Abandon all phones ye who enter here

A few weeks back The Capital Times published an article on Lake View Elementary School here in Madison and all the outdoor education opportunies it offers.

A series of ropes tied together make a “spider web” that students can lie down on; a “music garden” with a variety of noise-making tools allows students to create their own rhythms and beats; a jumble of tree stumps and logs create a “ninja course” for students to hop across; and a “construction zone” once filled with sticks and branches for students to play with is now a towering tree fort.

These spots make up Lake View’s nature stations, which are part of the north side Madison school’s outdoor education programming. With the help of volunteers and grant funding, Lake View’s five-acre campus has transformed over the last decade into a collection of vibrant outdoor learning spaces.

I think it's absolutely wonderful that kids have so many opportunities to spend time in non-man-made environments and to explore some of the things nature has to offer. (Plus the kids get away from f*cking computer screens.) It only seems right in a town with such strong ties to Aldo Leopold.

The school's principal, Nkaujnou Vang-Vue, was recently named the 2026 Administrator of the Year by the Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education for her promotion of environmental education. Congratulations, Ms. Vang-Vue!

Not long after running across this article, I learned of a study published back in 2012 which looked at the illustrations in Caldecott Medal winning books from 1938 through 2008. The Caldescott is awarded for to the "most distinguished American picture book for children". The study found that illustrations of non-man-made environments have decreased over the years.

Researchers looked at whether images depicted a natural environment such as a jungle or a forest; a built environment such as a house, a school or an office; or something in-between, such as a mowed lawn. They also noted whether any animals were in the pictures – and if so, if those creatures were wild, domesticated or took on human qualities.

Their results, Williams said, visibly exhibited a steady decline in illustrations of natural environments and animals, as well as humans’ interactions with both. Meanwhile, images of built environments became much more common.

...

“This does not mean, of course, that environmentalism is not an important part of American culture, but it does suggest that the current generation of young children listening to the stories and looking at the images in children’s books are not being socialized, at least through this source, toward greater understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place of humans within it,” the authors wrote.

It's good to see that we have places like Lake View Elementary and the Aldo Leopold Nature Center to help foster an appreciation for the natural world in the youth of today - and tomorrow too.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 112: My timing was off

(late September 2023)

(Watch the prelude.)

With plans for an autumn trip to London once again put on hold due to my Frau's medical issues, I turned to my old standby and devised a trek up north for some hiking. While I would return to my beloved Chippewa Moraine Nature State Recreation Area and its majestic kettle lakes, I began the trip with a visit to Beaver Creek Reserve up by Eau Claire.

Beaver Creek Reserve is a camp that provides environmental education for area youth along with hiking trails for those of us that have graduated to adulthood. It’s a bit like the Aldo Leopold Nature Center here in the Madison area but set out in the countryside of west central Wisconsin, some 15 miles east of Eau Claire.

I had timed my trip in the hope that the trees would be well along in their annual change in color but I was a bit early. On trips up north in the earlier part of September it seemed that the fall colors had only begun to appear. And then a visit in the latter half of October proved to have been very much on the downswing of the change. I figured a trek right in the middle would have been perfect but Mother Nature (and perhaps global climate change) had other plans.

And so, while the trees remained mostly green, it was only just. There was still a fair amount of autumnal hues to be had, thankfully.

I had randomly pulled into the northern part of the reserve and found a school bus from Osseo and a bunch of gaggle of kids who looked to be 5th or 6th graders. I did my level best to avoid them. Finding the nearest trailhead, I happily set my course away from the screaming schoolchildren. They seemed to be having fun so more power to them. For my part, though, I simply wanted some quiet, in addition to the great scenery.

I eventually found myself walking along a creek that I think is Deinhammer Creek. Presumably Beaver Creek was to be found elsewhere on the property.

It was overcast but mild and so I didn’t complain too much when forced to walk through the creek in order to get to a set of stairs set on the hillside.

The lovely scenery continued.

After a while I came to a sign indicating that I was leaving Beaver Creek Reserve and was headed towards Big Falls, an Eau Claire County park. Before long I caught sight of the Eau Claire River.

It was just a few minutes before I heard a faint rumble in front of me. With every step the roar of what I presumed to be Big Falls grew louder until I was standing next to it.

Not the biggest of falls, I agree, but it was pretty and those rapids would surely capsize any canoe I was in.

