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Summer’s perfect food, a ripe, sweet Missouri-grown watermelon
God’s perfect food, the Missouri watermelon (taken at the Soulard Market, in St. Louis).

I practically lived on watermelon for about 15 years of my young life, growing up in St. Louis. Missouri, hot as hell as it was, also was an ideal place to grow the fruit, and the sweetness was to die for. Eating all that watermelon was maybe a gift from heaven, as watermelon is all natural, nutritious, and full of healthy vitamins (A and C) and minerals (potassium and magnesium). It has far fewer calories than processed food, and it reportedly has been linked to promoting recovery in athletes. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture in a separate picture page.)

Gardening gone wild at a Lutheran seminary

During my recent visit to St. Louis, I visited one of my favorite places, Concordia Lutheran Seminary, which trains young Lutheran ministers of the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod (the conservative branch) for their life’s work. To my surprise, I spotted four woman arrive in front of the campus church with bags. They began filling those bags with the green leaves. Turns out the church’s flower beds actually were kale beds. The four told me there were other gardens on campus with vegetables and spices. I did a quick Google search and learned the gardens were the brainchild of the Seminary Guild, made up of mostly women who are doing some good deeds. Wow, what a great idea. I would love to see this happen elsewhere, but I think the gardens would be picked clean. Concordia is relatively secluded, so it can sustain a huge batch of basil without pesto makers swooping in.

(Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Pastures of plenty
Taken on Sauvie Island, Oregon.
Taken on Sauvie Island, Oregon.

The brutally hot and dry year means that crops are coming up short and being harvested early. Wheat harvests are underway now in Oregon, and the stalks are a bit short. Here are a few shots I took last week, of corn and wheat, in Oregon. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

FYI, the title was a Woody Guthrie reference, if you missed it.

The ducks were made for walking

Seeing happy ducks in the muddy wetlands not far from my home on a rainy night this week made me think of other happy ducks. Here is some footage I shot in the rice paddies outside Ubud, Bali, way back in 2009. (Ouch, that is so long ago already.) Now tell me, do these ducks have moxie or do these ducks have moxie. You can see a larger version of these critters on YouTube too.

Mourning the loss of antiquity while appreciating what remains
The Djoser Pyramid is in the complex know as Saqqara, south of Giza near the ancient city of Memphis.
The Khufu Ship, in its home next to the Giza Pyramids, known as the Solar Boat Museum.
This recreated ship used materials buried for nearly 4,600 years.

Tonight I read that the lunatics with a plan, known to the world as ISIS, have bulldozed the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in Iraq, after taking jack hammers to some of the world’s most historic treasures.

Make no mistake, these guys are deranged nihilists, masquerading as liberators and religious purists, who would like to see a religious world order. That vision is premised on the eradication of human history, in order to create a theocracy based on what they claim to be Islam. I deeply mourn the deaths caused in Syria and Iraq over the last decade and actually decades before, in which the West and local actors all have played major roles. I will always reserve greatest sympathy for innocent civilians who have suffered the most.

But as someone who values the past, who respects what it teaches the present, who appreciates its richness and beauty, I am severely heartbroken by yet another brazen act of destruction by these criminals. I am still waiting to learn if many in this group of criminals had been trained in facilities funded from Saudi Arabia-based oil wealth, but I doubt that expose will be written. (Note: these guys just did not appear out of nowhere, and there is a long trail here in terms of who promoted this fringe brand of Sunni Islam. ISIS emerged after the wily and Machiavellian Saudi Prince Bandar, former ambassador to the United States, had re-emerged in 2013 as Saudi Arabia’s go-to dealer to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Hassad, until Bandar was recently toppled.).

So, tonight as I grieved for the latest act of human idiocy, I wanted to pay tribute to some treasures I adored when I visited Egypt in 2004. These treasures dating from more than 4,600 years ago are still with us today. So here they are, my salute to who we were, and not what we have become. The ship seen in these pictures is the Khufu Barque, a 4,600-year-old treasure of ancient Egypt that was unearthed near the Giza pyramids and was restored painstakingly after being buried nearly 46 centuries. Its exact purpose remains a mystery, but it likely served to transport the pharaoh as the sun god during his daily trip across the sky. The ziggurat style pyramid is from Saqqara, known as the step pyramid of Djoser, also more than 4,600 years old. It is near the ancient city of Memphis, south of Giza.

(All photos were taken with a simple Canon point and shoot; click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

The Brooklyn intermodal rail yard, still chugging and causing a fuss

For more than a year in my 20s, I lived within a half mile of this large track of industrial land in southeast Portland, now run by the Union Pacific Corp. The yard itself dates to 1860s, and today serves as a Union Pacific transfer point, where cargo is either moved from rail cars to trucks for local distribution or vice versa to the rail system.

A huge fight broke out in the 1950s between the rail yard owners and neighbors in the Eastmoreland and Sellwood-Westmoreland neighborhoods. A more than five-decades long injunction limiting some rail yard activity was lifted in 2012, and the Union Pacific moved forward with a planned upgrade worth $75 million. However, pollution by the yard is being monitored with the help from nearby Reed College. In 2014, the head of the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association bought a drone to monitor activity at the yard. The association represents the upscale subdivision in southeast Portland that is next to the rail yard. I guess it remains, trust but verify in my part of this city. Seriously, a neighborhood association is now using a drone to promote its interests against a major U.S. corporation.

Manzanita Beach driftwood
Driftwood piles high on the south end of the beach of Nehalem Bay State Park.

On the northern Oregon coast, a lovely spit about three miles long juts south along the Nehalem River. The south end of the spit is protected as Nehalem Bay State Park. Driftwood piles high at the mouth of the Nehalem River, next to the stone jetty. It is a really nice spot.