passed Gonzales Boots fifty times or more in the past four years. Today I stopped, just killing time. Gonzales has a small shop, "Gonzales Boots - cash only - monthly payment plans available," a couple of dozen boots up front and a workshop in the back. I asked him if he had any size 11's. There were three pair, a dark brown lizard, a pair of black stunners, crocodile I believe, and a pair of round toed, brown Tony Lamas which he had rebuilt, new soles, etc and the previous owner couldn't come up with the cash to retrieve them. I pictured that poor barefoot soul, busted broke, nose pressed against the glass of Gonzales Boots, praying and pining for his old boots. 

The new ones were a little more than I was comfortable paying, being only a casual Texan. The Lamas felt pretty good and were so cheap it was silly, I suppose the amount of the rebuild. I asked Senor Gonzales if he had any children. "Si, five." I paid for the boots and peeled off an extra $20 for his kids.

The Star of Texas

It does seem like every smalltown restaurant in the southern heart of America is unduly proud of their Chicken Fried Steak if you ask for a recommendation. They are so sincere I keep falling for it. On my way to the Rio Grande Valley I hit another one in Belton, Texas. Worse than that, I also bought into the Fried Okra and Fried Potatoes as sides. This must be something you have to grow up with. For instance, I brought my own pail of Pickled Herring with me to Texas. I grew up with it and it doesn't seem to be available in Texas. Anyway, the fried everything meal was awful (again) and helped contribute to my four pound weight gain on the trip down.

An aside, the young waiter who tricked me with his sincerity has never been outside of Texas, never been as far north as Dallas, but he would like to travel someday. Ah, someone who wants to expand their world. Yep, he loves football and would like to travel to various football shrines to watch football games. Oh, what the hell, he was raised in Texas where football is a religion. More power to him.

The other contributor to my weight gain was well worth it, a restaurant we have visited in the past. According to the smaller sign on the front the Star of Texas Restaurant in Falfurrias, Texas it is "THE BEST AMERICAN AND TEX-MEX FOOD IN TOWN". Modest and nicely understated. Falfurrias is town of 5000 people out in the middle of nowhere ... and the food is the best I've found anywhere in Texas so far. Sometimes Mexican food is two dimensional - bang, favor then heat. This isn't particularly hot and when you take a bite the favors come to your mouth in waves, sometimes fives flavors deep. I ordered one meal to eat in situ, and another to take with me to Alamo for my evening meal. Just in case. Both meals really should have been enough for two meals, but it tasted so good I didn't stop until I had licked the plate clean. Four pounds in three days.

Joplin, Missouri

Without a co-pilot I was the mercy of Edna - Edna, the ​Goddess of Garmin. Following her directions ​explictly, ​I was out of Kansas City headed south before I realised she had sent me on an alternate​ to our usual​ Lorna edited westerly route​. In a fit of adventure, I went with the new route. So ​tonight I find myself camped in ​a motel in Joplin, Missouri rather than Empor​i​a, Kansas. Ms Edna has been at this for a while. She's really a quit good guide unless she is derailed by road work ​detours, so this is likely a shorter route to deep Texas, but ​it did not send me through the Flint Hills​, one of my favorite places in the world​. It will likely still be there in the Spring​, but the Little Bluestem grasses will be a metallic green instead of the flowing russet waves of winter.

Speaking of waves, as I left Albert Lea I noted that Fountain Lake is covered by petrified white water waves - snow white (duh) high-wind sculpted waves, cut with the blue snow shadows of the crystal clear mid-winter sunshine. Stop. Stop and really, really look at it. With an open mind and open heart ... it can be a religious experience. :-)

Goodbye Snow, Goodbye Owl

Midday in the Great Wasteland. It's about -20F windchill right now. The "F" obviously does not stand for Fahrenheit.

How am I coping? I am coping by closing up the cottage tomorrow, coping by packing to go to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in a couple of days. We have a house sitter living in the lower level, I have a co-driver lined up because Lorna is packing for two; two trips that is. She is headed for Peru, then will rejoin me and the rest of her packed goods in Texas later.

So goodbye snow and cold, goodbye Juncos under the birdfeeders, goodbye Growlery owl peeking around the bookshelf board.

I love the sculpture of a well proportioned bicycle frame, but damn, a classic bicycle drivetrain is just a thing of beauty.

Goodbye Blood 'n Ivory. Why more Kvale pictures? Goodbye leather wraps - which were redone because the leather on the first go-round was really pretty funky and replacements were sent. The water bottles are also "new". I got them on eBay for a pittance because they were extremely grungy. It took about 10 minutes to clean them to look like new. If someone is going to go to the trouble of listing, packing and shipping something, why not wash them first. Obviously he was a busier man than I am.