The rather large outcrops of stone that I walked on were littered with smaller rocks.

I have tried to lookup what type of rock this is but have failed. One site said that the rocks at Big Falls are “Precambrian amphibolite gneisses and schists” but, when I look up “gneisses” and “schists”, I see pictures that don’t resemble mine. On the other hand, Precambrian means old. And I’m not talking Joe Biden old. These rocks were formed many millions of years ago, if not billions. Brazil and Nigeria may still have been part of the same land mass. Strange plants were providing shade for the first animals ever on Earth – our (extremely) distant cousins.

It boggles the mind to contemplate something that ancient.

After taking in Big Falls for a while, I headed back the way I came.

Back at the trailhead, I walked around Hobbs Observatory.

Someday, or some night, rather, I will have to return and check out the observatory. It houses 2 telescopes: a 24-inch Newtonian reflector telescope and a Meade LX200 14-inch Schmidt Cassegrain. With much less light pollution than down here in Madison, there must be some fine star gazing there, telescope or not.

I am reminded of the final night I spent at my dad’s house before moving down to Madison to start college. A friend came over and he and I spent the night with my father throwing back a few adult beverages on the patio and shooting the bull. The sky was marvelous. Being out in the country meant exponentially more stars were visible to us than in a city. Plus there was a full moon, or nearly so. To top things off, the Milky Way was out as well. It was as if the night sky was bidding me a fond farewell as I prepared to plunge headlong into adulthood. Or at least into life as a college student which, I suppose, is not exactly adulthood.

After wandering around the observatory, I drove across the road to the southern part of the reserve and found myself before the Wise Nature Center. Stepping inside, I was confronted by a life-sized diorama of a tree and its various animal friends.

The nature center proved to be really neat with the learning area having various exhibits dedicated to both flora and fauna.

Eau Claire means “clear water” in French and the area was home to many a French fur trader back in the day. And so it is only fitting to have a display of various animal pelts.

We generally think of skunks as being nasty, stinky critters and raccoons to be annoyances that try to rifle through our garbage. But, take it from me, they have some very soft fur.

And being the Badger State, there had to be one of them on display.

This one’s open mouth could be interpreted as a friendly grin but that would belie what vicious little bastards they are. Those claws are more representative of the badger’s demeanor. I have only ever run into our state animal once and I hope to never again. We got hissed at, were given threatening looks, and otherwise was told our presence was not wanted.

There were a few live animals to be found including this turtle who looked like he could use a bigger home.

If memory serves, there was a sign saying that new digs were in the works.

Another exhibit taught visitors how to identify the signs left behind by animals on their excursions – by both prints and poop!

For instance, here’s how to ID the signs raccoons leave (from their) behind(s). Get it?

This one for beavers gave me visions of a Caddyshack-like experience the next time I find myself in a creek or river.

Sadly, not all environmental education involves fun as you learn about various critters and plants, as this display on endangered species showed.

It was disheartening to see one so close to home in Dane County.

With my hike being done, it was back to Osseo for a shower and some muscle relaxant at the Northwoods Brewpub. Always one to drink seasonally, I ordered an Oktoberfest.

It wasn’t great, let’s say that. The body was a bit thin and there were some stray phenols that gave it a hefeweizen taste. The follow-up, a brown ale, was much better.

I got back to my hotel room only to receive word that my youngest stepson’s father had been diagnosed with some form of blood cancer. A lousy way to end an otherwise wonderful day. I felt terribly for them both. Earlier in the month the kid's girlfriend had broken up with him and he'd been unceremoniously kicked out of their apartment in Eau Claire. On my way home I was to stop by there and grab as much of his stuff as my car could fit. I texted him saying that I was sorry to hear the news and that I loved him.

Wanting to change my now sullen mood, I picked up the book that I had been reading, Death in Fine Condition by Andrew Cartmel. I adored his Vinyl Detective series which chronicles the adventures of the titular hero, a vinyl record afficionado. For The Vinyl Detective, Cartmel took Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op, de-hard-boiled him, and then threw him into Agatha Christie-like ensemble situations. We never learn his name.

In each book, he and his ladyfriend, Nevada, are tasked with finding an extremely rare record and all sorts of intrigue and mayhem ensue. Here, the heroine is Cordelia, an impecunious lover and collector of paperbacks. She is usually late on paying her rent but strangely timely when it comes to procuring marijuana. One day at her dealer's home, Cordelia notices a photo on the wall of a couple people posing next to a bookcase filled with what appears to be a complete set of Sleuth Hound paperbacks.

