More Winter Scenes

Our early winter continues.  I traded my snowshoes for my medium-duty Dahner hiking boots.  The snow wasn’t deep enough for snowshoes. The hiking boots provided extra support for the hidden rocks and stumps lurking under the snow.

Gibraltar Rock was a winter wonderland.  No prior footsteps or paw prints in the snow meant that Callie and I found the solitude that we were looking for.



We chose the Upland Trail out of the Steinke Basin parking lot.  Trail conditions alternated between icy and windy out of the sun to soggy and warm in the sun.  We didn’t see anyone else hiking all morning

Later in the week, we celebrated Julia’s transition to half-time status at work.  On Thursday, we headed to Devil’s Lake State Park for a hike.  The ferry generally stays open into December, until the river and/or the boat becomes to icy.  The hydraulic ramps were icing up on this morning, causing delays. 

After the hike, we stopped in at the newly-opened Tumbled Rocks Brewery and Kitchen near the north entrance to the park.  The food and beer were both good.  We will return.

On Friday night, we received an unexpected call from the Campus Police Department at Justin’s college.  Almost exactly a year from the date that he broke his leg from a fall, he fell out of his wheelchair again.  Another ambulance ride, another hospital visit.  Thankfully, this time he didn’t break anything. He’s sore but still at school.

Early for Snowshoes?

My blogging has slowed down recently, as I’ve been working each day to move posts over to to blogger.  If anything especially exciting was going on, rest assured that I would let my faithful readers know.  But the truth is that not much is going on in my life right now–that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The highlight of the week was our first snowshoe trip of the year.  Conditions were not ideal.  There was just enough snow to cover the rocks and stumps, which made tripping easy.  I didn’t ever fall, but I did have a few close calls.

The nasty blister on my right heel is my own fault.  I decided to hike using a pair of newish boots that my father-in-law Gene gave me this summer.  The fit from front to back was good, but there was too much wriggle from side to side.  I should have known better.  I’m using moleskin now to protect the rather deep wound (no pics).

One of the benefits of copying and pasting all of the blog posts from the beginning of the blog is I get to see where I’ve been the last few years.  I’ve never been someone to spend very much time looking at my own past, but it’s not a bad thing, I’ve decided.

Fall Hikes

This is the time of year that hiking becomes problematic on Wisconsin’s public lands.  It used to be that Wisconsin’s deer season started the week before Thanksgiving and ended the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Now, with all of the special hunts to reduce deer populations and chronic wasting disease, the chances of running into a hunter in mid-October through Christmas have greatly increased. When hunters with loaded weapons appear on the trails, it’s time for me to take my walks elsewhere.

Ice Age Trail: Cannery to Twin Pines

On Monday of this week, Callie and I hiked the Ice Age Trail segment from the Lodi Cannery to Twin Pines without any incident whatsoever.  It’s a beautiful time of year to hike: fall colors, comfortable temps, reduced mosquitoes, and fewer people on the trails, especially on weekdays.   We hiked Slack’s Hill on Tuesday and enjoyed similar conditions. On Wednesday, we went back to the Cannery segment.  Things had changed, and it wasn’t even deer hunters.

First, I should say that I don’t have any moral issues with hunters harvesting game within the rules.  I don’t hunt, but I’ve eaten game many times and helped to butcher farm  animals also.  Meat doesn’t come from a foam package covered with plastic wrap.  It comes from a living animal. Unfortunately, there are a lot of hunters that don’t play by the rules or are otherwise inconsiderate. 

Additionally, some of the rules make hunting a little bit more like gathering.
It was obvious when we came out on top of the hill that state-raised pheasants were just  released.  A couple of birds came across the trail right in front of us.  There was no great surprise when we saw a bird hunter ahead of us. 

Unfortunately, he was hunting right on the hiking trail with two unleashed dogs.  In Wisconsin, it’s illegal to hunt within 100 yards of the Ice Age Trail, but there’s little enforcement.  I suppose I could have made a citizen’s arrest or told him that he was breaking the law, but he had a loaded gun.  So there’s that.

The hunter’s back was to us.  He was trudging along with his gun without any idea that we were coming up behind him.  I stopped about 100 feet away (Callie on leash), and waited for him to notice us and leash his dogs.  My plan was to go around and past him, continuing our hike. As you might expect, his dogs were the ones to eventually notice us.  They both started running at Callie.  The hunter didn’t move but started swearing at the top of his lungs.  When one of the dogs got within 20 feet, I picked up Callie (who wanted to “kill, kill, kill”, despite the other dogs being twice her size).

I yelled, “Go home,” The dogs looked at me questioningly.  I yelled “Go home” again,  and they turned around.  When the dogs made their way back to the hunter, he made no effort to leash his dogs, but continued to walk slowly down the middle of the Ice Age Trail, gun on his shoulder.  I turned around and headed home.  It was time to leave that public property until after Christmas. Hiker-friendly laws aren’t much good when ignored by hunters.

 

 Devil’s Lake State Park

On Thursday, Julia took the morning off and we got up very early to take the ferry across the Wisconsin River.

