Rocky Mountain National Park
Hiking in the mountains at over 9,500 feet (and still breathing).
Hanging Out In Estes
Very bright sun, but cool in the shade. A little hiking and walking around town. Lots of conversation. Lunch at Nepalese place, dinner at a western saloon.
Seven Thousand Eight Hundred Feet
In Estes Park at Spalding's.
This Can't Be November
Sweaty hot, even in shorts and t-shirt.
Pond unfrozen.
Iris blooming!
But, at least, almost all birch leaves down, and swept up.
Mid 70's today, and humid. This can't be good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ox Cart Man
By Donald Hall
In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar’s portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart’s floor.
He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hooped by hand at the forge’s fire.
He walks by his ox’s head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
and the bag that carried potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.
When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year’s coin for salt and taxes,
and at home by fire’s light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year’s ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.
All Hallows Eve
To Manitowoc today for a visit with Aunt Janet. Cloudy, cool, windy—tailwind going north, headwind returning south. Right now, trick-or-treaters at the door.
Ice Boat Swap Meet
Annual event in Williams Bay.
Lots of murals in Delevan—the circus town, and, surprisingly, one of the centers of the now long gone Wisconsin tobacco industry.
On the way to Williams Bay, on the day before Halloween. Did someone over plant?
At the swap meet, where ice boats and ice boat parts are bought and sold.
On the way to the swap meet I had to stop in Delevan for a bit of brecky (spinach and feta omlet) at Elizabeth's (which was thronged). At the meet I neither bought or sold anything, but did catch up with a bunch of old friends (acquaintances), some of whom are getting older.
October Country, or, Something Wicked This Way Comes
Thanks, Ray Bradbury.
Where's Waldo. Who cares? The pertinent question is: Where are Katy and Ellie? Where are Maddie and Will. And, where is Becca!
We just had to stop by Victoria Lance this afternoon to pick up the jet-ski which needs to be taken to Roger's barn in exchange for the iceboats. And it looks like the timing was good, as we arrived just before the well-costumed gang headed off the the Oconomowoc Halloween parade.
Buddy Come Home
This lucky dog has had two full weeks of being waited upon, hand and foot, by Mimi, Bubba, and Pax. He went home today, but we are not sure how he will handle it.
Anyway, while we were dropping off the dog we got to see the Halloween parade at Katy and Will's school.
Leaves and Mulch
Good day for raking leaves and spreading mulch.
Birch leaves.
Mulch on the berry patch. Still three plants short, but weed free.
The witch hazel doing its strange thing—flowering just before winter.
Soggy. Chilly and gray. Leaves heavy to rake.
The ash trees and the locust and the sugar maple have lost approximately 99% of their leaves. The white oaks are at about 65% gone. The birch out front, 75%. Redbud and serviceberry 85% gone. However, Vi's soft maple is at 30%, and her Bradford pear at 0%. And, there is no point in clearing the gutters until her pear and maple have finished shedding. Also, remember, right across the street is Dr. Who, who also has a silver maple, and who only rakes his leaves when the wind is ripping them away from his property and onto someplace else.
Last night's neighborhood association meeting was almost interesting, what with the police chief and the city manager in attendance. Both the chief and the manager are good people, trying to make the best of a difficult situation. It was obvious that the chief was running on fumes as she told us about last week's murder—only the second in the town's history. After that, some discussion was devoted to the importance of keeping "Spring Splash" (a distiller and brewer financed drink-fest) out of Starin Park.
And, at the meeting, I got the impression that my idea of turning Starin Park into an educational arboretum is not quite dead.
If This Was Snow, We'd Be Wallowing
Lots of moisture.
Rather heavy rain much of last night and well into mid-morning. After that, chilly drizzle. High in the mid-forties. The new berry plants have been well watered. The dogs and us? Mostly inside catching up on things, doing a little computer work, and a bit of reading. Go Dog Go.
It looks like the rain is moving toward Cleveland, but we can hope the Cubs find it refreshing after last night's washout. Snow in the forecast for Manitoulin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Bluet"
by James Schuyler
And is it stamina
that unseasonably freaks
forth a bluet, a
Quaker lady, by
the lake? So small,
a drop of sky that
splashed and held,
four-petaled, creamy
in its throat. The woods
around were brown,
the air crisp as a
Carr's table water
biscuit and smelt of
cider. There were frost
apples on the trees in
the field below the house.