She seeks out the books and purloins them only to discover that their owner is a fellow named Colin Cutterham who happens to be the leader of the local chapter of organized crime. Peril ensues.

While Cordelia is entertaining and certainly a very capable stoner, there's just something missing, something to really endear her to me that just isn't here. I think that a big part of this is that, while The Vinyl Detective would have fun conversations with a cast of goofy people, Cordelia's chats are more serious. Or, if not serious, just more banal. And Cartmel overcompensates for this by making a fair amount of Cordelia's internal monologues overwrought with metaphor and clever allusions.

Death in Fine Condition is still a fun read, but it lacks the magic of The Vinyl Detective novels for me.

********

Bonus photo. Here’s Grabby at her first vet visit after we adopted her.

 

 

(Now listen to the postlude.)

Out for a Stroll in the Snow

I took a lovely walk out at the Aldo Leopold Nature Center this morning as a light snow fell. Just perfect weather for a stroll.

The 43rd Parallel

Newsfeed I

    I’m really terrified that more Ukrainians will die and that my childhood home and my parents’ home will be destroyed and I'll never be able to go back there.

WARMING OCEANS ARE GETTING LOUDER 

    Family says 11-year-old girl shot in head in Madison will be taken off life support

     the civil war has left more than five million people needing food aid, yet none has been delivered to Tigray since mid-December.

    this problem is more serious than The Power of the Dog itself, although it is inseparable from the offense of Campion’s misandrist, blasphemous anti-Western. Elliott’s unvarnished criticism (“piece of shit”) addressed the moral and credibility crisis evident in most contemporary films.

GUN-TOTING SPRING BREAKERS HIT STREETS

WINTER WOODWORKER TURNS OUT HUNDREDS OF ITEMS

    Quebec Maple Syrup Producers recently announced it was releasing about 50 million pounds of its strategic maple syrup reserves

 

 The Camera Eye (1)

    spring rains falling on the leaves that were never raked   and the drops drip on the window ledge because the gutter is not flush   without a TV it is quiet so I listen to the cats purr

    he once told me that he never wanted kids he died

    in a parking lot
    his sons over a thousand miles away
    alone

    a scarred hand lay carelessly on the sidewalk   lifeless it couldn't dial the phone for help  so he died there a body propped against the fence   found too late   cruel to die like his father   a scarred hand lay carelessly on the sidewalk

 

Aldo Leopold

    Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them, wrote Aldo Leopold. Now we face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.

    Leopold was born on January 11, 1887 in Burlington, Iowa. As a boy, his father would take him into the woods and teach him hunting. Leopold spent many hours during his boyhood outside. He climbed bluffs, wandered the woods, and sketched the birds he observed on his treks. A new forestry school at Yale lured the young Leopold out east and he graduated in 1909.

    After college he joined the U.S. Forestry Service and was assigned Arizona and New Mexico as his territories. In 1911 he became the supervisor for the Carson National Forest in New Mexico. Before leaving the southwest in 1924, Leopold had written the Forest Service's first game and fish handbook and helped to develop the proposal to manage the Gila National Forest as a wilderness area. It would become the country’s first official wilderness area in 1924.

    In 1924, Leopold pulled up stakes and headed to Madison, Wisconsin where he had accepted a position at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory. Nine years later he published the first textbook in the field of wildlife management. Later that year, he was appointed to a new chair position - Professor of Game Management in the Agricultural Economics - the first, not only for the University of Wisconsin, but for the nation.

    In 1935, he and his family started spending time on a dilapidated farm along the Wisconsin River outside of Baraboo, some 50 miles north of Madison. The Leopold family planted thousands of pine trees and restored prairies. Documenting the ensuing changes in the flora and fauna further informed and inspired Leopold.

    He wrote about the changes at the farm looking to publish a book intended for a general audience. Unfortunately, just one week after receiving word that his manuscript would be published, Leopold died of a heart attack on April 21, 1948. 

 

Your Humble Narrator 

I love the springtime. Well, mostly.

The green is coming, warmer days are drawing near. It was a week or two ago when I was roused by robins just before dawn and heard the newly-arrived birds for the first time this year. Shortly after that I saw my first red-winged blackbird of the year. Unfortunately, I was driving so I didn't hear its stentorian cry. As stentorian a cry as a small creature weighing only a few ounces can muster, I mean.

