Aztalan Outing

One way to see family in these troubled times.

After hike and exploration, tailgate picnic with all the trimmings.
As we say when parting, “Have a poopy pandemic.”

Dog Walks and…

bike rides.

Combo moon lamp and bird feeder.

Unfortunately, when we sit out back at dusk we inconvenience the neighborhood cardinals, who seem to prefer evening for visits to the feeder.

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Over weeks, months, and years, young men in drab-olive uniforms began clearing trails, planting trees, building visitor centers and campgrounds, and completing countless other improvement projects across the country. In just the first five months of the CCCs program’s life, it reached its maximum enrollment of 300,000 young men. And in 1935, when Congress renewed it, the quota was increased to over 350,000. In its nine years of existence, it’s said that the Civilian Conservation Corps planted between two and three billion trees, cleared thirteen thousand miles of hiking trails, built more than forty thousand bridges and three thousand fire towers, helped establish more than seven hundred new state parks, made improvements in ninety-four national parks or monument areas, and developed fifty-two thousand acres of public campgrounds. And while all the work happened nearly a century ago, many CCC projects are still used today; in fact, much of the signage and architecture seen in national forests and parks even now harks back to original CCC designs.

Irene and Zoey

For un-Thanksgiving dinner. Squash soup and grilled shrimp. (We did have to finish with pies, however.)(The dogs got whipped-cream pup cups.)

Long walk across the empty campus prior to dinner.

Oddest Thanksgiving

Take out dinner around campfire in neighbor’s back yard.

Good food, good conversation, chilly temperatures. Whatever the circumstances, happy T’giving everyone.

O, Soggy Day!

Rain from sunrise to sunset.

Pax declined several walks today, opting instead for a warm, dry couch—the wisdom of older age, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the university is clearing out, and it looks like students will not be coming back until mid-January. Hard on local businesses, but nice for those of us who like to roam the campus.

And here’s something unique—carry-out T’giving. Never done before, but seemingly a great idea this year.
From the Black Sheep. When I picked up our order I saw maybe 50 other bags besides our ours waiting for pickup. The Sheep is also providing quite a few free or reduced dinners, as well. Hard to wait until tomorrow, although the holiday will be strange celebrating with neighbors rather than family.

Not Sure I’m Ready…

…to look out and see white.

But winter is a’coming,’ and the morning snow was actually better than the afternoon gloomy rain. Still, in spite of dim and damp, rays of hope—vaccines on the way, transition in progress, competent people occupying government posts, stock market up. Optimism, at long last, although the country is still afflicted with over 40 senators who belong to the Anti-American Party.

Salt Stripes…

…on roads. This is the way street departments now deal with impending snow. Not a good sign for those of us who ride bikes, but then, we are on the cusp of winter.

Pax and I did a little seasonal prep as well. Repairing the trailer and sequestering it in its winter domicile, moving rechargeable batteries from the garage to the basement where freezing is unlikely, walking around our block (no salt), walking the prairie (still walkable if wearing bright colors), and reloading the coffee water jugs at the flowing well.

AND, finally, the transition moves forward!

Speedy Delivery…

…reallocating furniture to Oconomowoc and Cedarburg. Pleasant Sunday drive through autumn kettle moraine landscape, and a chance to see (distanced) a few extended family members.

Have Bike, Will Travel…

…even if the hands are numbed by cold.

After all, it’s good practice for iceboating.

And, for dinner, mushroom stew over polenta.

But, forget dinner. Who needs it when there is a lemon torte cooling in the garage?

Can This Be Texas?

Warm weather and longhorns.

What Can I Say?

Not much to report.

Very warm and windy. Good walks, and a long bike ride. Trying to get my head around how almost all 50 Republican senators are willing to sell out American democracy. I see them as traitors.

Have Truck..

will travel.

To Batavia and back with truck and trailer to move furniture. A bit tricky with dog, and in the time of COVID. What’s the best way, for example, to handle bathroom breaks?

Hiking…

…with Becca, Maddie, and Ellie at Nature Hill. Great day for a hike. And afterwards, a little time playing with Ben and James. All outdoors, and pretty well distanced.

Pax had a good time too.

Arboretum Committee Meeting

(Virtual, of course) The wheels of government turn slowly, ever so slowly, but at least they are turning, and progress, or its approximation, is being made. This is a true test of my ability to refrain from speaking, to speak slowly when I do, to remain deferential, to appear to listen intently to off topic ramblings— in short to exercise extreme patience. None of it comes natural.

So far, I seem to be doing it.

Sheltering…

…from the wind, of which there was more than enough.

Apart from reading, and cooking (Chicken Francese) the central project, for me at least, was the late fall gutter clean-out (after all Vi’s Bradford Pear leaves had finished clogging them). (Note: never plant a Bradford Pear.) Whenever I was up on the ladder facing north and south I asked Sue to hold the device while I ascended, fearful that the extreme west-wind would send me sideways.

Going Nowhere

Just plodding and puttering. Zero mileage on the cars.

Morning sun, followed by clouds, wind, cold, and rain.

~~~~~~~~~~

We inhabit a universe where atoms are made in the centers of stars; where each second a thousand suns are born; where life is sparked by sunlight and lightning in the airs and waters of youthful planets; where the raw material for biological evolution is sometimes made by the explosion of a star halfway across the Milky Way; where a thing as beautiful as a galaxy is formed a hundred billion times - a Cosmos of quasars and quarks, snowflakes and fireflies, where there may be black holes and other universes and extraterrestrial civilizations whose radio messages are at this moment reaching the Earth. How pallid by comparison are the pretensions of superstition and pseudoscience; how important it is for us to pursue and understand science, that characteristically human endeavor.

Clear, Calm, and Cold

Today’s bike ride felt a little like ice boating.

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Letting Loose

For three wild days they clung to twig and branch
As the November gale ripped limbs from trunks
And toppled ancient boles.

Then morning broke, clear, and calm, and cold,
And one by one, then many at a time,
The golden leaves let loose, and rattled to the forest floor.

It might have been the frost that bid them go,
Or, it might have been a rhythm eons old.

—JBN

At The Horse Farm…

…Ellie riding.

Various Tests…

…and a trip to the compost site.

A urine test for Pax (ask Sue how the sample was collected). And a covid test for me—not that I needed one.
Pax seems much better, so the test may have been unnecessary. Sometimes just the threat of visiting the vet is a marvelous restorative. But, we will know know of any chemical imbalances, if they exist, as a result of all this.
I took the covid test just to test the operation—free to anyone, and rapid. I rode my bike to the site at the U, and by the time I got home the result showed up in my email in-box.
And, somewhere in between, we took a trailer full of leaves to the compost site.

Wind Switch

The wind vane has swung.

The predicted weather was a long time coming, but eventually we got a brief downpour, though nothing like the tornado we were warned about.

Squash soup on the menu tonight.

And, from Virgil:
These two rules, thou must have always in a readiness. First, do nothing at all, but what reason proceeding from that regal and supreme part, shall for the good and benefit of men, suggest unto thee. And secondly, if any man that is present shall be able to rectify thee or to turn thee from some erroneous persuasion, that thou be always ready to change thy mind, and this change to proceed, not from any respect of any pleasure or credit thereon depending, but always from some probable apparent ground of justice, or of some public good thereby to be furthered; or from some other such inducement.