Milestones

 

New Visitor at the Bird Feeder

We are ready to put 2020 in our rear view mirror. This week, Julia celebrated her 60th birthday. Mine is coming up in a few weeks.

Julia's sister gets credit for the party favors.  I baked the cake from a cake mix box.  One time, I tried a cake from scratch and it looked more like chocolate flat bread. The party was just for the immediate family, but it was nice to have both Allie and Justin home for the event.  Allie heads back to California at the end of the week.

Justin plans to go back to college during the third week of January. There are still some caregiver issues to sort out, but things are much more promising than last fall.  Justin has good priority for the vaccine, but things are rolling out slower in Wisconsin than some states.  UW-Whitewater has done a good job keeping its virus numbers low after a rocky beginning.   

My knee has not been right since the fall at Wildcat Mountain State Park a couple of weeks ago.  I've been limping around and staying out of the woods. I'm pretty sure that I stretched or strained that ligament above the right knee on the right side.  It has felt better the last few days.  The knee hurts the most when I get up from sitting.  After walking around for awhile, it feels fine.

Callie and I hiked both the Lodi Marsh and Gibraltar Rock this week.

Callie wanting to play ball at sunrise

Early, early retirement

 This past week had its ups and downs.  Julia was beginning to count her final days at the eye clinic.  All year, she's been saying good-bye to patients who she has seen for over thirty years.  We laugh because some of them tell her that she's too young to retire or that she isn't allowed to retire because they don't want to switch vision providers.  

Many of Julia's peers in the profession plan to continue working indefinitely.  I've been pushing her to retire early for the past several years so that we can see more of the world while we are still active and healthy.  I would much rather live on a little less each year than live on more but be tied down to a job.  In fact, I'm convinced that I could live on a lot less. Julia isn't willing to go quite that far.  

Things definitely changed after Julia sold her remaining ownership share to her former partner about a year ago.  She became, as she says, just another worker bee.  The complication of Covid didn't make the year any easier. 

On Monday, with only two weeks left until her official retirement, Julia called and said that she was coming home for good. Her former partner had just tested positive for Covid, and the clinic would be closed during Julia's remaining two weeks.  It wasn't the ending that she expected.  

Plus, because the former partner had worked the entire week until feeling symptoms and then testing positive, Julia had some exposure risk.  She was confined to quarantine in the lower level bedroom and bathroom until recently receiving negative test results.

That's one dart dodged. There are a couple more to dodge ahead.  Against my advice, my daughter Allie came home for Christmas.  She works remotely anyway, but I didn't think it was a good idea due to the enhanced risk. Julia and Allie disagreed, so she is here.  Allie will wear a mask for awhile, and we'll see.  She says that the plane was uncrowded, and that she stayed masked from door-to-door.  

After New Year's, my son Justin has his annual full day of doctor visits and tests at the hospital.  I know that every precaution will be taken, but the hospital just doesn't seem like a great place to spend time in right now.  Almost all of Justin's medical visits have been by video conference or telephone this year, but there are certain tests that need to be done in person.

My hiking has been limited this week to in-town sunrise walks. I've been a bit anxious.  Callie says I just need more outdoor time.

What's Covid?

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Sweet Wanderings

As winter closes in, we made a few local trips to make life sweeter.  The first stop was to Cross Plains at Enchanted Valley Christmas Tree farm to select our favorite type of Christmas tree:  white pine.  

Callie approves

We've always liked the long needles of white pines.  A native Wisconsin tree, white pines seem to have fallen out of fashion at Christmas tree farms.  Everyone wants balsams or Frasier firs.  We planned to cut down our tree, but the small grove of white pines at the farm was not open to the public so we settled for a pre-cut.

On the way home, we stopped at a driveway honey store in Sauk City.  We like to buy local honey, but this isn't the best time of year to find it.  Someone was advertising their driveway store on Facebook marketplace.  

We were skeptical but our skepticism vanished upon pulling up at a small ranch house with a glass case of different sizes of honey.  There was a metal box with a slot for "honor system" money deposits. We picked up a couple of two pound containers, deposited our $20 and were on our way.

Julia and I continue to make our sunrise hikes at Gibraltar Rock at least twice per week.  After yesterday's hike, I made arrangements for a maple syrup bulk buy in Hillsboro, Wisconsin.  Again, Facebook marketplace provided the name of a non-traditional supplier.  