I used to have a Park frame vise mounted on the bench top. It broke. I am not complaining. In a past life, among other things, I designed in-store bicycle racks for a number of chain companies to display the big box, made-in-China junk they sell. One of the last ones I did was for Target and I was exploring methods of safely clamping the bikes. Park Tool is also based in Minneapolis so they sent me a selection of bicycle stands. My point is, I cannot complain - the vise that failed was a freebie - as are the clamps on the suspended set-up I am using now.

So goodbye from Minnesota, hopefully the next posting will be some great bird shots from Texas. See you all in  a couple of weeks.

Winter Style

It's below zero and the windchill is tough. I cope by dressing for it, wearing heavy, leather trimmed Orvis cords and layers of wool stitched together by the fine folks at Filson Woolens (for which I've been getting a raft of shit from an email group of gentlemen who live in tropical places .... like ... Michigan). It all made me recall this from a few years ago. Here's to winter and the Old Man, who taught me how to dress for conditions, not for style.

The Old Man’s winter was warm

A time for layers of wool and leather

Pendleton shirt, leather vest, open coat

Whipcord wool pants loosely tucked

In unzipped rubber overshoes

Mackinaw cap worn flaps up

Tie strings dangling

I am older by five years than my Old Man lived

Yet day by day becoming more like him

Out and about on my northland business

Filson cruiser with a shearling collar

And matching woolen cap

Warm against the biting wind

Flap strings still undone

Passing by dark store windows

I sense his presence and glimpse

A walking stride for stride reflection

Of an Old Man in wool and leather

We both smile and nod, knowing

"You cannot put a price on personal comfort."

Overcome By Romance?

This is the three Hanson sisters and husbands, including myself. It is in Bella's, an Italian restaurant in Alexandria, Minnesota, which has been voted "Minnesota's most romantic restaurant". 'Romantic' is very subjective, but taking no chances, we all sat with our partners in case we were overcome by romance. Romantic? Well, we were serenaded with Volare by the waitress Frankie, an older woman who learned the song as a child Italy. I did not find it particularily romantic, but the food was maybe the best Italian meal I have ever eaten and Frankie sang a capella on key. Can't ask for more than that.

Hygge and Goatherding

The word this Christmas is hygge, pronounced hyu-gah, a Danish word loosely translated as "cozy sanctuary, good food and drink, quiet conversation with friends". Christmas Eve we had a simple meal with our friend - corn chowder served in mismatched handthrown bowls, coarse bread, sharp cheeses and red wine. After the meal we moved to the small den for sweets and coffee - all very, very hygge. Well, maybe not the iPhone. 

On a small table at the end of the den there is an old framed picture, and a small wood carving - the bottom reading "Henning - hand carved in Norway". 

As a young woman our friend lived and traveled through Europe for about 15 years. In 1975 she was living in Norway, making a living tending goats. The picture is a photo of her milking a goat. She said it was in newspapers all over Norway (a slow news day?). 

This past summer she was in Norway visiting a cousin. He gave her the woodcarving which he had found in a used junk store. Looking closely at the carving it becomes obvious that it was inspired by the photograph.

Our friend found a woodcarving in a foreign country of her younger self milking a goat. 

The arcs have been joined; the circle has been completed.

Fruitcake

Kirby Miles Berg

My brother Kirby died 24 years ago today in a house fire. He would have been 53 years old. 

In this past year he became a grandfather. I wonder. What other things could he have become? 

The Parkway Pub

Lanesboro has a number of places to eat, but a shortage of pubs. The Village Hall has a bar with a few draft beers, the Pedal Pusher has half a dozen taps with various Minnesota beers, but they are both really restaurants, not pubs serving good bar food. There are a couple of bar bars in town with big screen T.V.s and the almost perennial banners advertising "Sale on Bud Lite". While these are necessary fixtures in any small town they aren't the kind of place any aging beer-boy hipster would normally frequent. I have always thought that the village with its tourist based economy really needed a brew pub with a few craft beers on tap. 

(This is a serious wake-up call to Riverside On the Root - you have a great location, passable food, fun outdoor music ... and an absolutely dreadful beer selection. No EPAs? No IPAs? None?) 

One of the bar bars is the Parkway Pub, the three story building in the Google street shot.

The rumors: 

The Parkway has been purchased by a local couple who have plans to add an indoor stairway to access an upstairs group room and to remodel the main floor bar into an "Irish style pub". I have no idea what their idea of an Irish pub is. I realize they won't likely be brewing beer (yet?). As my tastes are undoubtedly extreme and narrow-minded, I'll likely be disappointed in the beer selection. I think Guinness stout and it's ilk are incredibly overrated compared with almost any American style ale craft beer. "Guinness: brewing quite ordinary beer since 1756".

Whatever, I'm all for the effort. If they don't turn it into a Disneyland version of an Irish Pub, I may even sidle up to the bar and force myself to choke down a Guinness. Or two.