2/28/11 PANCAKES, AND MOSCOW ON THE LAKE

SUNNY DAY AT LAST

CAN'T BEAT THIS

CORNUCOPIA RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

ONION DOMES AND ORTHODOX CROSSES

Monday,  8:30 AM.  18 degrees, up from 10 degrees earlier.  Wind WSW, very light.  The sky is blue except for the eastern horizon.  It promises to be a fine day.
    Yesterday morning was the annual Bayfield Lions Club pancake breakfast to raise scholarship money for local students.  It was held at The Northern Edge restaurant and bar a few blocks south on Hwy 13.  The restaurant generously hosts this and a number of other community fund raising events every year and we are grateful to them for their community spirit.  There were pancakes with local maple syrup, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, coffee and juice, all one wished to eat, and an opportunity to talk with neighbors emerging from their winter dens.
    After breakfast we took a drive out to Cornucopia, or “Corny” in the vernacular.  The gas station, Laundromat and convenience store that was for sale for several years is open again to serve the few village residents and the large summer crowd.  Corny has three small, old churches; Lutheran, Catholic and Russian Orthodox (the community was founded by Russian immigrants). Although I think it is little used now, it is kept in immaculate condition and is a little architectural gem, sort of  Moscow on the Big Lake.  We came back on Hwy C through the pine barrens, always a beautiful drive.  Gasoline has hit $3.419  per gallon locally and we may have to be more careful in our driving habits if it continues to rise.
  

2/27/11 WHITE SPRUCE, BIG AND LITTLE

TYPICAL WHITE SPRUCE

DWARF WHITE SPRUCE

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  10 degrees, up from 5 degrees earlier. Wind SSW, light. The sky is overcast but trying to clear. It is another cold, gray day.  We could use some sunshine.
    Speaking of conifer growth rates and dwarf forms (see last Friday’s blog) and putting politics aside for a bit, a rather amazing dwarf conifer, very common and readily available, is the dwarf white spruce, Picea glauca ‘Conica’, which at maturity is perhaps 12’ in height, compared to the species, which can grow to 50’ and more, even in “captivity.” It tends to be rather ample around the middle, like yours truly, but grows only a few inches per year. I like it in the herb garden or other very constrained places.
     Dwarf conifers are increasingly popular, and in Europe’s often diminutive home landscapes are particularly so.  Creating a miniature forest with dwarf conifers can be a very artistic endeavor, rather like a bonsai collection but a lot less trouble. The needles OF 'Conica' are so dense that red spider mites can be a problem in hot weather, and without snow cover or protection needles can winter burn.

2/26/11 GHOSTS

A DAY TO FIT MY MOOD

    Saturday, 8:45 AM.  5 degrees, up from 0 earlier.  Wind W, calm.  The sky is gray overcast and  it has snowed very lightly.  The barometer is stuck on partly cloudy and I will try changing the batteries. The cold, gray day fits my mood.
    All the turmoil in Madison, particularly the vivid photos of emotionally violent street theater inside the Wisconsin capital building and the chambers of the legislature itself resurrect a lot of negative feelings for me.  They begin with childhood memories of the communist inspired Allis Chalmers strike of 1946 in my home town of West Allis, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb.  The violent strike lasted for months (actually  329 days), during which time I was strictly admonished to stay away from the action, and there was an urgency in my parents’ voices that kept me unusually constrained in my otherwise pretty much unimpeded roaming.  There were terrific fights between union thugs (probably many of them neighbors or relatives) and the police, broken windows and lots of other damage, and the smell of teargas wafted around the small West Allis downtown.  Communism was something many “working” people and “intellectuals” flirted with in those days.
    A dozen years or so later I would sit in Hank and Maddy’s tavern on Greenfield Avenue, celebrating my Milwaukee birthright to a couple of beers after work, and listening to the glorification of those dark days by the then current Allis Chalmers union workers as they grumbled in their beer mugs and prepared  for, or engaged in, yet another strike, slowdown, sickout or similar sabotage against their employer.  The hatred of the “boss” and “business” was palpable.  So was the arrogance: “We’ve got them by the balls, the factory is too big for them to ever leave,” (it was a mile square and it shipped their mammoth generators and farm and construction equipment around the world).
    The anti-business, pro-union rhetoric and the harassment of the company went on, unabated, for more than a generation, and I witnessed and heard it all.  And, guess what… the day came when the huge factory, namesake of the community and pride of the state…simply left.  Changed its board of directors and its name, said to-hell-with-it, and left. Allis Chalmers is now a collection of vacant lots and mini-malls, and memories of the good life for those grizzled few still alive to remember it. And the union members sat there in their taverns and cried in their Milwaukee union-made beer and longed for the old days of fat pay  checks and the joy of unbridled hatred.  The real tragedy of this story is that it continued, an ingrained Milwaukee cultural trait, until virtually all the heavy industry, and tragedy  of tragedies, the vaunted breweries, closed their doors and silently slipped away.  So,  today’s "working class"  Milwaukeeans mutter and cry in beer produced somewhere else. 
    So when I see the unions and their political appointees trashing the capital and spewing hatred and striking and going AWOL on the public dollar, I also smell the teargas and see the long ago ghosts of Hank and Maddy’s Tavern, drinking their bitter beer.