Hillsboro is in southwestern Wisconsin and a little more than an hour drive.  The maple syrup farmer did not have a retail location, so we agreed to meet in the parking lot of the Hillsboro Brewing Company.  

It was a typical pandemic transaction. The seller and I were both masked up and exchanged cash for 7 bottles of maple syrup. Grade A maple syrup is light in color and has a viscosity more similar to commercial pancake syrup.  It's the only type of maple syrup that most people know.

 

Grade B syrup is produced later in the season.  It's thicker, darker and has a stronger flavor.  It's what we prefer.  This maple syrup is unlabeled and ungraded.  It has a dark, rich color.  The Amish from around Hillsborough get between $15 and $20 per quart.  For seven bottles, the price was $12/quart.  I'll be sharing this purchase with our friends Dean and Dana.

After my parking lot transaction, I headed to Wildcat Mountain State Park and hiked the Old Settlers Trail.  Callie was happy about getting in a second hike that day.  

A horseshoe bend in the Kickapoo

I only saw three other hikers on a beautiful weekday that hit 50 degrees.  With those warm temperatures, the steep trail was turning from frozen to slick. Leaf and pine needle cover made the slick parts difficult to see. Not a problem on the uphills, but I had several spectacular saves going downhill where I managed to perform acrobatic moves to catch my balance while sliding downhill on mud.

Unfortunately, my fourth attempt at a save resulted in a hard fall. I was covered in mud on my entire left side from my knee to my shoulder.  I also managed to tweak my right knee, which made the finish of the hike less pleasant.  Still, it was a good day in the woods.  I treated myself to a chocolate malt from Culvers on the way home.

December Musings

Another Wisconsin deer hunt has passed, and I am free (more or less) to roam in the woods again.  

When I was a kid, stories of deer hunting scared me to death.  My friends told stories of older relatives drunk off their butts and running around the woods shooting repeatedly at something that looked like a deer. Sounded like chaos to me.  Deer hunting in Wisconsin has become statistically much safer, if not safe.  

There were only eight "incidents" this year with the one fatality being self-inflicted.  A couple of elk were accidentally shot.  An elk is much, much larger than a deer, but apparently two people thought they were shooting the biggest whitetail doe ever. 

The most concerning incident to me is that a young woman hiker was shot in the thigh on the Ice Age Trail.  The hunter thought she was a deer.  These are the events that keep me indoors during the main gun deer season. 

This week I was back at Gibraltar Rock.  Between the cold morning and people slow to return to the woods after deer season, the trail and parking lots were completely empty during this week's hike there.

This is actually one of my favorite times of year to hike.  Overnight freezing temperatures firm up the ground without making it slippery. Most of the casual hikers don't venture out and don't know what they're missing.

 

At home, we started and finished a new reading project.  Justin was talking about something he heard about life in Siberia.  I suggested that he read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Justin isn't a big recreational reader, so we took it on as a family project.  Each night, Julia, Justin and I would take turns reading six pages aloud.  It took about a little over a month with a few days off.  

For those not familiar with the book, it's a novel based upon Solzhenitsyn's own work camp experiences in Siberia.  It focuses upon exactly one day from eyes open to eyes closed.  I read the book in high school under the careful scrutiny of my social studies teacher, Mrs. Ivonavitch, but I think I got a lot more out of it now as a voluntary read.  

It's a good book for the pandemic because the main character's focus is just on surviving in very difficult conditions.  There's absolutely nothing anyone would call exciting going on in the main character's life.  Just completing ordinary tasks becomes an exceptional challenge.  A crust of bread, thin fish soup with bones, laying brick, a fellow prisoner's bit of tobacco.  These were the subjects for our daily read.  

After finishing a book like that, one can't help but re-examine the small tasks that form the routines of daily life.  This week, I focused on making fried eggs in a new way.  My daughter and I love eggs over easy.  Juicy yolks for toast dipping.   Flipping the egg is the big moment.  A broken yolk means no yolk for dipping.  

Somewhere in my internet readings, I came across a French chef's video explaining how he fried an egg.  He casually melted a little butter in a pan.  Turned the heat to low.  Cracked the eggs into the pan.  Flicked a few drops of water across the eggs and covered with a lid.  The water turns to steam and helps to cook the tops of the yolks.  When there's barely a thin white membrane covering the yellow yolks, it's time to easily slide the eggs from the pan to the plate without need for a flip.