The sun was just starting to come up when we started up the east cliff trail. There was no one else on the trail, except for a lone photographer snapping photos of the sun hitting the west cliffs.  The lake was so beautiful.  We then hiked up and down the west cliff trail.

 

Playing with Wood

Between hikes, I’ve been making progress with the firewood pile.  I identified several fallen trees in my woods to cut up.  Because I live on a hill, the rounds get thrown down the hill, loaded into my truck and taken to the processing area.  Here, the wood is hand split with a maul and then stacked.
This year’s wood is stacked on pallets in my pole barn (5 full cords).  Next year’s wood is off to the left in the photo.  I need to get to work on the spaces on the right.  Split hardwood benefits from two or three years of aging in stacks to get the moisture levels down below 20%, which is optimal for wood stoves.  Typically, I heat with wood full time from October to April.  The furnace only goes on if we’re out of town overnight.

Changing of the Seasons

Summer came to a rapid close in south-central Wisconsin.  We literally moved from air conditioning season to heating season.  I’ve been building at least one fire each day to take the chill off since arriving back at home.

I’ve moved back into my Wisconsin routine.  I try to hike at least five miles each day.  Hunting season is rapidly approaching, so I’m taking advantage of the window and hiking all of the nearby Ice Age segments.

Closer to home, the deer are starting to move–nearly to our back door.

Brewedjourney.com

There will be some changes to Brewed Journey.  The introductory rate for my web hosting service is ending in February. Because this is clearly a hobby blog for personal enjoyment, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to pay a significantly higher rate.   The plan is to move the blog over to Blogger (free).  It should be a tedious but seamless move for the old posts. The layout will necessarily change, but I don’t think it will be for the worse. I look forward to trying something new.

Running for the (Wisconsin) Border

Just when I started enjoying the weather, things took a turn for the worse.  You may recall me basking in the 70’s in southern Illinois.  That didn’t last long.  Callie and I enjoyed an overnight stay at Beaver Dam State Park and then headed north to Springfield.

My first thought in staying at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield was that we were going to chart a path home through the best campgrounds that central Illinois and northern Illinois had to offer.  To be honest, nothing was exciting me.  We spent some time walking around Springfield, which hangs its tourism hat on Abe Lincoln.  I drank a new beer, Stag, which tastes a lot like Pabst.  That’s not a bad thing on a hot day for $1.50 at a bar.

Then the reality of being only five hours from home, and the weather abruptly changing to freeze warnings, lead to the decision to cut the trip short and head home.  On the day that I arrived back to Wisconsin, there were freeze warnings.  That afternoon, we winterized the Brew Hut and called it the end of the 2019 season.

It seems strange going from sweltering to freezing in such a short time.  But there it is…

Future Plans

What’s next?  I’ll be home for awhile.  The firewood for this next season is ready, but the firewood for the season after that needs to be harvested and processed.  The (adult)  kids will be coming home in coming weekends, and then there will be a big gathering here for Thanksgiving.

As far as the Brew Hut goes, the old Scamp trailer will hibernate for the winter.  We’ve taken her west, south and east now. Which trip did I like best?  West, south and then east.  All of the trips were good ones, but the free camping out west and the dryer climate fits my camping style better.  There were also fewer mosquitoes.

At this point in time, I’m not sure where the next trip will take us, but I’ll have a long winter to figure that out.

Shawnee National Forest: Oak Point Campground

The weather finally broke for me.  Nearly perfect temperatures in the 70’s during the day and 50’s at night.  I settled in for a couple of days at the Oak Point Campground, which I used as a base to explore other areas and for its own sake.

The campground sites were well-spaced.  The cost was $20/night including electric, dump station, on-site water, and no artificial light at night.  There is a trail leading around Glendale Lake, which Callie and I both enjoyed.  Hot showers were available, and firewood was cheap.

I’ve always been hard on Illinois.  Part of it goes back to the Packers-Bears rivalry, which interests me much less than it did at one time.  Part of it is the ugliness of the Illinois interstates and much of the Chicago area.  After spending a couple of days in the Shawnee National Forest, I began to really enjoy myself and the terrain.  It wouldn’t be the worst place to live—Southern Illinois.

People may not know that orange trees grow here, kinda sorta.  This is the only place where I’ve seen Osage oranges–also known as the hedge apple.

These fruits are literally as big as softballs.  Osage oranges are not fit for human consumption, although they aren’t really poisonous either.

Fortunately, they grow on short thorny trees that don’t grow above trailers like hickory trees do.  The firewood is incredibly full of BTU’s–even more than oak or hickory.  Great for wood stoves, if you could split the wood.

Besides reforming my views about Illinois, I’ve always been working to reform my diet.  Julia has gone all in on eating almost entirely vegetables with very little red meat.  I haven’t gone that far, but I am limiting my red meat intake by eating smaller portions and less often.

Here’s my take on a healthier diet:

You’ll notice that the vegetables outnumber the small steak, and some of the vegetables have green elements.  Specifically, the jalepeno peppers.  The rest is onion and potato.  This reformed diet thing is a work in progress.