The Corona Diaries Vol. 114: Getting cozy

(Listen to the accompanying sound track.)

(early October 2023)

Always a glutton for punishment, I returned to the Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area the day after my spooky encounters. This time I glued myself to the familiar trails I have always hiked and have never once shared with a homicidal, axe-wielding maniac. To my knowledge, anyway.

While it was yet another overcast morning, there was no rain. The Circle Trail was, as always, simply gorgeous.

I again pondered how to plan a trip up here when there is more fall color. Perhaps senescence is creeping up on me but I would have sworn the Travel Wisconsin website I had consulted before driving north said that we were near peak color.

Not even close to peak, as I see it, but there were some great seasonal hues nonetheless. Just look at these red oak leaves!

As I do every year, I slowly traversed the trail, stopping at my whim. It’s such a relaxing place. Work seems a million miles away and my mind, lulled into a sense of ease by the quiet and solitude, wanders freely. It is nature's Calgon.

 

 

The Circle Trail is a bit over 4 miles long and I once read a description of it in a Best Hikes of Wisconsin book or article that said it took about two hours to walk, on average. I remember thinking to myself that it takes me about twice as long to hike it. When it comes to human locomotion on foot, it's usually about getting from point A to point B in the shortest time. But, if you're out on a hike, it seems to me that the opposite is true. Whoever takes the longest is the winner.

What's the point of going out into the woods if your goal is just to get back to the trailhead as quickly as you can? Why not just remain there and declare yourself the victor? I like stopping often to watch the woodland creatures scurrying about, to listen to the eloquent, rhythmic trills of birds and ponder what they're saying; to smell the earthy aroma of the land and trees; to feel the various textures of bark as well as the smooth yet tacky mushrooms that dot the trees; and to take lots of photographs because it takes me several shots to get one that’s in focus.

In that book I read a couple years ago about the benefits of being out in nature, The Nature Fix, the author noted that it doesn't take very long for salutary effects to take hold. Just 15 minutes can produce a noticeable reduction in stress. The more, the better, I say.

 

On my hikes here, I especially enjoy standing on the shores of the smaller lakes like the one above. The entirety of the lake is in my view and I can see the ring of trees that encircle it. There's just something about this sight that gives me a sense of comfort. It has a coziness to it. Odds are there's a lengthy compound German word for this sensation but "cozy" and "comforting" are the best English words I can think of.

My first encounter with this feeling came as a young boy. The first floor of my childhood home in Chicago was about six feet from the ground. There was a deck at one of the corners in the back that straddled the property line and being about six feet up meant the space below it was rather large. A burgundy picket fence separated our lot from the next door neighbor's.

Underneath the deck, that fence ran until it was parallel to the corner of the house and a small section ran at a 90 degree angle from the main length to butt up against the house to form a corner. A 4x4 deck post was there but there was just enough space for me to squeeze in behind it, for a time.

That corner, that space where the two sections of fence met had a coziness to it for my younger self. And today as a middle aged man I still love those kinds of spaces.

They have to be enclosed, but not completely. That is, the outside world has to be visible or, at least, its presence discernible. I don't find these spaces claustrophobic, just snug, if that makes any sense.

Corners usually evoke these feelings, though by no means all corners, but there are other spaces that do so as well. The intersection of Clover Lane and Sargent Street in my neighborhood is one.

Clover ends at Sargent and the intersection has a lot of trees around it. So, in the summer, the canopies envelop the space giving it that cozy feel. I suppose that a couple terraces overflowing with flowers add to the effect.

Whatever this phenomenon is, I try to take comfort in it when I can.

When my walk was over, I bid farewell to the Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area until next year and took a leisurely drive east to Cornell down country roads that had no shoulder to speak of. They're mostly tree-lined but there are occasional openings that reveal more gorgeous kettle lakes. My destination was Moonridge Brewing where I’d get a couple-two-tree glasses of muscle relaxant. If I can get a dose soon enough after a hike, I can usually stave off at least some aches and pains.

I rolled into town, which like last time, looked as if it was deserted like in a Twilight Zone episode. It was slightly eerie. At some point a car drove down the main drag to dispel the notion that Cornell had become the municipal version of the Mary Celeste but I saw no one on foot. Much to my disappointment, I discovered that the brewery was closed. Not permanently, just for the day. Oh well. Maybe they were short on help. As long as I was in Cornell, I thought I’d get some photos of the pulpwood stacker that I had neglected to get the last time I was in town.