The result is a soft rounded white and a never-broken juicy yolk.

Simple Breakfast--Improved

 

Speaking of Allie, she is settling into her new San Francisco sublet apartment and making us all jealous with photos from sunrise walks before work.

 

First Look at the Badger Ordnance Works

There's a property not far from me that was the largest ammunition plant in the world.  Badger Ordnance Works was announced in 1941.  In less than a year, over a hundred area farmers were kicked off their land and forced to sell.  Of course, before the farmers, the Ho Chunk Tribe inhabited this area, which was once the largest prairie in all of Wisconsin.  Elk would come down from the Baraboo Range to graze here.  

The ordinance works  produced rocket propellant, smokeless powder, and E.C. powder from World War 2 through the Vietnam War and employed more than 23,000 workers.  E.C. powder was used in hand grenades. When the plant was built, a 75,000 foot fence circled around the 7500 acre property.  In 1977, it was placed on stand-by service.  

Eventually, the land was designated for recreational use.  The land is controlled by the State DNR,  the Ho Chunk nation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  

Unexpected Reflection

There is a plan to restore much of the property to the glorious prairie that it once was.  This was my first time to the property, and I really should have done a better job researching to see where the trails were.  

 On the map, the hwy 12 entrance is on the far left and center.  There is only a very narrow section of public land where I entered.  

Just about everywhere I turned, I saw signs indicating tribal ownership.

There were also a lot of hunters in trucks scouting for the deer hunt.  Callie and I mostly road-walked for about five miles. It's hard not to think about all of the chemicals used during the manufacturing process here.  Years after the plant closed, contaminated ground water continued to turn up at area residences, forcing the supply of bottled drinking water.  

 

A Different Kind of Hike

Yesterday was Justin's procedure at UW Hospital.  I dropped him off at the door and headed to Marshall Park Boat Launch on Lake Mendota.  I had a couple of hours to kill and did so by walking a circle route of about 1000 steps.  It was a pleasant walk, which I repeated about a dozen times to get some exercise in.  It wasn't nearly as interesting as the Ordnance Works, but the scenery was pleasant. 

Justin, who is twenty,  made it through his procedure:  a painful, unpleasant one.  Kind of an abbreviated colonoscopy without any anesthesia.  He couldn't stop talking about it afterwards and even had pictures for show and tell. The preliminary opinion was that everything looked to be ok.

Our family has some other good news.  After many interviews, my daughter Allie accepted her first professional job after college. She will work for a small marketing/advertising firm in downtown San Francisco, although work will be remote for awhile.  Allie also found a reasonable sublet in "The City."  

I'm very excited for her and maybe a little bit jealous.  I worked in San Francisco as a paralegal in my mid-twenties, and it is a very exciting place to be as a young adult.  Congratulations, Allie!

Almost that time of year again

 Yes, Thanksgiving is coming up, and Christmas is never far behind, but I'm talking about hunting season, which starts this Saturday.  More than half a million deer hunters are expected to head to the Wisconsin woods this year. The Department of Natural Resources estimates that the ten day gun season contributes $1 billion to our state economy.  

Bow season has already started, but I generally continue my hikes until gun season.  I have to admit that a recent incident in Kettle Moraine State Forest gave me pause.  A horse was shot with an arrow--while a person was riding it.  The rider wasn't injured, but the horse had to be put down.

This week, I went to Gibraltar Rock twice at pre-dawn.  Hiking in the dark is almost a guaranteed way to find solitude.  By the time that I reached the top, the sun was just coming up.

Normally, we head to Kentucky for Thanksgiving for a big family gathering.  In this year of the pandemic, it will just be the three of us at home.  Instead of having a big turkey, we are going to have a duck with lots of sides.  I doubt that that anything will go to waste.

I've read that some states are experiencing grocery store shortages.  Not here yet.  We do seem to be running out of staffed hospital beds. The problem is that they are running out of healthy staff, not beds.  We have heard that at least one area hospital isn't routinely testing its staff anymore.  Only staff with symptoms gets tested. 

I've got to take Justin to the doctor for a flu shot this week, and then he has outpatient surgery scheduled for the following week. Julia has to take him for a drive-thru Covid test before the surgery can happen.  Allie is getting lots of interviews in California, but nothing has clicked into a job yet. 