The pond was still, then
broke into a ripple.
The hills, the leaves that
have not yet fallen
are deep and oriental
rug colors. Brown leaves
in the woods set off
gray trunks of trees.
But that bluet was
the focus of it all: last
spring, next spring, what
does it matter? Unexpected
as a tear when someone
reads a poem you wrote
for him: 'It's this line
here.' That bluet breaks
me up, tiny spring flower
late, late in dour October.
Also:
October is a state of mind.
Rain Will Continue...
...at least according to my weather app (although there is no sign of rain at the moment).
There were clouds over the prairie.
A gray and chilly day. After stopping at the library (where I bit the bullet and picked up Sean Carroll's The Big Picture—On the Origins of LIFE, MEANING, and the UNIVERSE ITSELF), I wandered over to the City Market (Tuesday afternoons in downtown Whitewater) where I bought half a dozen of my favorite Arkansas Black apples (hard, crisp, and tart) and a half gallon of my favorite fizzingly fermenting cider.
Rain is forecast for tonight and all tomorrow. I dis-believe it, but if so, I plan to hack my way through at least a few pages of the book.
And tonight is the first game of the Great Lakes World Series—Cleveland vs. the Cubs. I think I'll root for the Cubs.
How Sweet It Is
Chilly nights and then bright autumn days with temps in the mid 50s. My favorite weather. But surely, worse is yet to come.
Bald Bluff
Out Bluff Road on a warm and windy late October day to Bald Bluff, a large and steep terminal moraine in the KM State Forest.
Could this be bigger than Kagawong big Rock?
A long, steep, gravelly climb. And Mimi and I pretty much kept up with K&W.
Extra Noise in Noisy Village
Homecoming at the U.
Farmstand.
New berry patch. Not quite done—three more bushes to be planted, and then mulch. If things go well, this could be nice. Check back in 3 to 5 years.
It was loud in town. Big parade, and all the siren operators got to operate their sirens just as much as they wanted. Loud "music" emanating from most points of the compass. And pretty much unlimited yelling and shouting. (How can people yell and shout all day long and still have an esophagus?)
But, I outfoxed the the noisemakers. I fired up the chainsaw and did a major back yard sawing, then went for a ride in the country. The odd thing is—no fireworks (which last year sent Pax into a catatonic state). I'm afeared the home team lost.
Lovely Fall Day
Cool and bright and colorful.
To Milwaukee and Fox Point in the afternoon, but Buddy is staying with us in Whitewater a bit longer due to complications in the Fox Point floor refinishing process.
Bring in the Rosemary
Frost tonight for sure, and the redbud, having lost 87% of its leaves can no longer offer shelter.
Political Leanings
A gathering on campus featuring Senator Tammy Baldwin and past and future Senator Russ Feingold.
Conversion
Backyard hill garden being transformed into a patch of berry bushes.
What was an unappealing eyesore of perennials, herbs, and weeds is being transformed into a patch of berry bushes. Began digging in the a.m. but gave up due to high humidity and intense sun (in spite of a nice northerly breeze). Finished up once the sun was over the yardarm. Pulled out a barrow full of roots.
Also today, we applied for new passports (an expensive pain), and voted.
Voting was scary. I saw the Trump/Pense bubble right above the Clinton/Kaine bubble and I worried the ink might splash up. I checked the bubbles, and then rechecked them, and I am sure I voted properly.
Having voted early, do you think I might be able to vote a few more times? I am one of "those people."
Crazy Climate
Hu-mid, and mid eighties? Indian summer on steroids.
Conditions not favorable for consideration of anything resembling work. Ripping south wind now...perhaps blowing the humidity to higher latitudes, or somewhere else.
This Is Not October
Warm and horribly humid.
Above, Emerson esker, named after a Norwegian immigrant who built a log cabin on it in the 1850s, cleared the land and wrested a living from it, had four children, got caught up in the Civil War, and died in its last days, sometime in 1864. (An esker is a winding ridge of gravel deposited by glacial meltwater.)
Here's the Emerson cabin, built of larch logs. (Note: the eavestrough is a modern addition.)
Heavy deluge last night. Farm fields flooded, making the corn harvest a sticky business. Today, warm, still, and, as I said, incredibly humid. We actually had to run the air conditioner, here in the last half of October.