Vegetables in the City

Farmers' Market is a treat; on Saturday or Sunday morning in Lowertown there are dozens of farmers with vegetables they have grown themselves, craftspeople selling embroideries, soaps, clothing, the bison guy, the chicken family, bluegrass musicians, facepainters, and of course people from U of M Extension peddling advice about turf.  Because it's St. Paul, you will always run into someone you know.

But there are people in St. Paul with shady yards (or no yard at all) who have found a way to 

grow their own vegetables in a garden I've driven by for years, near the Short Line and Hamline. (Like Daytons or St. Luke's Church, it is hard to call the Short Line by it's official name, Ayd Mill Road.)

       

Here you will find people who stop by before work to water their many varieties of vegetables and spend a couple of hours on Saturdays weeding.

Dave has had his plot for around seven years.  This year he has several types of beets, including striped beets.  He especially loves the greens.

Eron has had his plot for about five years.  It took him a while to clear it of stones.  Because the land was previously used as dump for pavement and rocks from the road nearby, after he cleared it of debris, he put in fresh soil.  One plant he grows is cardoon, which is not easy to find in Minnesota.  After three years of trying, he thinks this is the year he will be able to harvest it.  The cardoon is like an artichoke, native to the Mediterranean.

A dad was asking his boys if they didn't want to help him dig a hole for the tomato plants, but naturally they wanted to finish reading their comic books.

Other people were trading tips and 

cuttings over their fences.

There were flowers and chive plants blossoming, all under a bright blue sky.

What is a Killdeer?

The Upper East Side of Manhattan had Pale Male and Lola, two red-tailed hawks who made their home  on a fancy co-op building.  In St. Paul we have a tiny little killdeer who keeps getting blown off the top of our two-story office building, only to be captured by kind-hearted tenants and returned to its mama.

I learned that a Killdeer is a bird that is more developed when hatched than other baby birds and is able to run around but not able to fly.  Grown Killdeers have a trick they play to protect their young; they will pretend to have a broken wing to attract predators and lead them away from the babies.

As you can hear from my co-workers' voices, grown women in offices love it when the young of any species are brought in to visit.

A visit to Farmers' Market

Last Friday I went to the Farmers' Market at St. Luke's, hoping to find some rhurbarb, but all they had were plants, a few bunches of asparagus, and frozen chickens.  I guess Lowertown is the place to go for a fuller array of vegetables in early spring.

I know that St. Luke's has been renamed and is now known as St. Thomas More.  How long will it take for us to adopt the new name in our everyday conversation?  Most of us referred to Marshall Fields as Daytons from the time Daytons purchased Marshall Fields until the terrible day when Macy's took over.  Now nobody calls it Daytons anymore, and even the Mary Tyler Moore statue (I know it's across the river) looks a little sadder these days.

 

Not the prettiest piece of art.  Compare it to our statue of F Scott Fitzgerald in Rice Park.

West End

I took a stroll in the West End after dinner the other night.  

I felt like I was somewhere else, maybe a small town in North Dakota, it was that peaceful and quiet.

And the shops didn't seem like ordinary St. Paul shops.

But it also seemed like a neighborhood in Chicago, with the Catholic Church at the core.

Children were practicing their bike riding skills in the big asphalt playground and a woman was digging up hostas in her garden.  I could almost hear the children running out of the school at the end of the day, but the church school is now a charter school.

There are some funky looking places too.

But the only hipsters in sight were on the birthday card my son made for me.

A book

If you love St. Paul too, you should read this book by Patricia Hampl.

It's about what life was like when she grew up in St. Paul, the streets, her mom and dad, and the strange class distinctions in our town. Her dad grew up on the West End in a Czech family, and he became the florist to the tony people up on the hill. Of course Patricia Hampl is a poet and she tells it so much better ....

I was lucky to take a creative writing class from her at the U way back when. (Don't blame her if you don't like my writing.) It's fun to see her at the grocery store or on Grand Avenue. She's another person with a fabulous sense of style.

Why Streets of St. Paul?

I love St. Paul.

When I first thought of starting a blog, I was going to have a street fashion blog, showing people on the streets of St. Paul who showed their own sense of style.  All kinds of people, with all kinds of style.

Then I realized I needed some context.  When I started to look at our city with the eyes of a tourist, I noticed some places that I've always loved, like the rowhouses at the corner of Nina and Laurel.  I've always fantasized about living in that tower.  Who hasn't?

Hiawatha?  This statue is at the corner of Summit and Western, but there's something similar at Como.  The same?  I'll find out.

Lest you think all the sites are in Cathedral Hill, here is a spot on St. Clair and Snelling.  An old theatre converted into a dance studio.  I'll post a photo soon of the marquis, which they use to congratulate people who have wedding dances there.

 

And my first photo of St. Paul street fashion.  This young woman was waiting for a bus on the corner of Ford Parkway and Cleveland at the end of April, on a sunny day that was still just a bit chilly.  Look at her bright yellow purse and bright green top, her boots, her wonderful red hair and friendly smile.  She's not fancy, not a hipster, but a lovely young person with a sense of style and fun.  When I asked if I could take her picture, she was happy to oblige.

I'll keep taking pictures of people and places and add a little commentary now and then.  Part St. Paul Travelogue, part St. Paul Street Fashion, and a few thoughts, not too heavy, on the general state of things.