Squirrel Tracks?

Totally sunny. Very good for any of us who suffer from light depravation. There are now actually 10 more minutes of light compared to the illumination nadir just a few weeks ago.

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And, what's this? Micro-meteor impacts? Winter hail storm? No—no, something much more prosaic—squirrel tracks.  These little rodent dynamos deign to dig. At any one time there could be anywhere from half a dozen to a baker's dozen of them under and around the bird feeder. Every time Pax and I head out the door for a walk Pax has fun giving chase.

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In 1754, a belle-lettrist named Horace Walpole retreated to a desk in his gaudy castle in Twickenham, in southwest London, and penned a letter. Walpole had been entranced by a Persian fairy tale about three princes from the Isle of Serendip who possess super powers of observation. In his letter, Walpole suggested that this old tale contained a crucial idea about human genius: “As their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” And he proposed a new word — “serendipity” — to describe this princely talent for detective work. At its birth, serendipity meant a skill rather than a random stroke of good fortune. 

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Now it means a nice little lane along the shore of Mudge Bay in Kagawong. 

Not Quite Ready

I know people were sailing today, I just don't know where. 

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Lake LaBelle is 98.7 percent frozen but clearly treacherous.  

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Reading Andrea Wulf's, The Invention of Nature; Alexander Von Humboldt's New World . I know of Humboldt, but not much else. An aristocratic, well-off German who devoted his life to exploration and observation. Born in 1769, seven years before the American Revolution, he canoed jungles, climbed volcanoes, waked across Russia. His hundredth birthday (which he barely missed) was celebrated from New York to Bombay by hundreds 0f thousands of people.

His two major works were his multi-volume Personal Narratives, and his multi-volume Cosmos. Through these he had a major influlrence on Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.  Kind of important, I would say.

Here's the chronology:   

Thos. Jefferson: 1743
Humboldt: 1769
J.J. Audubon: 1785
Charles Darwin: 1809
Henry David Thoreau: 1817
Walt Whitman: 1819

I do not remember hearing a word of Humboldt in the Audubon biography, and now I don't know why. 

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 Humboldt wrote in Personal Narrative: 'The beasts of the forest retire to the thickets; the birds hide themselves beneath the foliage of the trees, or in the crevices of the rocks. Yet, amid this apparent silence, when we lend an attentive ear to the most feeble sounds transmitted by the air, we hear a dull vibration, a continual murmur, a hum of insects, that fill, if we may use the expression, all the lower strata of the air. Nothing is better fitted to make man feel the extent and power of organic life. Myriads of insects creep upon the soil, and flutter round the plants parched by the ardour of the Sun. A confused noise issues from every bush, from the decayed trunks of trees, from the clefts of the rock, and from the ground undermined by the lizards, millepedes, and cecilias. There are so many voices proclaiming to us, that all nature breathes; and that, under a thousand different forms, life is diffused throughout the cracked and dusty soil, as well as in the bosom of the waters, and in the air that circulates around us.

 

Rumors of Ice

Bright sun, but still below freezing. Rumors of ice, but no email announcements. I'll have to check the iceboat hotline later. (You would think ice boaters would not call it a hotline.) Regardless, the boats are as ready as I can make them.

Speaking philosophically:  for ice-boaters, every weekend from Thanksgiving to St. Patrick's Day has to be tentative. Weddings, funerals, and things like that have to be scheduled conditionally, depending on ice. Clear, hard, sailable ice only comes along every so often, and ice boaters have to be ready, ready to drop everything and head to frozen water.

It's a goofy sport. 

And, I can't wait to find out if we will be sailing tomorrow. 

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Day One...

..of this year. Chilly, gray, below freezing all day.

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Pax and I had a great walk on the empty campus early this morning before everyone who got guns for Xmas went out and started shooting. 

For dinner tonight, breaded pork steak and corn pone. (If you can believe it.) (A little touch of southern warmth?)

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 January

The days are short.
The sun a spark,
Hung thin between
The dark and dark.

