Geodog

It's not Minnesota

At home, we are currently reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, from the Little House on the Prairie series. I never read the series as a kid, being under some mis-impression that it was "girl stuff", whatever that was. My loss. The books are wonderful, filled with all kinds of detail about the life of homesteader. Anyone who thinks that life is simpler now than it was in the 19th century should read these books. The amount of domain knowledge required to be a successful homesteader was enormous: how to trap animals, how to build a house from logs, how to build a house from sod, how to make soap, how to raise various crops, how to care for horses and cows, how to make shoes, etc. But I digress.

The part of the book we read last night details the joys of a Minnesota winter. Blizzard follows blizzard follows blizzard. Pa has to tie a rope between the barn and house so he doesn't get lost when he goes out to feed the animals. Children freeze to death. Breaks between blizzards are spent frantically cutting more firewood. I shivered just reading the descriptions. How anyone could choose to live in that climate is mystery to me, but then again I've always loved warmth and the sun, and hated cold.

I woke up this morning to find one of those days that reminds me why I love living in the Bay Area. The sun is shining, and it has warmed up to the point where the streets are crowed with people wearing shorts. From the right hill, you can see all the way across the bay.







Photo is from the Lawrence Hall of Science webcam

At the moment, I couldn't imagine living anywhere else, although I'll have to set up a cron job to remind me of this when I'm kvetching his summer about the second month in a row of cold, clammy, fog every morning and afternoon.

Update: This post was originally entitled "Eat your heart out, Minnesota," but after thinking about it I decided that was quite mean spirited and changed it. My apologies to anyone offended by it.

I also couldn't resists adding two more photos that I took, but decided to spare visitors to the home page and so stuck them on the extended entry page.

Across the street from my house.



Looking towards Oakland from El Cerrito.