The stacker, or what remains of it, anyway, is a giant steel structure that looks like an oil rig that leans at 45 degrees. The enormous arm of girders and cross beams looked to have weathered the decades well. Big concrete pillars anchored the leviathan.

As the name says, the Cornell Pulpwood Stacker stacked pulpwood. Here’s the historical marker.

You would have never caught me crawling up that thing to make repairs, I can tell you!

Today a figure appropriately carved from a log sits at the base to serve as a reminder of its former glory keep watch over the site.

By the time I had wandered around the stacker and taken my photographs, my muscles had begun to ache a bit. My hike had done its work. And so I hit the road once more and made my way to Bloomer where I’d be staying the night. My first stop was to be the local purveyor of muscle relaxant, Bloomer Brewery, which, I thought to myself, had better be open or there's going to be trouble.

Luckily they were receiving the thirsty and so I avoided having to cause a ruckus which would have probably seen the local constabulary throw me across the town line into a ditch. I began my treatment with, if I recall correctly, a lighter brew such as a golden ale or a cream ale but then for reasons I cannot explain, my typical desire for beer that tastes like beer deserted me and I got a s’mores porter or stout or whatever style it was. Such novelty beers are strictly verboten in my workaday life. I love the taste of grain and adore the flavors that are produced when they're cooked but, while on vacation, I occasionally throw caution to the wind.

The rim of the glass was lathered with marshmallow fluff that had a dusting of crushed graham cracker. I don’t know. Maybe I was still shaken by yesterday’s spooky walk and spectral encounter at Valkyrie and so my guard was down. Whatever the reason, this beer was a big mistake.

I think the beer itself was OK but I couldn’t really taste it after licking away some of that goop to get clear a spot that I could drink from. All that sweetness dulled my tongue to the (theoretically) succulent maltiness of the brew. I did not eat all of the marshmallow but the damage had been done by the little I did.

My next one was not the beer equivalent of a novelty ice cream treat but I could barely taste it. Heed this cautionary tale - avoid novelty beers!

Having eaten a moderately hearty lunch at the brewery, I needed to get out and about so I didn't descend into a post-prandial lethargy and decided to cruise around town to see what there was to be seen. One thing I saw was an ever rarer fallout shelter sign at the entrance to a church or a church school.

No doubt the older parishioners smile to themselves when the young folk look at it and ask just what the heck it is.

As I cruised down Main Street, I spied what appeared to be a Trachte shed off to the east. I turned down the next street and went in search of it. After a couple wrong turns, I finally found it in an industrial area that was bordered by train tracks.

I have no idea what it is/was used for but it was neat to see a little bit of Madison history up north.

When I went back to the hotel, I immediately showered and then sprawled out on the bed with the air conditioning turned up to high. With the sun beginning to set, it was time to bring out the book I was reading, The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan by Ivan Morris. It had been a long time coming.

I bought it back in circa 1999 in order to familiarize myself with the favorite era of Japanese history of the woman I was seeing at the time. She had been a Japanese language or Japanese literature or whatever other similar major the UW had on offer to aspiring nipponophiles. Her long hair and big eyes were captivating and her love of Japanese culture and history was quite alluring. It was impossible not to get taken in by the great enthusiasm and affection that emanated from her every word when she spoke about the early 11th century classic The Tale of Genji and its author Lady Murasaki. The Heian period, late 8th to late 12th century, was, as the kids say these days, her jam.

We dated very briefly and, although I had bought the book, I was unceremoniously dumped before I had dug in. With my main motivation of impressing a pretty lady now gone, I put reading the book onto the back burner as I pursued new frauleins. I never ran into another woman enamored of the Heian period and so the tome remained on my medieval history bookshelf collecting dust. One recent day as I was scanning my bookshelves looking for something to read, it occurred to me that I am getting to a point in my life where I really ought to start reading more books that I've meant to read over the years because, if I delay much longer, they'll go unread.

Published in 1964, The World of the Shining Prince is ostensibly for the layreader. But it has that academic sheen to it. I suppose this is still the time of The Great Books of the Western World where your average middle class Joe is presumed to be able to read Milton in its original early 17th century English and endowed with the ability to comprehend it without any helpful annotations.

Despite a fairly staid writing style, the book was quite interesting. The 2 centuries previous to the Heian period saw Japan appropriating any and everything it could from China much the way they pillage American culture today and come away with a profound love of baseball and Elvis. But as the 8th century became the 9th, the Japanese became more insular and began to generate their culture themselves rather than borrowing it from across the East China Sea.