2/25/11 EASTERN WHITE CEDAR

A COLD, GRAY DAY

FLAT, SCALE-LIKE NEEDLES OF WHITE CEDAR

...AS A SPECIMEN TREE

A WHITE CEDAR HEDGE PLANTED ABOUT SEVENTY YEARS AGO

A WITE CEDAR SPREADING ACROSS A RAVINE

Friday, 9:30 AM.  7 degrees, wind NW, light.  It is snowing lightly,  the sky is overcast and there is some fog over the Island.
    The native eastern white cedar, Thuja occidentalis, also called arborvitae, is a very beautiful, useful and most interesting tree. Its native habitat is swamps and streams and lake shores but it is quite adaptable. When young it makes a suitable evergreen hedge and accent plant, but give it a few decades and it becomes a forest giant and in the wild can spread by suckers and running branches to cover whole ravines.  Be careful where you plant it, or at least have lots and lots of room.  A  hedge clippers can slow the process down for a long while, but genetics will eventually out.  Speaking of genetics, there are a number of useful dwarfish varieties but even they can push the limits of the home landscape if uncontrolled.  The cedar was and is an important American Indian medicinal and ceremonial plant, its iconic, pungent leaves being used in treating many illnesses of the nose, throat and lungs. The Ojibwe and some others also drank a tea made from the leaves.  The wood was valuable for canoes and other objects and of course we all know of the cedar chest.  The smoldering leaves and branches are used ceremonially as a smudge for purification of objects and persons, and of course in the sweat lodge. We have attended a number of blessing ceremonies where the smoke was so used.
    The native range of eastern white cedar is the northeastern US and Canada, around the Great Lakes and upper Midwest. The giant western white cedar, Thuja plicata, is somewhat similar but much larger and is mainly a tree of the far northwestern mountains and Alaska.  In the southeast along the Atlantic coastal swamps the Thuja is replaced by the somewhat similar Chaemacyparis thyoides.

2/24/11 ...BUT DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH

FRONT

SNOW MELT ON THE SIOUX

NATIVE PUSSY WILLOW FLOWERS ARE OPENING

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  24 degrees, wind now SW, changed from NE a half hour ago.  We had a dusting of snow last night.  The cloud cover is extremely variable this morning and the barometer again predicts partly cloudy skies.  I am beginning to think it is not functioning.  There was a very distinct front of clouds earlier that was rather spectacular.
    I took Lucky for a walk on the beach yesterday afternoon to get away from the TV and the dismal state of Wisconsin, national and world affairs, and can report that the native pussy  willows, Salix discolor (my identification, correct me if you like) are definitely opening their flower buds (the “pussies”), and on top of that, the Bayfield In Bloom committee meeting yesterday was so enthusiastic that spring must be just around the corner (but don't hold your breath)

2/23/11 TRAGEDY ON CHEQUAMEGON BAY

A GRAY DAY

Wednesday, 8:45 AM.  22.5 degrees, wind SW, very light.  It is overcast and the barometer still predicts partly cloudy skies.  Spring must be getting closer, as I have a Bayfield in Bloom committee meeting this morning, although the Bayfield in Bloom kickoff, radio show and Arbor Day celebration is on Friday, May 13, still months away.
    The Chequamegon Bay area suffered an unusual tragedy last weekend.  The annual Book Across The Bay, a cross country ski rally from Ashland across the ice to Washburn, was held Saturday night. It’s name refers to it being a fund raising event for local libraries. It is a colorful, candle-lit nighttime event.  There were 4,000 participants this year.  It was brutally windy and cold Saturday night, and the ice was so slippery that it had to be groomed with cross-country ski equipment.  The event has always been well monitored and every effort taken to ensure the safety of participants.  However, a bizarre accident occurred this year.  On Sunday morning a young skier was found dead, the victim of a hit and run some time the night before. He evidently had skied the course and then turned around and retraced his route back to Ashland, which is not uncommon.  His name has not been released as yet, although he has been identified as possibly a Northland College student.
    The driver of the vehicle has turned himself in to the sheriff, accompanied by his father, but there have been few other details released.  Was the skier killed instantly, or left, injured, to freeze to death in the night?  What were the young driver and a passenger doing on the dangerously slippery ice in the middle of the night?  Were they out thrill riding on the ice?  Was alcohol involved?  We will have to wait to find out.
    Small communities have their tragedies, just as do larger; that's life. But perhaps the popular event should not be held at night.