Fat snowy footsteps
Track the floor.
Milk bottles burst
Outside the door.

The river is
A frozen place
Held still beneath
The trees of lace.

The sky is low.
The wind is gray.
The radiator
Purrs all day.

 —John Updike

Solstice and Wombat

Now side by side and ready for ice. Reports of a frozen Lake Como, and some chilly nights ahead, so sailing might be possible, soon. We are so looking forward to trying out Wombat, purchased almost a year ago and never yet sailed. Also looking forward to a little match racing, one boat against the other.

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Happy New Year! 

Heavy Lifting

Freezing rain, sleet, then snow, topped with freezing rain, sleet, and snow (many inches deep) makes for serious shoveling. The snowblower, our Christmas gift of several years ago, earned its keep this morning. The road-plow must have been going fast as it came by in the predawn hour because it threw heavy frozen slush all the way over the terrace and onto the sidewalk.

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As the shadows lengthened this evening our nocturnal neighbor emerged to attend to his driveway (Peggy having used her machine to clear his walk this morning when we were all out dealing with last night's deposit). He has since spent the past two hours chopping and scraping, using his own idiosyncratic method, and may finish his meticulous ministrations by midnight.

Sate of emergency in Missouri. The Mississippi River approaching (or possibly surpassing) the record flood level of 1993. Pretty much ditto England.

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From 'A Severe Lack of Holiday Spirit'
by Amy Gerstler

...People hit
the sauce in a big way all winter.
Amidst blizzards they wrestle
unsuccessfully with the dark comedy
of their lives, laughter trapped
in their frigid gizzards. Meanwhile, 
the mercury just plummets,
like a migrating duck blasted
out of the sky by some hunter
in a cap with fur earflaps.

Up to the Hubcaps...

...in slushy mud. Met Bob and Lou at Elizabeth's in Delevan for breakfast, then over to Lou's workshop in Walworth for iceboat shenanigans. Wombat is ready to go and the trailer almost so, and all is looking good. (Buddy Melges dropped by for a chat while we were dinking around.)

On departure, I towed the old trailer away and to the Mallard Ridge landfill just west of Delevan. The entrance road winds up the side of a beautiful oak-studded moraine, but once over the crest and on the flat in front of the big drop-off a sea of slushy mud with ruts like barge canals. It gave me pause, but the operator of the giant, spike-wheeled bulldozer waved me forward, so, in 4-wheel drive and a state of anxiety, I roared into the quagmire, did a quick half donut before the fatal edge, and came to a stop. Coming to a stop in that slop was against my better judgement, but necessary since I needed the help of the dozer operator to tip the now unwanted iceboat box and cradle off the still usable trailer. That done I scraped gobs off my boots, climbed back into the truck, and somehow got it to move forward, eventually onto solid ground.

The good thing about the drive home from there was that all the sleet, freezing rain, slush, and snowdrifts did a good job of scraping the truck clear of dump muck.

Now, as I type this, sleet is rattling against all the east-facing windows, and the storm continues, seemingly unabated. What a winter!?

In the image below, all the orange lines are areas where flooding is significant, with the red indicating severe. Apparently things are rather damp in England, too. I wonder how it's going in California? 

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Fizzy Water

Another dingy, damp day. But thanks to the gift of a SodaStream carbonator we now have the world's best seltzer.  How so? It starts with the water, and today Pax and Buddy accompanied us out to the Flowing Well where we tanked up with what could be the best water on earth, water which has been percolating up out the the Kettle Moarine for the past 120 years. Pure and unprocessed. The SodaStream adds an impressive fizzzz.

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Buddy is spending a few days and nights in Whitewater. He is a good house guest and friend to Pax. I actually think his presence is therapeutic. After tanking up with spring water we went to our favorite bit of forest preserve by Whitwater Lake and the two friends had a good romp. Pax appeared to have forgotten about gunshot worries. 

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Many Hats

Over to Fox Point for a few last minute things. Then over to nearby, old, historic Cedarburg for lunch at the Anvil.