As the title indicates, we’re talking about court life here, not the lives of the rural peasants. Chinese was still the language of choice in administrative, religious, and academic matters (like Latin was in the West during the Middle Ages) but Japanese became more common in literature during this time.

Buddhism came ashore and mixed with the native Shinto religion while the various superstitions that reigned such as directional taboos and a panoply of demons and ghouls were likely derived from older Japanese folklore.

At court, gentlemen were expected to be aesthetes of the highest order with a great sensitivity to beauty in art such as painting as well as more utilitarian things like gold inlaid boxes that held scrolls. Good calligraphy and the ability to compose verse was important for both men and women while courting. I cannot recall all of the details but the man would write a 31 syllable poem to the woman he was looking to get it on with. She’d reply and courtiers would fall over themselves to inspect her calligraphy to make sure it was up to snuff and everything was done in strict order. Quite a bit different and much more eloquent than a meager swipe to the right on a smartphone.

A very interesting book made all the more so by the fact that I knew precious little about the Japan of any time period going into it.

I woke up the next morning to find it rather muggy out and that the smoke from those Canadian wildfires had settled in overnight giving the town a hazy golden glow.

I got fuel – both coffee and gasoline – and cruised around town a bit more as I had a little time to kill for I had an appointment in Eau Claire at noon o’clock and the trip wouldn’t take me very long.

My youngest stepson had been shacking up with his girlfriend there until recently when she unceremoniously dumped him and kicked him out. He was now living with us in Madison and I had volunteered to stop by the apartment to fill my car up with as much stuff of his as it could fit.

I decided to wander the streets of Bloomer once more to see if I had missed anything yesterday and ran across a couple more items of interest. First was a restored ghost sign for the Hotel Anderson on Main Street.

 

There's a coffee shop on the ground floor and it looked like the upper storeys were now apartments. Perhaps tourists from Illinois stayed there while on vacation back in the 20th century.
 

I also found that the sign for the old telephone company was still around. The building was now home to an internet service service provider, I believe.

Instead of taking Highway 53 all the way, I exited it before Eau Claire and took some backroads. I ended up at this intersection where county highway workers no doubt had a good laugh over a couple cigarettes and coffee when putting up the signs.

In Eau Claire, I stopped at a coffeehouse for more go juice and then at a dentist's office where some statuary had caught my eye back in August but a chance to take photographs eluded me.

Noon rolled around and I zipped over to the apartment. The kid’s ex-girlfriend was very kind and helpful. Much to my delight, I found that she had packed up his stuff and done so without seeming to have intentionally destroyed anything. She even helped haul some of the boxes to my car.

As I cruised down the road headed for home I was sad that my vacation was over. My hikes were simply wonderful and I enjoyed investigating Bloomer. But it was back to the workaday world and to being a stepdad to a very lost young man. I had to lend the kid support and try to convince him to rub some dirt on that wound and get back on that horse.

He is 24 and it’s all too easy for me to look back when I was at his age and sigh “Kids these days” in an exasperated tone. I was on the rebound too at that time of my life but I was gainfully employed and self-sufficient. Still, I have a lot of sympathy for him. He is welcome to stay with us. It’s fun to have him around. The kid has a long way to go and I’ll be there to help him. As they say, every journey begins with a single step and I am focused on getting him to take it.

********

Bonus photo. This time we have statuary from Mankato, Minnesota.

 

 

(Check out the postlude.)

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.)

The Corona Diaries Vol. 106: Where are those confounded plums?

(late-August 2023)

(See the wonderful prelude.)

I admit to being thoroughly shocked that the kids were up and awake the next morning at a fairly early hour. It’s just not like them as I was under the impression that they prefer (and are able) to sleep until late morning, like 11, if not until the early afternoon. This has certainly been the case when they stay at our house. Maybe they’ve turned over a new leaf. Or perhaps they were simply being accommodating of the old farts whom they knew were accustomed to rising in the antelucan darkness to take coffee with the dawn chorus.

They drove over to our hotel and we were soon off to Connell’s Orchard which lies out in the gently rolling hills northeast of Eau Claire. While still fairly cool out, it wouldn't be long before the sun heated things to a toasty 85 degrees or so. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous as we drove down a series of mostly straight, though sloping, country roads to get there. The foliage was still verdant and the air rich with that country smell of trees, grass, and wildflowers. (No cow poop.) At one point, I saw a bunch of cars lining both sides of the road ahead. The first thing that came to mind was that another family farm had gone under and that there was an auction being held. Thankfully that was not the case. Instead, a church was having a potluck picnic. It seemed that it had drawn people from as far away as Seymour with the promise of tasty eats and fine company.