While those male red-winged blackbirds are out looking for mates and a comfy nest near the water, out in the wooded areas, does are preparing to give birth later in the spring. Trees give serious consideration to budding and the grass contemplates growing while I dread pulling out the mower from its home in the shed to begin that weekly routine. Our cats are a little friskier now and Grabby is once again trying to sneak outside.

There's electricity in the air as we boreal types look forward to verdant scenes and shorts weather and, in general, getting out and about without donning heavy coats and masks and to cease cowering from Covid.

 

 ("Bicycle Mirror" by Doug E.L. Haynes)

It's been about 2 years since the pandemic began and with mask mandates ending, things are looking more and more like they did before March 2020. My spring is shaping up to be a busy one with a camping trip, several concerts, and many hours set to be spent at a cinema during the Wisconsin Film Festival on the calendar. Plus there will (hopefully) be much time spent on my bicycle cruising around the city and country alike.

Lately, however, I've been thinking back upon the past couple years and trying to tease out some lessons, to understand the changes wrought during that time. I'm a terrible prognosticator and haven't come up with any insightful thoughts about how history will view the The Great Pandemic.

In large part, my reflections have led to me feeling very fortunate. To the best of my knowledge, I never caught the virus and only a few people I know did. They felt like they were shot at and missed and shit at and hit for about a week and then they got better. Since I earn my keep by making computers bend to my will, I was able to work from home as the virus spread. I am very cognizant of the fact that many people didn't have that luxury. A little more came out of my pocket for the beleaguered food service workers each time we did takeout. Even without a pandemic ongoing, I am a fairly patient person but I tapped my equanimity reserves on occasion and never lashed out at anyone who earned a living in the service industry. Those people put themselves at greater risk of Covid exposure, dealt with a lot of assholes as they tried to get customers to wear masks, and struggled often times with product and staffing shortages. Oh, but how quickly they went from "essential workers" and "heroes" deserving of our eternal gratitude to lowly, unskilled labor for whom a living wage was unbefitting.

Since I was to be working from home, I got in the habit of taking morning walks down to Starkweather Creek. With the lockdown in place, Madison was quiet. At first it was a bit eerie - as if I were in an episode of The Twilight Zone - but it quickly became quite beautiful. Without streets full of cars, the city became a very different acoustical landscape. The sounds of birds became clearer with the rusty screeches of distant grackles joining the boastful mating cries of red-winged blackbirds in a wonderful avian chorus. The gentle footfalls of squirrels that would have previously been drowned out in the morning rush could now faintly be heard.

As the weather warmed, I decided to finally get that bicycle that had been given to me a couple years previously tuned up and ready for riding. I rode all the time as a young boy up through high school. After college I bought a bicycle and began riding once again. A career change led to a car and, a few years later, a job change led to taking the bus. Then, in 2019, inspired by a friend who loved to perambulate, I started to take long walks. Along comes Covid and I start biking again.

Part of adjusting to working from home was to get away from there, to remove myself from a seat in front of a computer. Having done my 8 hours, I would often hop on my bike and zip over to a park, with Acewood being a favorite. It was incredibly relaxing to sit on the shore amongst the birds with their chirping a mellifluous soundtrack as I watched a turtle go under the water and tried to find where it had resurfaced. Or to wait patiently for a muskrat to swim by. Cranes waded near the opposite shore as mallards lazily floated between wedges of geese preening themselves. What a joy it was to watch the animals go about their day and forget about the pandemic and computers.

Madison spends a lot of time promoting itself as a small city that's big on urban amenities with a cosmopolitan outlook befitting much larger cities. It devotes much less energy to bragging about its park system which is wonderful. Not only are there neighborhood parks everywhere that are grassy expanses dotted with playgrounds and basketball courts, but also parks that are natural retreats with only trails that wend through tall grasses and wooded areas. And I enjoyed the peace and solitude afforded by many of them as Covid raged in the distance.

I read Thoreau's Walden and A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. This wasn't a back to the country moment c.1970. I didn't move to a rural area and become a subsistence farmer. But, with society in lockdown, I availed myself of the opportunity to get to know the non-man-made Madison more intimately. Doing so has helped me see it as a community to which we belong and that it deserves our love and respect.