2/22/11 I WON'T SPOIL IT

BAYFIELD MORNING PAPER

HEADLINE...OH, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY!

Tuesday, 8:30 AM.  18 degrees, up ten degrees in the past hour and a half.  Wind SSW, calm.  The sky is crystal clear, a “see forever” day, and the barometer predicts much the same.  The air is so clean and full of oxygen one feel years younger just stepping out the door. I won't spoil it with politics or news of tragedies and war.

2/21/11 BRUTAL WIND BUT NO BLIZZARD

Monday, 8:30 AM.  18 degrees, wind NNE, very strong.  The sky is mostly overcast but clearing, and the barometer predicts partly cloudy skies.  It is brutal out there but we evidently missed the blizzard to the south.

A BRUTAL MORNING

THE MARSH IS COLD BUT BEAUTIFUL

...AND THE WILD PUSSY WILLOW BUDS ARE SWELLING

   I stopped at the beach to check out the pussy willows  yesterday, and the buds are swelling but the bud scales aren't opening yet.  I take back whatever I might have said about an early spring.  The beach marsh was a frigid whiteout.

2/20/11 ICE ROAD CLOSED, AND OTHER CHAOS

WHERE THE SNOWMOBILE GO?

YUP!

FOR RENT

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  22 degrees, wind brisk, mostly from the N. The sky is overcast, and the barometer predicts partly cloudy conditions
    The ice road was closed late yesterday afternoon due to generally hazardous conditions, and some open water at the Bayfield shore.  It is anybody's  guess as to whether it will open again.  I spotted an abandoned snowmobile that looked as if it were sinking, and when I returned ten minutes later with the camera there was only a hole in the ice.  I don’t know if someone got it pulled out or if it went down.
    For better or worse I am going to comment on the current confrontation between the Governor and Administration and the state’s employee unions. Considering the state’s budget crisis and debt, the economic demands on the employees are more than reasonable. But that does not seem to be the basic issue, which is a threatened reduction in public employee union bargaining power.  It isn’t just salaries and wages that create an economic drag on the state, it is work rules that have been extracted from the state over the years, many of which are highly destructive to management and to the efficiency of the state’s public work force (of over 300,000 employees).  Last fall’s elections resulted in a complete turnover of power from a very liberal government to very conservative.  There is a mandate to take drastic action to save the state from bankruptcy, and foster a return to prosperity.  We nave now experienced a week of disruptions of the public business, with teachers calling in sick so they can protest, often taking students with them, and other public employees joining them, clogging the capital and impeding business. To top it off Democrat senators have fled the state, to preclude a quorum for a vote. These actions deserve discipline, but ultra liberal judges will not permit that to happen.
    Wisconsin was one of the first states to enact comprehensive civil service law, in 1905, and these laws cover almost every aspect of employment for public employees.  Currently there are 45,000 state employees covered by comprehensive civil service laws which guarantee hiring by merit, equal employment opportunity, equal pay with private employment, fair working conditions, discipline, firing and layoff, etc.  The employees of over 1000  Wisconsin municipal governments are also covered by these laws. 
    In 1959 Wisconsin legislated the right of civil service employees to join unions, and granted union shop rights as well.  This created a double layer of protection for public employees; civil service laws and union representation. Currently thirty states allow public employees to unionize, leaving twenty that do not.
    I worked in public service all my career and witnessed first hand, in four different states, the absurdity of this double layer of benefits and protection for public employees, which makes it virtually impossible for management to control the workplace and enforce even minimal levels of discipline and efficiency.  My position is, therefore, either civil service laws or union representation for public employees.  Let the marketplace, with its strikes, layoffs and lockouts rule the public workplace, or codified law that protects workers rights and guarantees wages.  Not both.

2/19/11 CALL ME CHICKEN

PERSISTENT CLOUDS ON THE EASTERN HORIZON

IS THE ROOSTER A CHICKEN?