I have no recollection of ever having been out this way back when I lived in the area but decided a return trip was needed even before reaching the orchard.

Once we parked, I made a bee line for an observation tower that afforded one a nice view of the orchard in addition to a slide that was fairly high up.

It was simply lovely. The hills were lined with apple trees that went up and disappeared into the distance. Eve would have been spoiled for choice. Clusters of raspberry bushes were tucked between and, presumably, made for borders where a section of one pomaceous variety ended and yielded to another.

The kids were out to pick raspberries and plums while the Frau and I were content to just stroll around and take in some sun and scenery. Emphasis on sun because it got rather hot rather quickly.

Both of the kids had cameras which I soon learned were actual 35mm film cameras. Good on them! I knew that they had both gone retro and become aficionados of vinyl records but didn’t know that their analog preferences extended to photography as well. I blame the boy's Luddite stepfather.

Ahem.

There was corn too and I wandered down a trail that led into a field of maize that I presume will become a maze before too long.

As I was traipsing down the path through the corn - I mean, you never know what woodland creature you'll encounter having a snack or if He Who Walks Behind the Rows is around, I heard an engine not too far in front of me. Was the corn being harvested? Was I going to be gobbled up by a combine and spit out the side to become a tasty long pig treat for some animals?!

What an ignominious way to go, meeting your end at the cutter blades of a piece of farm equipment when you're doing absolutely no farm work. I can just imagine the headline in The Chippewa Herald: "City slicker killed in corn combine calamity". 

My momentary anxiety quickly dissipated when the sound became less loud as whatever farm implement it was had turned away from me. I exhaled in relief and wandered the corn a bit more before heading back out to the apples.

This poor tree was bending under the weight of all the fruit it bore.

Considering how dry the summer had been, I was surprised that the orchard appeared to have a bumper crop on their hands. I don’t know how long it takes for an apple tree to bear fruit (a few years?), but even the younger ones had apples aplenty.

My Frau went to relax in the shade as the heat had caught up with her so I met up with the kids who had a full quart of raspberries and were in search of the plums. I had no clue and found no signs so I flagged down a woman who presumably worked there as she was zipping along on her riding mower. I probably looked like a novice semaphore signaler with a case of Tourette syndrome as I stumbled down the hill towards her frantically waving my arms around to get her attention as she was staring straight ahead and had a pair of hearing-protection headphones on.

With her blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail, she was clad in shorts and a white tank top showing off a fairly dark tan. Even more generous, though, was her smile which seemed genuine as opposed to a put-on for a dumb tourist who can't read a simple map. Maybe she wasn't really happy to dole out some customer service and instead just thrilled to be outside as opposed to inside in front of a computer screen. Regardless, I didn't feel too stupid asking her where to find the plums.

She told me that the desired fruits were to be found up the hill, past the blueberry bushes, and out near the fence on the far side of the orchard. And so we trekked over that way. The blueberries were easy to find.

They weren’t far from the fence that the mower lady had mentioned so we looked around and wandered between rows of apples.

Apples, apples everywhere
And not a plum to be seen!

I felt a bit silly not being able to find the plum trees. How hard could it be to find a row of them? So we started heading back towards the store and noticed that the mower lady was plying her trade, zipping in and out of rows of saplings. She must have noticed the glum looks on our faces and asked if we had found the plum tree.

Tree! A single tree!

We told her we had not and she kindly escorted us to it. We were in the right general area but a couple rows off and too close to the fence. On the way over, I asked her about the orchard and she explained that the land has been in the owners’ family for generations. Indeed, the plum tree we were headed to had been planted decades ago by a great-grandmother.

As we approached it, I felt like I was treading on hallowed ground. After all, this tree was many decades older than me. I wanted to tell the kids to pick the fruit carefully so as not to damage it lest we get run out of the orchard with brickbats.

Look at those plums!

They were smaller and bluer than the ones I commonly find at the grocery store. Must be a different variety.

Since it was still early in the apple season, most of the trees were full of fruit. We walked down rows of trees bearing green varieties and thought they simply looked delicious. And then we were ambling by a row of red ones and the air became sweetly scented with apple. I wonder why it is that some have a powerful aroma while others do not. Looking around, I don’t think it was that there more of the latter kind on the ground busted open. Those seemed to be scattered everywhere. I really think some apples just have more of some aromatic compounds than others.