And so I am looking forward to the progression of spring so I can get out and enjoy the myriad of parks in Madison and also head out into the neighboring countryside on my bicycle. But the spring also holds the anniversaries of the deaths of various family members, most notable being that of my brother. My joy at the return of migratory birds and the renewal of life is tempered by melancholy as the anniversary of his death approaches. But I make my peace with his absence every April and then move on to enjoy the season once again.

I love the springtime. Well, mostly.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 36: Just look at that chiaroscuro!

(mid-September 2021)

Over the summer I heard that Kodak had started making Super 8 motion picture film again. This news inspired me to have my student film, which was shot on Super 8, digitized. And so I dug around the attic until I found the tin and blew off the dust before taking it to a digitization studio a nice bike ride away.

I don't recall my final grade on it – it was probably a C+ – but I do recall the gist of the instructor's comments. He remarked that my cinematography was very good and he singled out the lens flares, such as you see above, for praise.

But he gave my screenwriting a D- or a D--. And deservedly so. The movie is about the internal struggles of a young man but they're never identified. The generic trials and tribulations of young adulthood, I guess. It seems that I had been watching a lot of Akira Kurosawa films at the time because I put a sword fight into the story.

I like the look of this shot, especially how the scene is broken up into alternating areas of light and shadow. Notice how the combatants' costumes match the setting. Maybe I got a B- after all.

********

On Labor Day I got up early and was out the door and on my bike before the dawn. The sun peeked over the horizon as I cruised down the bike path. It was about 50 degrees out so I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt for the first time in months and it felt a bit odd. My ride would take me east to Cottage Grove, a town of 7,000 people or thereabouts, albeit circuitously. I found the route at the website of a local bicycle manufacturer but tweaked it so that I started and ended at my house instead of the company's store out in Mall Wasteland on the northeast side of town. Total distance would be somewhere in the 20-25 mile range.

As I made my way southeast, the landscape changed from urban to suburban to rural. The countryside was foggy and the mist was especially thick in the low-lying areas which made for some picturesque scenes.

There was very little traffic, thankfully, so I was able to hear the birds. Over the course of my ride I saw four hawks but I was unable to get a decent photograph of even one. By the time I noticed them and had finished fumbling with my camera, they were off to find another perch far away from the human. I got a good enough glimpse of a couple of them, however, to tell that they were of the red-tailed variety. But there were plenty of other animals to be seen who were not completely unhappy to have their picture taken.

I rode by several stables and saw many horses.

These 2 were mildly intrigued by the thing at the fence and stopped eating to stare at me. They weren't sleek like the racing horses of my imagination nor did they appear to be large enough to count as draft horses either, if my memory of Budweiser commercials was anything to go by. Then again, I am not familiar with the equestrian world. Still, those large caliber hooves would do some damage should I be in their vicinity when they got irritated.

Seeing them brought the song "Heavy Horses" by Jethro Tull to mind.

As the sun crept farther up the sky, I was able to get more nice photographs of the foggy landscape but with a more refulgent feel including this one where I made use of shade not unlike my movie. Look at that chiaroscuro! This photo reminds me of Days of Heaven. Néstor Almendros and Terrence Malik would be proud.

I was also able to capture beams of light radiating from between tree branches. It was a lot harder to get these shot right than you'd think. The camera has to be at just the right angle and just the right distance away.

While pedaling along one road, I noticed an abandoned farmhouse with some large birds walking next to an outbuilding which I thought were turkeys. I cruised up the the gravel driveway and, upon closer inspection, I discovered that they were peafowl. Just as with the hawks, they took off before I could get a snap, scurrying behind a delipidated barn and presumably into the adjacent field which once held corn but was now an example of prairie restoration.

Less than a quarter mile down the road I looked up a long driveway and spied a couple more of them heading away from me. At the top of a small hill in the distance there were even more. There must have been 6-8 of them just casually making their way to a stand of trees at the edge of a field. (A genuine muster!) I've never seen more than 1 peafowl at a time so this was pretty exciting stuff. A farm cat appeared on the top of the hill and it lazily approached the group which was growing as a few more trickled in from the field of what I think was soybeans to see what all the hubbub was about. None of them had large tails but I am unsure if this was because they were all peahens or if peacocks shed their tails after mating season.

There was one hill on my route which was fairly steep in addition to being rather long and I nearly met my end during the ascent. After finally reaching the top, I stopped to pant and curse myself again for not having packed water. Looking at the road ahead, I saw a doe in the distance staring at me. When I got home and looked at my photos, I found that there were, in fact, 2 of them.

