21 November, 2023

The Corona Diaries Vol. 98: Driftless Escape

(mid-July 2023)

(Listen to the prelude.)

We have a neighbor with a cherry tree in her front yard. She looks to have a bumper crop this year. 

I wouldn’t have thought so considering how dry it has been. Whatever the case, those fruits look mighty fine. 


Soon a couple guys with a pickup and some scaffolding will be over to spend the day picking cherries. I have never asked what they do with all of them. Sell them fresh? Make enough jam to feed an army?

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This year we’ve had mallards aplenty in our backyard. Maybe it’s the same pair, who knows. Perhaps ducks have frequented our place in years past and I simply cannot recall them doing so. I guess I am getting old.

Anyway, I’ve seen a pair or pairs of mallards wandering the grass several times this summer. The usual way of things is that the hen grabs a snack underneath our bird feeder as the drake looks on. My theory is that the house sparrows eat just the sunflower seeds and so they spill the rest on the ground. [Insert Onan joke here.] I suspect that our feeder is much mellower than ones at a house a few blocks down on Starkweather Drive - across the street from the identically named creek. The feeders in that yard are mobbed by mallards all summer long. One time I was biking past them when the ducks decided to head back to the creek. It was like a scene from The Birds! Wave after wave of ducks flew in front of me, behind me, just above my head - so I was huddling down, swerving to avoid them, and pedaling for my life.

Anyway, when lunch is over for our waterfowl friends, they relax out in the grass before moving on, presumably to the lake or Starkweather Creek.

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A couple weeks ago I pulled up a map of Dane County parks and decided that Morton Forest sounded like a fine place to go for a hike. It is west of Madison in an area that I had never wandered previously. I’ve been to the nearby towns before but never out into the lush wooded countryside. Being in the western part of the county, Morton Forest is in the Driftless Area. No ice during the last ice age means picturesque hills and ridges as far as the eye can see.

The park was formerly a farm that was purchased in the early 1950s by a UW professor named Walter Morton and his wife, Rosalie. The property eventually passed to their son, Stephen, who would go on to donate it to Dane County saying, “I donated my land to Dane County Parks because I felt, given our expanding population, it was important to protect open space and create quiet places of solitude for people to visit as an escape from their more crowded urban environment.”

Amen.

The site opened to the public rather recently – in 2016.

There is a small parking lot across the road from a cabin which is the interpretive center. The cabin and the trailheads are nestled in the trees at, I would learn, the base of a limestone bluff.

What a lovely, bucolic scene! Just gorgeous. And I was alone too. There was a fellow sitting in his car in the parking lot but he was gazing intently at his phone rather than the beautiful scenery. He was staring at the screen when I parked and went into the restroom. (There's a covered pit toilet at the lot.) And he was staring at it when I came out.

The old windmill still stands, though it’s surrounded by trees these days.

None of the trails are particularly long – I think there’s only about 2 miles in total - so I resolved to walk them all. There are 3 scenic overlooks on the property and I randomly picked one to check out and hit the trail.

Not far from the trailhead I was presented with this lovely scene. It was still fairly early so the temperature was still moderate but the sun was out to cast a glow on everything and provide good light for my photographs. The air smelled great too. That verdant, planty smell. I love walking through the woods, being surrounded by trees.

The trails may have been fairly short, but they were wonderful. They snaked through woods and took you around fields, up hills, down hills, to the edge of bluffs, and so on. A really nice variety of terrain.

After a while and an uphill climb that left me a bit winded, I reached the top of a bluff and was at my first scenic overlook. A bench was provided.

Here’s the view:

I took a seat, caught my breath, and just spent some time taking in the scene. Then it was down the hill to find my way back to the cabin where I would catch another trail that would take me to the next overlook.

On the way back, there was a stretch where the smell changed dramatically. There was a creek off in the woods to my left with the road off to my right beyond some dense trees and brush.

The air went from that green smell to something slightly sweet that reminded me of Honeycomb breakfast cereal. Very strange.

I got to the other trailhead and began to ascend the bluff behind the cabin. The path took me through a small stand of pine trees so the air’s scent changed again to that wonderful sharp, evergreen smell. I love me some terpenes.

Eventually I reached the top and the next overlook.

This one was closer to the edge of the bluff than the first.

A path led away from the safety of the bench. If you’re not good with heights like me, then any distance above the ground that exceeds your height is just too damn high. Now, I went out close to the edge and looked around and even down but I was scared the whole time. I grant you, you’re not that far up here, I mean, we're not talking the Grand Canyon, but still…

I took a seat and soon found myself being accosted by a bird. Apparently I was intruding on someone’s territory. It would scream at me and then take off from a tree, fly menacingly at me, and then turn away at just the last second to land on another tree. Repeat. I discovered what looked to be an early bird as it had what appears to have been a worm in its mouth.

Get it? Early bird? Worm?

Anyway, it was a robin.

I figured that I had pissed off my avian friend enough so I returned to the trail and headed for the final overlook.

As I walking at one point, I heard a strange noise that sounded like it emanated from a large and very dangerous bird. It seemed to come from way high up in the canopy and was like a buzzsaw. The strange, almost mechanical, birdcall gave my larynx the creeps. If any human who was not a trained throat singer from Mongolia were to attempt to make that sound, permanent damage would no doubt result.

So, there I am walking along the trail looking upwards trying to find the source of this weird sound when I come to a small clearing in the woods. Suddenly I catch some movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn and see a deer and its white tail bounding away from me as fast as it can. Drats! If I’d only been looking in front of me instead of up, I might have been able to get a nice photo of it. Oh well.

I reached the final overlook.

The first trail I had walked was beneath me and I heard some voices coming from below. They were the first sign of anyone else since that guy glued to his phone in the parking lot.

After some more quiet contemplation, I headed back to the cabin.

It was mid-morning? Late morning? Whenever, it had gotten noticeably hotter out. I had coffee for the drive over but now needed something else to rehydrate. It was off to Black Earth for some refreshment.

Honestly, I fell in love with Morton Forest right after stepping out of my car. The area by the cabin with the trailheads is just so wonderful. I love how it sits at the bottom of a bluff and is tucked in by the woods, more or less, on all sides. The trails had a snug feel to them as there were usually trees right at the edge with their branches above providing shade. Simply gorgeous and it is now my new favorite park in the lower half of Wisconsin.

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Bonus photo. Piper is a shy cat and hates going to the vet. Well, she had an appointment recently and, as she always does, she attempted to hide behind the laptop. It was not an adequate hiding spot, much to her chagrin. Poor Piper.

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