Saturday, 8:30 AM. 15 degrees, up from 9 degrees at 7:00 AM.  Wind WSW, light at present.  The sky is clear except for the persistent low band of clouds in the east, beyond Madeline Island.
    I have watched with interest the recent news story about the high school wrestler who forfeited a championship match with a girl wrestler because he said it was against his religion.  Perhaps it was, but more importantly it would have been extremely embarrassing, win or lose.  Win and he would have been judged an overpowering bully (look where he grabbed her, did he have to be so rough?), lose and he would have been a wimp.  He would have lost either way, and it was unfair to put him in that situation. You can say the same for other extreme contact sports, like football.
   When I was in my early twenties I had some young farmer friends, tough as the proverbial nails, and one of them was a young woman, the sister of several brothers who were virtual wild men. I had heard stories of her wrestling the young Mexican migrant workers who came to their farm every fall.  Her brothers would set up the match and make a lot of money betting on her.  As far as I know she never lost a fight, and I doubt the young bucks held back at all as there could be serious money in the game.
    Then one of the brothers set me up on a date with his sister.  Mind you, she was a pretty girl in every respect and actually rather charming.  At some time in the evening I put my arm around her, and it was like putting my arm around the biggest, toughest of her brothers.  Solid  sinew and muscle.  I was no physical slouch at that time, but I knew right then I would not have bet on myself in a wrestling match of any kind with her.  No thinking guy wants to bet his male reputation on an actual fight with a girl, regardless of religion, title or money. The young wrestler obviously considered discretion the better part of male valor.  Call me chicken, but I would have done the same.

2/18/11 ENTHUSIASM!

A VERY BLUSTERY MORNING

STAGE NORTH THEATER IN WASHBURN

Friday, 8:30 AM.  19 degrees, wind gale force at times, variable but mostly from the W. We had to lean hard into the wind to make progress walking this morning. It is snowing lightly and there is considerable fog over the channel. The sky is mostly clear and the barometer predicts partly cloudy skies. 
    We went to see “Annie” at Stage North in Washburn last night to celebrate Joan’s birthday.  It was an amazingly good production, complete with pit orchestra.  The children were particularly entertaining, and there were a number of quite good adult character actors and singers.  Little Annie sang her heart out, and was always in key. Stage North is a small modern theater, with seating for about 150.  It has a nice bar and lounge area.  The tickets were inexpensive, as it is all or mostly volunteer community theater.  Whatever might be lacking in professionalism is more than made up for by enthusiasm.

2/17/11 I MAY STILL NEED A PLUMBER

FEBRUARY THAW

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  37.5 degrees.  Happy Birthday, Joan!  Wind WSW, calm.  The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts partly cloudy skies.  Snow and ice are melting rapidly, bare spots showing on roofs and lawns.  We will get a lot more snow before spring so I am not unhappy to see it melting now.  Snow loads and ice dams are a continual concern and it would be a blessing to get rid it.
    Remember the Moen faucet caper?  I received the parts, free of charge, shipping included.  I spent the better part of yesterday under the sink and called their on-line help center several times.  Moen Corporation is an American hero in my book.  I may still need a plumber.

2/16/11 VOLUNTEERS

A SOFT, QUIET MORNING

AMBULANCE

ANOTHER

TANKER FIRETRUCK

ANOTHER...

AND ANOTHER

WILDFIRE TRUCK

BAYFIELD FIRE HALL

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  31.5 degrees, wind WSW, light.  The sky is partly cloudy and clearing, the barometer predicting mostly the same.  It is a soft, quiet morning.
    The Appeals Board meeting yesterday was held in the conference room at the firehouse, so afterwards I had the opportunity to examine and take some photos of the emergency equipment, which I found pretty impressive, and as one expects, clean, polished and organized.  There are two EMT ambulances, four large fire trucks and a smaller truck especially equipped for wildfires.  The department has 19 volunteer firefighters and 15 volunteer Emergency Medical Technicians. All must meet defined levels of competence and training for their respective positions.  I have always found volunteer emergency personnel to be fully effective in the smaller communities in which we have lived and worked.  These volunteers take on difficult and hazardous duty for little compensation and I think exemplify what is best about our society, everyday folks helping the community do things it could otherwise ill afford and providing services where otherwise there might be none at all.
    I recall an incident early in my career, working at the Boerner Botanical Gardens in Hales Corners, a Milwaukee western suburb. A visitor fell and broke a leg and I called the volunteer Rescue Squad.  It was Sunday but they quickly arrived, dressed in Bermuda shorts and T shirts, straight from a neighborhood barbecue. The accident victim refused to be touched by them,  and her husband loaded her in their car and they drove painfully off.  How foolish, for the EMTs were all medical doctors off for the weekend.

