Sun, and a little warmth.
So everyone outside. Walkers—dog walkers, singletons, duos, families pushing strollers, along with various other dog walkers. Who knew there were so many captive canines in little Whitewater? We had to alter our trajectory frequently as we walked Pax around the prairie.
All good. Just everyone taking advantage of an improvement in the weather, and making the best of a bad situation.
Chilly and gray. Fired up the chiminea (to incinerate the latest batch of windfalls and trimmings) and the Big Green Egg (in anticipation of a steak about to be grilled).
Above, a Ponderosa pine on campus (Pinus ponderosa). Not a native, but seeming to enjoy college life.
A few breaks in the clouds, providing a bit of beatitude, though still a cool north breeze.
A few errands requiring automotive transport, though no human contact. Topping up the tank on the Rav was relatively painless.
Very windy. A couple of hours listening to Beethoven, several long dog walks, an hour on the back patio in the company of birds and squirrels, and chicken potpie made from scratch—not all bad.
Sit still on the back patio for a few minutes and you will be part of the flock as they dart from redbud to feeder to apple tree. Sometimes the juncos join them, and occasionally, a nuthatch, but the sparrows and finches are too shy.
On our walk today, on campus…not in the forest preserve as in the photo above, we came across a large flock of what I think were warblers, loud with very high pitched chatter, weaving, cutting, looping, and chasing each other. They swerve and cut so quickly I could not always keep track of their flight paths.
Other spring things: 1) the wood ducks (Aix sponsa) are back in Starin park, where there’s a big nest box high in an oak. These birds are really skittish, and well before you get close enough to photograph, will take off squealing like a stuck pig. And, 2) the spring peepers are out in full force, now in every wetland.
…is on the menu tonight.
Photo above by Maddie. Thanks, Maddie, for permission to use on this blog.
Around here, we tanked up on six gallons of the world’s best water (at the ever-flowing well), and then walked in the Kettle/Moraine State Forest, where the fee box has been taped shut (as well as the outhouses). We were the only humans there.
We walked to the post office to drop off our absentee ballots. On the way some blooms.
And this Lutheran church. Are these the 95 theses that Luther nailed to the door?
Note the date—ante bellum.
An arcane art I’ve been reading about and now plan to try.
This tree, which I recently came across on campus, is one of the few examples I’ve seen around here. It could be beautiful when in foliage. Now that I know that it’s here I will be watching closely to see how it grows, and how the arborists tend it.
And this stump used to be a wild, snarly tangle of shoots, new ones each season growing three feet or more. I thought is was some kind of arboreal corona virus. But then the tree man who took down the big ash said “Hackberry,” and I, immediately thunderstruck, knew he was right. I love Hackberrys, and this poor stump just wants to be a tree. My plan, now that I know what it is, is to work with it, hoping that together we can grow into something fine. It’s the wrong place for a towering hardwood, but a likely spot for something carefully pollarded.
The chicken farm was today’s outing.
Rhubarb, getting started. The first real vegetable of the year, and full of vitamin C.
Beautiful, rundown farm south-west of town with views across rolling pastures and fields, down to the wetlands where cranes were making their presence known. The chickens there are very free range, but according to Margie, they all come back to the barn at night. We picked up one frozen bird and 36 pullet eggs. Interestingly, just one of these substantial birds provides us with four two-person dinners and two lunches, with plenty available for Pax, too.
…on a gray and chilly evening—after a morning of snow.
Went with the neighbors—in separate cars, communicating by cell phone.
…bread (made by Sue), is the kind of thing to warm a chilly day.
Fine day for walks, yard work, and bike rides.
The back yard faces east.
The Spring Seems Slow
Bright sun has chased away the snow,
But still—the spring seems slow.
The prairie path is dry, no longer mud,
On silver maple, twigs with swollen bud.
Snowdrops bloom despite a lingering chill,
But across the world so many people ill.
No school for kids, no place for them to go,
The sun is bright, but, oh, the spring seems slow.
…in spite of nothing to do.
Pax and I met this imposing personage on our morning walk.
What with walks, news-reading, breakfast, lunch, and naps (and a scenic drive) no time left for reading or music practice. Will do better tomorrow, promise.
…or there would have been if anything was going on—but there wasn’t.
The lady at the dog food store brought a small order out to my truck, which was parked outside her shop, dropped it in the bed, took my Clorox-wipe-wrapped credit card, and that was that—my only semi-social event of the day—and all done at arm’s length with few words.
Happy Equinox, by the way.
…Walk in the rain until wet. Repeat as necessary.
And the giant cookies (made of the former ash tree) have been baked into the existing tree-remains back fence, and the whole mess cleaned up. The back yard view is now much improved, and will only get better.
Counting the rings, the former towering ash tree appears to have been about 50 years old. And to think that a little green beetle could kill such a hard, hard, hardwood.
Moving at 70 mph we hoped to outrun the virus. First we stopped in Fox Point to exchange a few items with the inhabitants (all done in the driveway, with everyone keeping distance), and then on to Oconomowoc, where we did the same thing. In between, we stopped for a picnic (pb&j). And when we got home we found Chet up a tree—the dead ash just across the property line in neighbor’s back yard,
Seeing as how our neighbor is not exactly the kind of neighbor you might hope to have, and suspecting that he would opt to leave the dead ash standing until it fell down, we told Chet we would pay a quarter of the cost, thus allowing him to give the neighbor a very favorable price. This stratagem worked, and now we can sit on the back patio and not look at an eyesore.
Sue talked to no one face-to-face. I talked with Chet, though at a distance, as he was taking down a tree in a neighbor’s yard. On the back of his business card is a list of his specialties: Arborist/Tree Surgeon, Teacher, Contra Dance Caller, Woodworker, Musician, and Raconteur. And, after talking to him, I’ve come to believe he is all of that and more. Fascinating person. We might work together on an arboretum curriculum for Starin Park.
Whitewater a ghost town…strange times.
The rattling bugle calls coming from every direction high above. Many small flocks. I watched one for about 15 minutes; they were high, wings outspread but not flapping, circling lazily, round and round.
These are not cranes.
Were they riding the thermal elevator trying to gain more altitude? Were they waiting for compatriots coming up behind? Were they in a holding pattern waiting for more favorable conditions? Were they thinking about terra firma and fields of corn stubble and, therefore starting to spiral down? Not sure. But I will say that I find their penetrating calls exhilarating and un-ignorable.
Quick stop at the Farmer’s Market, which was open, and surprisingly busy, though with everyone keeping respectful distances. Eighteen pullet eggs and one substantial oven bird bird. Not to mention two bricks of local super sharp cheddar.
Chilly, with snow showers, as Pax and I went walking afterward.
Then, to the grocery in Fort. Also busy, with careful shoppers. No sign of panic, though the frozen food cases and paper products shelves mostly empty. Otherwise not too depleted. We semi-stocked up, not over doing it. Pumpkin pie on the menu tonight—two pies actually, though one is going next door.
Although the Uni is shut down until late April, and many students have left, quite a few haven’t, and the downtown bars were bulging with green clad drinkers at 9:30 in the morning. Not much social distancing taking place there.
Back yard loudly musical, while Pax and I converted a pile of front yard birch windfalls to ash.
Though cool and windy, a fine day to putter outside. And for a few bike rides, including one with Pax to the prairie.
Considerable afternoon traffic as the University emptied out. Everything shut down until at least April 20. Not good for students or local business, but Pax and I won’t mind wandering the deserted campus.