Seeing Things in New Light

One of the reasons that I like to travel is in order to see and experience new things.  It's easy to forget that there are still a lot of new things to discover close to home.  

There's a town just east of Lodi called Poynette, which isn't that different from Lodi.  The two towns have a lot in common. Most of the people in both towns are conservative Republicans. Both have a Piggly Wriggly grocery store.  Both are small towns surrounded by a lot of natural beauty.  

However, many people choose to focus on things that separate us.  

Callie and Elvis, barely tolerating each other

 

Our schools are better.  Our sports teams are better.  Those folks are rednecks.  These are some of the things I've heard over the years. 

This week I went to Pauquette Park in downtown Poynette to start my daily hike.  Somehow, despite visiting that park countless times, I never noticed the small stone next to the parking lot.

Huh.  Poynette should have been Pauquette, except for someone's bad handwriting.  When I got home, I got on the Wisconsin Historical Society website and found out a few things about Mr. Pauquette.  He was half-Indian and born in Missouri in 1796.  Pauquette moved to Portage, Wisconsin in 1818.  For several years he worked for the American Fur Company and operated a trading post.  He was fluent in French, English and several Indian languages.  Serving as a translator for General Dodge, Pauquette was killed by an Indian in 1836.  

Pauquette Park leads to the trailhead for the Rowan Creek Fishery property.  It was a beautiful day, so I was concerned that the trail might be more crowded than I liked.  As it turned out, I didn't need to worry.  Recent rains left significant parts of the trail underwater.  

 

But the trail was better than it looked. Once I tiptoed through the water and mud, the ground rose a bit and was mostly dry.  We didn't see another soul during the entire hike.  We did see something else that I have never seen before, despite hiking this trail dozens of times.  

In my defense, there was no sign or stone to mark the spot.  There was an unmarked path that I probably never noticed when the foliage was full.  Even with the leaves fallen, I almost didn't see it, blended in with the trees.

I have no idea what the story is with this wood carving in the middle of the woods of this public property, but finding it made my day.  We hung out for a bit there and then here.

Another great day for a hike.

Vote

 Every blog should have at least one very short post...

View from the Edge

Self-Improvement

I don't have any stellar hikes to blog about this week.  The weather has changed, and hunting season is underway.  This time of year, I basically have two hikes.  The first one is a City of Lodi walk that occurs before dawn.  The second is my country road walk which is only safe to do during daylight hours.  I've been able to get my five miles in each day,  which makes Callie happy and keeps me from getting too fat.  

Things are also slow on the brewing front.  After keeping my kombucha culture alive and well for about a year, I've decided to shut that down until at least spring.  I just wasn't drinking that much kombucha anymore.

My sourdough culture is doing well, and I use it regularly.  I don't make bread every week, but we have sourdough pancakes at least weekly.

Because I've been mostly home-bound this month taking care of Justin, I have tried to find some things to keep from going stir-crazy.  One of my more successful endeavors was to take a free online course from Yale called, "Moralities of Everyday Life."  As one might expect, it doesn't teach what constitutes a moral decision, but it does spend a lot of time examining the roles that biology and environment play.  Professor Bloom also sorted out the role of values:  care/harm; fairness/cheating; loyalty/betrayal; authority/subversion; sanctity/degradation; and liberty/oppression.

Another interesting part of the course was a discussion of liberals vs. conservatives.  We know deep down that most Republicans aren't complete idiots, and that most Democrats aren't complete idiots. Sometimes, however, we fail to recognize other people's perspective, which may involve a different weighting of values.   The key to bridging the present divide is to understand viewpoints different from our own. 

That doesn't mean agreeing on every point, but we need to stop thinking of one another as enemies in every context. And we need to listen to other viewpoints so that we can find the common ground upon which we  do agree.  

Speaking of listening, Mary Gauthier, one of my favorite musical artists, played a virtual concert at the Kerrville Folk Festival, which included a talent competition for new folk artists.  They have a youtube web page with a whole lot of good new folk music.  Again, highly recommended if you enjoy the genre. Folk music has come a long way since Peter, Paul, and Mary.  The voices of new folk musicians and songwriters, young and old,  give me another reason for hope during these difficult times.  

Merrimac Preserve

 

As the weather worsens, there are usually fewer people hiking on the weekends.  We are past peak color, but area trails are still crowded.  

