Flora and Fauna - St. Paul Edition

Bob and I took Sophie and Luke on a different kind of wildlife adventure today. Instead of the zoo, we took off for downtown. We started our journey in the wilds of Rice Street, where we stopped by White Castle for a quick bite before heading out into the bush. The colorful local Fauna in the 'hood didn't dissapoint. For instance the dirty, crazy, homeless guy who lacked even the imagination to talk to himself. Instead, he repeated everything we said: "I don't know what I want." She don't know what she wants. "How about a french fry?" heh-heh french fry. "Grandma!" gramma. He stood uncomfortably close behind me when I ordered and sat in the booth adjoining ours while we ate. Lovely.
We buckled back into the car and headed through downtown. The kids were impressed with the local landscape, especially the 'castle',A.K.A. Landmark Center and argued over whether a beast or a princess lived there alone. The elusive and pale worker-bees were flowing from their hives to swarm over to the lunch trucks parked above the river. Maybe next time we'll eat local and join them.


We parked the car by the river and started our hike. On the way we picked numerous flora, but just one of each kind for each kid. When we got home we looked up some of them that we identified and some we couldn't, and Luke wrote out a list -Yarrow,ragweed, white and purple clover among them. But the ones we found with the best names were the Hoary Madwort, Nodding Thistle, Crown Vetch, Fleabane, Spurge, Bedstraw, Ox-eye Daisy, and Bird's-foot Deer-vetch. We will be keeping an eye out for the Wild Sarsaparilla, Hoary Puccoon and the Bastard Toadflax next time, I kid you not.


We also saw river fauna, including an Eagle, a Mallard duck, a Garter Snake and a Snapping Turtle. I say the snake was over 4 feet long. Bob says 3 at the most. Since it's my blog, we'll go with over 4! It appeared in two crevices simultaneously, and was as big around as a garden hose. It was the stuff nightmares are made from. The snapping turtle impressed the kids by his dinosaur-like legs and tail.He was making his way from the river to the swamp behind us. I had to stop Grandpa from picking it up. Like we could ever get the kids to go with us again if he had to drive to the E.R. with bloody stumps...



We also watched the tugs pushing the barges upriver. The kids awed over the chain that was holding one of the docked barges to the shore- the diameter of the iron making up the links was as big around as Luke's wrist. We saw airplanes taking off from the nearby airport, and trains coming from the freight-yard. But what we didn't see was just as notable as what we did - we saw only a handful of people the whole time we were by the river! We are planning more urban adventures for the summer.

Since I neglected to take my camera with me, the only picture that I took was the one of the kids with their bouquet. Next time I won't be so careless.