In addition to fauna, there was the flora. Unsurprisingly, corn was to be seen all along my route.

But I also came across a farm that grows hops.

Just north of the hops was a corn field filled with Sandhill cranes. I looked it up. A group of cranes is a sedge.

At one point, a pair flew in from the south which got a couple of the ones on the ground squawking. Before long 2 pairs took off and flew out of sight. I stayed long enough to notice that this routine was repeated a few minutes later. Perhaps this is how they motivate one another to migrate south. "Hey dummies! It's Labor Day. Time to head down to Mexico!"

This being America's Dairyland, of course I saw oodles and oodles of cows on my ride including this bull who got a bit antsy with the human.

Not long after I moved to Wisconsin, I was tricked into hopping a fence into a pasture one day. My newfound friend neglected to tell me that it was home to a bull who happened to be out of sight at that moment. Well, the field's inhabitant must have smelled teenager because he eventually came around to investigate. He fixed me with a gimlet eye before his demeanor made it obvious to me that my new bovine companion would brook no humans on his turf and he began to run towards me. I ran in the opposite direction and hopped that fence in record time!

While I am on the subject of things country folk do to city folk, I want to note that more than one person gave me the BS hunting story that goes something like this:

They run out of ammo or their shotgun is otherwise put out of commission so they climb a tree with their knife at the ready should a deer walk underneath it. Then, in what must have been the worst bit of luck ever, they lose their knife just as the biggest buck they've ever seen walks below them. In an act of manliness worthy of Ernest Hemingway himself (or desperation), they drop down on top of the unsuspecting beast and kill it with their bare hands.

Now that fall is right around the corner, the animal landscape will be changing soon. Heck, it probably is already. All of the herons I've seen on my walks and bike rides will be leaving soon. As will those hummingbirds that never bothered to come to my feeder despite me filling it with premium nectar! Blue jays and cardinals stick around during the winter as do rabbits, mice, and opossums. I will have to look into this further and perhaps make an effort to see more wildlife this winter.

One last photograph from the ride.

********

Bonus photo! One recent evening I went to a local restaurant and put in an order. Since it would be 20+ minutes before it was ready, I decided to stroll the neighborhood. Before long I discovered that the sidewalk on a nearby street had various quotes on the pavement, including this one. How ironic to pave over the land and then stamp the words of Aldo Leopold on it.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 26: La La Land

Mid-July 2021

In addition to a new kitchen floor, we have a couple new trees. You may recall from a previous entry I wrote last year that an autumn storm damaged the tree on the terrace out front and that the city took it down. Well, they finally replaced it.

It's some kind of new-fangled version of an elm that is resistant to Dutch elm disease which has devastated our tree population. I am looking forward to seeing it grow and perhaps live long enough to enjoy it throwing some evening shade on our house.

We here in Madison are blessed with trees nearly everywhere. It's something I couldn't help but notice since I moved here but it is also something I didn't really appreciate until 2003. That fall I visited a friend who had a penthouse suite at St. Mary's Hospital and, when I looked out of the window, I saw an arboreal landscape. Not just a city dotted with trees but I was peering down on green canopies wherever I turned my gaze. I knew Madison had a lot of trees but I didn't really appreciate the scale of our urban forest until that moment. Better late than never.

Back in 2019, the city removed another tree on a terrace which is on the north side of our lot. That one was replaced last October with a Kentucky coffeetree but it went into the ground completely bare and was, to all appearances, dead. Since it was autumn, I thought that perhaps it had simply shed its leaves already. But when this spring rolled around, nothing had changed even when all of the surrounding trees were beginning to bud. However, I am pleased to report that leaves finally began appearing in May and it is looking much better these days.

While not all of the branches sprouted, I am hopeful that it will flourish. Its predecessor didn't shade our house and made more raking work for me in the fall but I still miss the sight of a tree there. There's this empty space which I look forward to being filled. Plus I think it's only fair that other people get to park their cars underneath a tree on that block so that they too can have birds shit all over it.

********

I started a new work schedule earlier this month which involves going into the office two days a week. While I had to go into the office a handful of times since the pandemic began, I took my first bus ride there since March 2020. The corn near the bus stop was way past knee high by July and more like head high.