This ample bit of headgear was an early Christmas present, and is, in theory, exceptionally good a shedding water—these days an attractive feature. 

This ample bit of headgear was an early Christmas present, and is, in theory, exceptionally good a shedding water—these days an attractive feature. 

Just scattered rain today though damp, cloudy and chilly. I think it's safe to say that Christmas preparations are pretty much wrapped up at this point, except for the actual wrapping up. 

Solstice, 2015

Food Notes: Niki sent some parched corn in her Christmas package—frozen sweet corn parched with a smidgen of butter and salt. Everyone, including the sender, agreed that it was awful. But one has to appreciate the direct experimental approach, and now we know, or think we know, that dry parched old field corn is the way to go.

With the demise of our grocery store and the need to shop elsewhere, we are enjoying shopping in stores with good stuff (probably spending more money, too). Apple cider from an orchard in Fort Atkinson, not pasteurized! After about a week in the fridge this stuff starts to taste really good. Also now buying eggs from JRS Country Acres of Lake Mills, and these eggs have shells so thick a hatchet would not be out of order in the cracking of them. And the cheese—the sharp cheddar prepared by an as yet unknown but local dairy for Cowley's Piggly Wiggly in Milton is brilliant. (How can someone named Cowley own a Pig?) 

In sum, local is delicious. 

Tonight, grilled steak and vegetable/barley soup (local, grass-fed beef from Festival) with friends kitty-corner across the street, and the new couple who recently moved in next door to them. 

My favorite old mansion in Mount Horeb

My favorite old mansion in Mount Horeb

And! Tonight the shortest day of the year. A special night for the ancient Druids who were not quite sure that tomorrow would live up to its reputation as the end of the descending dark and the beginning of the return of life-affirming light.

To finish, a question: Where was Moses when the lights went out? 

Ding Hoy...

...feather merchants.  (Having watched a bit of early Chicago television, this greeting always comes to mind when I hear Sue's phone go ding.)

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Milder. All traces of snow gone. And the town is quiet. A (relatively)silent night, and day too, with the campus on holiday shutdown, although weekend gunfire continues unabated. Pax and I got about half way around our big loop when a barage drove us home in a hurry. Both Pax and I don't think we could live in Syria.

In honor of the weather I went for my first real bike ride since rotator repair. And how fun was that. The empty campus is a wonderful ride provided it hasn't been overly salted, and this year it has been not. 

As the light was fading as it does now almost after lunch, and wearing a pair of decent headphones, I let Bruckner's Symphony #4 shake up all my preconceptions. I'm pretty sure Pax would not have liked it, though there were some clarinets and violins, so you never know.

Feels Like Sunday

The Janowiec family came down to Whitewater for a pre-Christmas get together—one of Mimi's traditional roast beef Sunday dinners.

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The weather more suited to a pre-holiday party, and Mimi was able to cook with the windows closed. But just as last Sunday, the office was a busy place with lots of typing, printing, envelope stuffing, and phone calls.

Colder, At Last

Not above freezing all day, which seems appropriate, for this time of year. 

Mallards chilling in warm flood water. 

Mallards chilling in warm flood water. 

And a few hints of ice, here and there. 

And a few hints of ice, here and there. 

A far cry from last year at this time, and an even farther cry from two years ago at this time. But a bright, chilly day, and Pax got a brush and a bath and a good long walk, so we enjoyed it.

Here in Whitewater we are now down to 9 hours of daylight (as we close in on the solstice) and that means 15 hours of darkness.  Of course, it's worse in Kagawong—just 8.39 hours of light. But it's better in Rockport where the inhabitants bask in 10.22 hours of luxurious light almost every day.

Clouds, Air, and Wind

To borrow a title from Eric Sloane. Rain overnight and well into the morning. 

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Then a front roaring through, boiling up windrows of dramatic clouds and, eventually, the need for sunglasses.

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But by afternoon flat gray skies once again. The temperature is dropping and the barometer rising, but there is really still no sign of winter.