The Corona Diaries Vol. 22: Yet Another Mediocre Muskrat Photo

I knew that the housing market here in Madison was going crazy after hearing tales of buyers paying $20,000 over asking and waiving inspections. But I read this recently:

Thompson said one of the most extreme measures he’s seen a home buyer take recently was a case in Deforest where people paid close to $400,000 over the asking price without ever entering the home.

Contingencies are also being waved and buyers need to submit a bid within hours of touring a house for any hope of it being considered. I now feel very lucky that we got away with our home purchase being contingent simply upon the owner upgrading the electric service from 60 to 100 amps. We'd be laughed out of town for that kind of thing now. That and offering only about $12,000 over asking price.

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We have the HBO Max streaming service and, although I don't watch a whole lot of it, I am happy that it has Looney Toons Tunes. When the Frau first subscribed to the service and saw them listed, she immediately watched "One Froggy Evening". That's the one where the frog sings "Hello! Ma Baby". I hadn't seen it in ages. A classic.

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Recently, I was cruising around the east side and made a detour over to Roselawn Memorial Park in neighboring Monona. To the best of my knowledge there is no one of any renown buried there. Wikipedia tells me that the closest thing to a famous person that Monona has produced is professional golfer Andy North who grew up there.

What it does have, though, is the Roselawn Tower of Memories which is visible from the street.

It's something I've seen while cruising by in my car before and always said to myself, "I wonder what that tower thingy is…" So, I decided to finally go check it out.

It provides a nice contrast to the ugly malls across the street to the south. Across the street to the north, however, is the Edna Taylor Conservation Park and I hiked around it for the first time after checking out the tower.

Edna Taylor was a farmer who sold a bunch of her land to the city of Madison for use as a park. Mainly the wetlands that she preserved which give us an idea of what the Madison area was like before European settlers arrived and started turning the land into fields for farming and, later, a city. It ain't called the Four Lakes region for nothing. There is a series of Native America effigy mounds somewhere in the park but I didn't see any signs indicating where they were on my hike. But I did see a lot of lovely scenery and many animals.

I encountered maybe 8 or so other folks walking the trails and 2 or 3 of them were wearing headphones and just walked right past me without acknowledging a fellow hiker. It was odd and sad. Why shut the bird calls out and distract yourself by listening to something instead of being attentive to the lovely natural surroundings?

People are strange.

While all of the ponds were full of life, one was particularly full. Downy feathers were scattered along the path so I was unsurprised to see two families of Canada geese taking a leisurely swim. The goslings were almost all grown up.

A muskrat was busy swimming around doing whatever it is that muskrats do. I've only ever seen a pair once and wonder if Ms. Muskrat is simply at home or if I usually see bachelors.

One of these days I will get a decent muskrat photo but this was the best I could do that day.

For reasons I do not understand, the pond on the other side of trail had more birds and I could hear frogs hidden in the tall grass on its shore croaking whereas the pond with the muskrat was much quieter. My gaze caught some red winged blackbirds that were fighting so I turned to see who would prove victorious as well as to listen to the frogs. When I turned back, I discovered this bird doing a bit of wading.

I think this is a Great Blue Heron.

While I could have spent hours just hanging out by the ponds watching and listening to all of the animals going about their day, I moved onwards.

It was really pretty and reminded me that I needed to buy a book on identifying the trees of Wisconsin. The second I thought of that, I chuckled thinking about that Monty Python sketch "How to Recognise Different Types of Trees From Quite a Long Way Away".

No. 1 – The Larch.

At one point I was walking a section of the trail which was at the base of a hill. I looked up and saw a couple deer having breakfast.

They didn't seem to mind the human. Although they saw me, they kept on eating. Perhaps I was downwind of them. I watched them for a few minutes and, as I was doing so, a guy comes walking towards me. Wearing earphones. He never looked at me or up the hill at the deer. He just kept looking and walking straight ahead oblivious to everything. Very odd.

I kept wandering and eventually got lost. When I ran into signs for the Aldo Leopold Nature Center, which is next door, I at least knew I was on the west side of Edna Taylor. And, since I am writing this, I did not die out in the wilderness.

I've never hiked the 40 acres around the Leopold Center so that's on the list now.

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For this entry's bonus photo we have Grabby looking mighty fluffy and cute as she cleans herself.