It felt a bit odd to be on the bus that first ride but it didn't take long before I got back into the commuter swing of things. In the morning there aren't many folks riding with me - maybe 8-10. My ride home in the afternoon is generally more crowded. Indeed, there have been a few times when there were people who had no option but to sit next to someone else and a few people could be found in the aisle.

The pandemic has wrought more transit changes than just fewer passengers. The bus I take had its route changed so my stops are now a block or a block and half farther away from the office than the old one was. Not a big deal, really. What's more annoying is that the bus' schedule has been tweaked and now I have a lengthier wait. Instead of a 10-ish minute wait pre-Covid, I now have one more like 20-25 minutes. Hopefully transit will continue to return to normal and I can get some time back.

The farm near my bus stop is for sale so I am unsure how much longer I'll be standing next to a field in the morning waiting for my ride. Presumably developers want to turn every acre into apartments but a group wants to save a good chunk of it for a working urban farm open to the public while the rest of the property that isn't wetland would have affordable housing built on it.

Only time will tell. Either way, I'd love to have a bus shelter installed because the wind really whips across that field when it's bare in January and makes waiting for the bus a chilling experience.

********

A couple friends and I recently hiked around the newly-opened Joyce M. Baer & George J. Socha Conservancy. It's east of Madison and east of Marshall, the home of El Poblano which I wrote about previously. Its namesakes donated the 140 acres that make up the park.

On our walk, we spied some grapes growing in a patch between the park/path and an adjacent farm field.

It is still very much a work in progress with more trails forthcoming as well as a canoe/kayak launch on the Maunesha River. I look forward to more walks there perhaps stopping in Marshall for a taco or two afterwards.

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I have discovered a new musical genre: la la. It is black Creole country dance music and is reputedly the precursor to zydeco. I first heard it on an episode of Accordion Noir, a radio show that features music with the titular instrument. The song is by Goldman Thibodeaux and the Lawtell Playboys and is from their latest album, La Danse à St. Ann’s. Thibodeaux is in his late 80s and apparently he's one of the last La La players around. Wrap your ears around "Jolie Catin":

It isn't immediately apparent to me why it is referred to as a precursor to zydeco instead of zydeco. Perhaps I need someone with more knowledge about music than me to explain it to this dummy.

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My latest bike ride was something of a grave matter, you could say, as I went west to Forest Hill Cemetery. It's a bit like the Madison equivalent of Graceland Cemetery in Chicago in that notable locals and city fathers are buried there. It is also the final resting place of E.H. Jefferson.

That would be Eston Hemings Jefferson, the youngest son of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. He gained his freedom in 1827 and married one Julia Ann Isaacs in 1832. They eventually made their way to Madison where Eston made a living as a cabinetmaker. History tell us that he was also an excellent fiddler. It took me a while to find the gravestone even knowing what section of the cemetery it was in. Eventually I stumbled upon the big family marker with "JEFFERSON" emblazoned upon it and put 2 and 2 together.

In a previous entry I believe I mentioned seeing a duck the likes of which I'd never seen before. While I had a photo, it wasn't a great one but I ran into this variety again on my ride and got a better snap.

My Birds of Wisconsin book doesn't have this type of waterfowl in it but my Internet searches lead me to believe this is a Black Swedish duck and her ducklings. Mallards are ubiquitous here in Madison and seeing another type of duck really threw me for a loop.

"Wait. There are ducks other than mallards?!"

Since I was on the west side of town already, I left the cemetery and went in search of Aldo Leopold's house. Leopold has been mentioned in this very diary before, he being the famed environmentalist and author of A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There which I finally read last year. He lived on Madison's west side from 1924 until 1948 while he was working at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory here.

It's certainly a nice house but rather modest in contrast to some of the other homes just a block or two down the street. And it's positively spartan in contrast to this palatial abode:

While I was riding up Van Hise Avenue I recalled that there was a Louis Sullivan house in the neighborhood somewhere. I stopped next to the above joint and consulted the Internet on the house's location only to feel stupid when I found a page saying that this was the Sullivan house I was seeking. It is the Bradley House and was designed by Louis Sullivan and George Grant Elmslie. While I know Sullivan, I am unfamiliar with Elmslie. This is one of the few residences that Sullivan designed and one of only two buildings of his in Wisconsin.

I shall reserve the bike ride finale for next time.

 

Bonus photo is a cartoon that humored me.