I headed out mid-day during the weekend in search of the trail less traveled.  Curious, I drove by Gibraltar Rock and  found the parking lot full beyond capacity and all the way out to the road in the undesignated spots. The lesser known trailheads in the Lodi area were similarly busy.  

I headed to the next town west:  Prairie du Sac.  The Great Sauk trail leading out of town, featured busy bicycle traffic in both directions.  Nope!  I started driving north of town, intending to head out to the retired Badger Munitions Plant, where some new recreational land has been established.  However, I missed my turn and found myself on Hwy 78, driving towards the south end of Devil's Lake State Park, where two million people visit each year.

I turned up Hwy 113, not really expecting to see much in solitary hiking opportunities.  I noticed a truck parked in a small parking lot on the east side of the road.  An older,  yellowed sign said "Merrimac Preserve."  I had low expectations, thinking that the trail would probably be good for a short hike.

As it turned out, this was one of my best hiking finds in recent memory.  The trail was in great shape, having recently been mowed.  Bridges and boardwalks, built in 1996, provided relief from the wetlands and crossing streams.  The Merrimac Preserve transitioned into the Riverland Conservancy.

 

We hiked the orange and blue trails, passing through woodlands and wetlands.  One of the streams was deep enough for Callie to swim in.  To the north, views extended to the Baraboo Range.

Callie and I hiked for over two hours (five miles or so) and never saw another person.  Devil's Lake State Park, with all of its crowded trails,  was in plain sight.  I've passed this small parking lot over a hundred times without knowing the preserve was there.  This time, my meandering paid off. 

Gibraltar Rock: Hiking in the Dark

 

I mentioned in my previous post that Gibraltar Rock is now open after being closed since spring, due to the pandemic and the crowds that congregate here.  

There were no crowds at 6:15 a.m. on a recent weekday morning.  In fact, there were no vehicles in either of the parking lots.  Julia and I very rarely hike in the dark.  We won a lottery at Bryce National Park a couple of years ago for a guided moonlight hike to the bottom of the canyon.  We've also stayed too long for sunset at Gibraltar and ended up hiking down in semi-darkness.  

This time, there was no moon, and the heavy woods gave no hint of pre-dawn for most of the way to the top.  Again, we were totally alone on top of the cliffs.

There was just a hint of light, but we knew that there would be an opportunity for a better view on the return loop.  We followed the Ice Age Trail back down to the main parking lot.  On the way, we passed five people, with our same idea, mostly older and wearing masks.  They started a little bit later than us and left from the main parking lot.  

By the time we started heading back up again on the former park road, the sun was starting to rise, making it much easier to hike. Motor vehicles have been prohibited on the park road for many years, but with no one hiking on it for months, the former asphalt pavement has narrowed and is going back to nature.

At the top again, we lingered for awhile and enjoyed the view.  I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw that someone had already littered with a plastic bottle at the best view on the cliff.

The hike down was easy, now that we could clearly see.

I've done this hike many times, and I'll never tire of it. 

Ice Age Trail: Gibraltar Segment

Gibraltar Rock Natural Area is well-known across the Midwest, especially by rock climbers.  I've mentioned before that it's a happy spot for me. 

DNR closed Gibraltar at the beginning of the pandemic because the trails are narrow, and the crowds are often large.  I thought about sneaking in more than once, but never did. 

 

The Gibraltar Segment of the Ice Age Trail is from Slacks Road to the Merrimac Ferry.  Although the trail is open, I haven't hiked it much because it's been very busy throughout the summer.  I took a chance last Friday morning at about 8 a.m. and was rewarded with only one other car in the small parking lot.  

No hunting or unleashed dogs are allowed on this segment.  The absence of bullet holes in the sign was a comfort.

The trail starts out in heavy forest and then opens up into prairie.  The leaves are beginning to change, but we've also having windy days.  Fall colors may come and go quickly this year.

Eventually, the trail follows switchbacks down to the Wisconsin River and the Merrimac Ferry.

On the way to the ferry, we only passed one person.  On the way back to the trailhead, we passed about eight people.  Callie and I moved off the trail each time since none of the other people were masked.  The parking lot was now full.  Time to head home. 

Note: On the day after this hike, DNR decided to reopen Gibraltar Rock Natural Area.  I will try a sunrise weekday hike and see if I can beat the crowds.