Roaming the orchard was the perfect way to spend the day. I bought a couple apple fritters before we left and they were amongst the best I’ve ever had. While there was some sugar sprinkled on them, they weren’t glazed. This put the heavenly combination of fried dough and apple up front instead of the rush of sugar and more sugar. Just excellent.

As I've gotten older, I've become anti-glaze, anti-frosting. They're fine and I eat glazed and frosted pastries occasionally but it's really the grain tastes I favor. A good cake doesn't need frosting. I like the cake part. I love the taste of grains and the Maillard reactions resulting from cooking them. This explains the tersely worded tweet I sent Nabisco after they discontinued production of rye Triscuits as well as the severe depression I fell into when Natural Ovens Bakery stopped making their 7 Grain Herb Bread. It is also why I love beer but am not enamored of those that have been barrel aged, made to taste like Hawaiian Punch, or contain enough hops to fell a horse.

On an old man note, the girl – a teenager – who was manning the cash register was unable to make change correctly. It seemed like the register was broken or as old as the plum tree because it wasn’t telling her how much to give in return so she kind of froze, unable to figure things out on her own. Are kids not expected to learn how to subtract without a calculator these days? Or was it just this particular girl?

Regardless, I loved Connell’s Orchard and cannot recommend it enough. Just count your change.

********

A few weeks ago I subscribed to County Highway which bills itself as “America’s Only Newspaper”. It does so because, although the paper has a website, you won’t find any of the articles or content there, just an overview of the publication and info on how to subscribe.

County Highway is the brainchild of two writers: David Samuels and Walter Kirn. I am completely unfamiliar with Samuels – no offense – and know Kirn only as co-host of the America This Week podcast with journalist Matt Taibbi. Kirn mentioned the paper on a recent episode and I looked into it.

The website trumpets:

“County Highway is a 20-page broadsheet produced by actual human beings, containing the best new writing you will encounter about America. It features reports on the political and spiritual crises that are gripping our country and their deeper cultural and historical sources; regular columns about agriculture, civil liberties, animals, herbal medicine, and living off the grid, mentally and physically; essays about literature and art, and an entire section devoted to music.”

I was intrigued and, after a couple weeks of procrastination, finally subscribed. My first issue – the first issue. which is sure to be a valuable collector's item (ha!) – arrived recently.

I understood that it was to be in the form of a 19th century broadsheet but was still taken by surprise at the font choices. They looked positively old timey. The paper looked like something that had been read by Wyatt Earp as he sat in an outhouse doing his business.

I’ve read the reports and a couple essays so I’ve got a fair bit under my belt but still have many pages to go.

I have read about the Miracle of America Museum in Montana, failing wheat crops in Oklahoma, Appalachian protest novels, as well as a jeremiad against AI, big tech, and the future promised us by the Elon Musks of the world amongst other pieces. Oh, and one about the commercial development of the area around Joshua Tree National Park that I will mention because it fits in with a general theme thus far: it’s been largely Western in approach.

Montana, California, Oklahoma – nothing Midwestern, though Appalachia has gotten some column inches. So far nothing about my part of the country. So far.

The stories have been about the common man and woman. While the great and the good may be named checked or their influence noted, it’s the little people who have gotten the bulk of the ink thus far. The overall tone seems to be a mix of Hunter S. Thompson tempered by a dose of downers and Paul Harvey. There is also an element of weird America to be had as well as an America that is simply not conceived of by popular culture and the mainstream media. Nooks and crannies of an offline world that resists the ostentatious allure of TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

If the paper were to fall on hard times and throw a benefit concert to raise funds, the Bob Geldof/Midge Ure figures would be remiss if they didn't recruit The Handsome Family to the cause. Same for Wovenhand. The music of these bands captures the off-in-the-ditch vibe of County Highway with off-kilter and intense perfection.

This being the very first issue, I am eager to finish it and see where the publication goes in the next one. It’s weird to be reading a paper newspaper again and I cannot think of the last time I subscribed to a genuine print publication.

OK, I just thought of it but it's a magazine.

I enjoy the focus a physical publication brings with no browser tab sitting right there to lure me into checking my email or go off to waste time on Reddit. No indicators that I have a new text message appear next to the banner. The world is a quieter, slower, and more pensive place with a newspaper.

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Bonus photo. The Frau bought the cats what I call a scratching tray. It’s this tray filled with rows of cardboard pieces for cats to scratch on. Apparently it has been laced with catnip and now Piper is using it as a bed and a couch too as she spends hours sitting on it, looking up at the picture window. She has even dragged her favorite toys onto it and squats on them like a hen incubating her eggs.