(Watch the prelude.)
(mid-June 2023)
My next destination was Dells Mill, just north of Augusta, a town that I think I visited once or twice in high school but I may be wrong. Truth be known, I don't have any memories of doing so but it's likely I went there for a basketball or football game.
Built in 1864 amongst the dells of Bridge Creek which was dammed to create a pond, the mill ground out flour and feed for over 100 years before it went out of operation in 1968. At least that’s what I gleaned from the historic marker.
Today, the water wheel still turns and it’s a true blast from the past. For a moment, I felt like I was in an old western movie and was expecting Clint Eastwood to ride up on his horse, hitch it to a post, and wander inside where Sondra Locke is hard at work baking biscuits with flour fresh off the millstone.
I didn’t think the wheel was actually attached to a screw or a cog or whatever it is that would transfer that motion to the grinding gizmo. Regardless, it’s hypnotic to stand atop the bridge over the creek and listen to the rush of the water as it falls over the dam and to watch the wheel spin.
Stepping inside the mill, I found a dimly lit antique shop. There were old saws, glassware, clothing, and this fine organ as well.
It looks to have the sheet music for the hit parade of 1925. Never heard of Wilmot Lemont nor Kathleen Lockhart Manning.
There is a gift store at the mill and behind the counter was an Amish girl who looked to be in her tween years. Not surprising as this is Amish country. All of the horse poop that litters the roads is a dead giveaway. While the cash register was strictly mechanical, I wondered how they got away with a smattering of electric lights. Is it OK if someone else turns them on and off?
I rethought my assumptions about the whether the mill is still milling when I saw all of the flour and homemade breads on offer. I bought a small loaf of einkorn bread, einkorn being an heirloom variety of wheat that, to the best of my knowledge, has not been tinkered with at the hands of Monsanto and so it’s more or less the same grain that my ancestors ate back in the day.
I also bought a bag of rolled rye thinking it’d be a good addition to my future loaves of bread. Only $1 a pound.
An Amish gentleman who looked to be in his mid- or late-30s - the girl's father, perhaps? - stopped in the gift shop as I was eyeing the shelves. We chatted a bit and he said that he'd heard that rain was in the forecast. Can the Amish read a newspaper and still remain doctrinally pure? Surely he didn't have the Weather Channel on in the back room. Maybe he cheated on the whole avoidance of technology thing with an old Philco tube radio. Yeah, it's electric but is pre-transistor.
During its heyday, the mill was a big draw and a community sprung up around it. There are newer homes in the area today but the old schoolhouse remains.
It seems to be used for storage these days.
I am not sure when it fell out of use as a school. It got updated with electric lights at some point. Still, heat appears to always have been provided by a wood-burning stove.
With a car full of uncommon or obscure grains, I took off for Osseo. Driving through the town of Augusta itself, I found the main drag was, as expected, very quiet. Perhaps it was the time of day but I suspect that most people do their shopping and take care of other errands in Eau Claire. I was disappointed to not find even a single ghost signs on any of the old buildings. The main street didn't look bad, just a bit lifeless. I suppose not being on the interstate means you don't get a bunch of tourists on the hunt for antiques. I did notice, however, that there is a Bush's Best baked bean factory in town.
My accommodations in Osseo were cheap but they did the job. The Osseo Inn is listed as a 1 star hotel on Google though it was probably at least one more star in quality back in the day when it opened for all of those motorists using the fancy, new interstate highway. Despite being a non-smoking establishment, the rooms still betray the bad old days when smoking was still legal in public accommodations.
Since you cannot light up inside your room, those who indulge gather outside. I've never talked to any of my fellow guests but the people I see out there with a ciggie perched between two fingers usually have a weary look on their faces. A couple of smokers appeared genuinely forlorn. I mean real "why hast thou forsaken me?" kind of looks, their ever-shortening cigarettes their only friends.
