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DREAM D REAM M CCOME OME TRUE: Local sailor is Olympics-bo Olympics-bound PAGE 11
Bird’s-eye view to success Helping community helps business BY LORETTA HARDING CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Source: Wisconsin Horticulture, University of Wisconsin-Madison
If you've ever wondered what a bird sees when it's flying around a city, just watch a drone video made by former Mahtomedi resident Jay Christensen. Now available on YouTube are Christensen's aerial videos from 2020 over the empty streets and empty seats of Minneapolis and another capturing the unusually quiet streets of St. Paul. A poignant video, “Yam Haus Auld Lang Syne,” about the year of upheaval in Minneapolis, is set to the version of “Auld Lang Syne” recorded by Minneapolis pop band Yam Haus. It’s a tear-jerker. And how did that darn bird get into that bowling alley, anyway? Christensen's most recent project, a one-take video, “Right Up Our Alley,” has raked in almost 2 million views since its debut on March 8. Like a bird stuck inside a building trying to escape, the video drone flies swiftly around the entire interior of the Bryant-Lake Bowl. Over the bowling
SEE EASTER, PAGE 12
SEE DRONE PILOT, PAGE 13
‘White-robed apostles of hope’ FILE
The large white trumpet-shaped flowers of Easter lily (Lilium longiflorum) are a tradition this time of year. These plants are att the fforced d to t bloom bl th appropriate time for the religious holiday, completely out of their normal flowering time. Native to the three small southern islands of Japan (Liu-chiu/Ryukyu Islands), this species was distributed to other parts of the world a long time ago. It was being cultivated on the mainland of China and Japan when early western explorers reached the area. In 1777 the
famous plant explorer Carl Peter Thunberg discovered this lily and sent it to England in 1819. By the 1880s, bulbs b lb were being b i grown commercially in Bermuda for shipment to the US, but by the turn of the century Japan dominated the US export market. When the supply of stock from Japan was cut off when World War II began with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, prices rose, making commercial cultivation of these bulbs economically feasible in the US. Today almost all of the
potted plants grown as Easter lilies are produced by less than a dozen growers llocated t d iin a narrow coastal t l region along the border of California and Oregon. Bulbs are grown for three or four years, replanted each year in the fields of this area with the perfect growing conditions, until they reach the right size and maturity. They are then shipped to commercial greenhouse growers throughout North America, where they are forced under controlled conditions to flower in time
for Easter. Since Easter falls on a different day each y year (the first Sunday following the follow firstt full the vernal f ll moon off th equinox, which may be anywhere between March 22 and April 25), careful scheduling is critical to ensure they are at the perfect stage during the approximately two-week marketing window.
Gusty winds make short work of ice
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Benny Schmalzbauer is the late barber on Washington Square who passed the torch to Holtz Kraemer 20 years ago. She likes to announce the ice-out news at his old barber shop, now owned by Earl Poyerd but it’s closed on Mondays. The Press is always her first call. Once again, the ice-out date is a couple weeks shy of average, which
ice sheets, piling large chunks on shore. Last year, ice-out was declared April 2 after a similar scenario involving warm temperatures and wind. “The ice changes so fast,” Holtz Kraemer noted. “Saturday (March 27), I thought it’d be another week. Benny always taught me that wind and rain make all the difference. It did again this year.”
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SEE ICE-OUT, PAGE 16
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Jan Holtz Kraemer announces the date of ice out on White Bear Lake each year in front of Benny’s Barber Shop, in honor of her mentor.
Official ice-out was declared March 29, a few days earlier than 2020, said record keeper Jan Holtz Kraemer, aka the “ice lady.” The longtime historian started making her usual rounds to the St. Germain and Mahtomedi bay Sunday, March 28 to check conditions, noting there was still a lot of ice in the southeast area of the lake. Gusty winds Monday, however, made short work of the remaining