Are they traveling to the Twin Cities? Or to somewhere in Wisconsin? Perhaps some of them have just gotten out of prison or simply fallen on hard times and are looking for somewhere better. Maybe I just catch them in a pensive mood and they're really just a bunch of cheapskates like me.
A shower and a little downtime later, I met my pal Jason at the Northwoods Brewpub where we had a ball chatting away into the night. He'd brought our high school yearbooks and I was not surprised at how many people I couldn't recall. Jason went home with a few cans of Nutkrack candied pecans.
The next morning, I made a stop to get some insect repellent. While at the Augusta Wildlife Area, I got 2 ticks on my right leg within 10 minutes and I quickly came to the conclusion that the picaridin in the spray I had brought with me was just not cutting the mustard. I needed deet.
Despite tales of it being a carcinogen and only truly needed by our servicemen and women fighting in jungles far removed from the Upper Midwest, deet is, as far as I know quite safe, in addition to being the gold standard in insect repelling. Poking around the shelf at the store, I saw various cans of repellent. More picaridin. No thanks. I did find a few that were 25% or so deet. Nuh uh. Not good enough. I then spied a rather small bottle. 98.25% deet – now that was more like it! This was not an aerosol can where you just spray the stuff willy-nilly. No, it dispensed the Precious in small doses and you rubbed it on the areas needing attention. A little goes a long way.
My next destination was my favorite hiking spot, the Chippewa Moraine Recreation Area.
I believe I took the “correct” route and went down the path deosil.
The scenery was, as always, just spectacular. It wasn’t too hot out and, besides, I was walking mainly in the woods where it was shaded and cool. And my deet kept the skeeters at bay.
As I approached my favorite bridge on the longest trail:
I heard a woodpecker from across the water but couldn’t see it. Slowly I approached the bridge intending to get a wee bit closer before using my camera to search for it.
My first step lands with a gentle thud on the bridge and I see it take off just to my left where it was pecking on the dry part of a half-submerged log at the shore not 10 feet away. Oops. I guess I need to work on my hearing.
Since I love this spot so much, I sat down on the bench on the other side to take in my surroundings. Much to my surprise, a blue jay landed in the pine tree just across the path from me. I snapped photo after photo but this was the best I could manage.
This photo captured something at just the right angle because it looks like the blue jay has glowing Uncle Boonmee eyes. Lovely bird. But they’re mean SOB’s.
Further down the trail at another bridge, I spied a bird of unknown type that looked like it was in the middle of building a nest as it had a mouthful of dried grass.
As usual, there were many signs of the local beaver population.
I hope to someday witness a beaver actually fell a tree instead of just seeing the results of their nomming.
At some point I ran across this thing:
Part of me suspected there was some banal explanation behind this yellow blob such as that some kid left their Peeps candy on the log while another part of me suspected this was how Invasion of the Body Snatchers really got started.
Having finished my hike, I stopped at the interpretive center. Not only does it have a wonderful view as it’s perched atop a moraine, but there is an array of hummingbird feeders that draws a crowd which makes me insanely jealous as my feeder seems to repel them.
The hum from all of those wings flapping at 50 flaps per second or however fast they go was very loud and just slightly disconcerting. It kind of made me feel like something ominous was approaching. But hummingbirds are gorgeous and it’s fun to watch them dart around from feeder to feeder.
As usual, it was a wonderful hike. There is just something about this place that makes it seem like time stops when I'm out on the trail, makes it so easy to leave the workaday world behind and ignore the cities raging afar. No snakes seen on this walk but more birds. I briefly contemplated walking the two shorter trails instead of the longer one but opted not to. Perhaps next time.
Now, I won’t lie and say that a 4.5 mile hike through some of the most beautiful scenery Wisconsin has to offer is work. It was a sheer joy. But it did make me thirsty.
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Bonus photo. Here’s one from spring of Ma and Pa Wood Duck hanging out in a tree on Madison’s east side.
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