2/15/11 SIGNS OF SPRING, AND A GOOD BOOK FOUND

THE ARTIST'S BRUSH STROKES

SWELLING BUDS OF MOUNTAIN ASH

Wednesday, 7:45 AM.  28 degrees, wind W, light to moderate.  The sky is mostly overcast but with a gorgeous sunrise, and the barometer predicts snow.
    The thaw continues, the march towards spring further exemplified by the swelling, furry buds of the mountain ash trees.  I am happy to report that Ann Rumsey at What Goes Round, Bayfield’s used bookstore on Second and Manypenny, found a copy of Robert Ruark’s The Old Man and the Boy for me and I am happily immersed in its homilies.  My morning at least will be spent doing my duty as chair of the Bayfield Zoning Appeals Board, which is always interesting and challenging.

12/14/11 WHEN ON THE ICE ROAD, A LACK OF DRAMA IS A GOOD THING

PAY ATTENTION

TRAFFIC WAS PRETTY LIGHT

READY FOR WHEN THE ICE MELTS

RESCUE SLED WAITS FOR A LIVE (HOPEFULLY) ONE

OPEN WATER ON EAST SIDE OF MADELINE ISLAND

HISTORIC CATHOLIC CHURCH

LIBARY

BAYFIELD FROM THE ICE ROAD

Monday, Valentine’s Day, 22.5 degrees, wind WNW, calm at ground level but clouds moving rapidly.  The sky is partly to mostly cloudy, and the barometer predicts sun.  The roads, having melted and refrozen, are slick and I used both yak tracks and steel tipped cane to negotiate them this morning.
    Yesterday we made our annual ice road pilgrimage to Madeline Island.  The weather is turning warm and one never knows when there will be soft spots in the ice that will close the road.  The trip over and back was uneventful, if rather bumpy.  There was intermittent traffic and a few walkers, and fewer fishermen.  Once over we rode about for a bit; there were several restaurants and bars open in LaPointe on Madeline Island, but everything else was closed.  We drove to the east side of the island and, sure enough, there is open water as far as the eye can see.  In the ten winters we have lived here the lake has frozen over only once, and that briefly. Global warming?  Who knows…but things have been warming up for the past ten thousand years.  Technically, I guess large boat traffic could run all winter with a little ice-breaker help. I don’t know about the Sault St. Marie locks.
    There are some year-round residents on the island, but mostly it is a summer place. Other years we have seen large herds of deer, but even on a warm day we saw none, and no tracks along the roads. I suspect the wolves have crossed the ice and eaten most of the deer.  We ate lunch at the new Victor G’s Resrtaurant, located in the Bayfield Inn, when we returned. It was a bit too early to eat on the island.  All in all it was a nice, relaxing Sunday, certainly worth doing at least once a year.  When on the ice road (officially County Hwy I) a lack of drama is a good thing.

Monday, Valentine’s Day, 22.5 degrees, wind WNW, calm at ground level but clouds moving rapidly.  The sky is partly to mostly cloudy, and the barometer predicts sun.  The roads, having melted and refrozen, are slick and I used both yak tracks and steel tipped cane to negotiate them this morning.
    Yesterday we made our annual ice road pilgrimage to Madeline Island.  The weather is turning warm and one never knows when there will be soft spots in the ice that will close the road.  The trip over and back was uneventful, if rather bumpy.  There was intermittent traffic and a few walkers, and fewer fishermen.  Once over we rode about for a bit; there were several restaurants and bars open in LaPointe on Madeline Island, but everything else was closed.  We drove to the east side of the island and, sure enough, there is open water as far as the eye can see.  In the ten winters we have lived here the lake has frozen over only once, and that briefly. Global warming?  Who knows…but things have been warming up for the past ten thousand years.  Technically, I guess large boat traffic could run all winter with a little ice-breaker help. I don’t know about the Saul St. Marie locks.
    There are some year-round residents on the island, but mostly it is a summer place. Other years we have seen large herds of deer, but even on a warm day we say none, and no tracks along the roads. I suspect the wolves have crossed the ice and eaten most of the deer.  We ate lunch at the new Victor G’s Resrtaurant, located in the Bayfield Inn, when we returned. It was a bit too early to eat on the island.  All in all it was a nice, relaxing Sunday, certainly worth doing at least once a year.  When on the ice road (officially County Hwy I) a lack of drama is a good thing.

2/13/11 CHANGE

NEW NAME

PROGRESS

THE WOLF PACK WAS HERE

HEN TURKEY ON HWY K

Sunday, 845 AM.  30 degrees, wind SSW, calm.  The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts snow.
    Needing to go to the recycle center with a month’s worth of stuff yesterday, we stopped to view the progress on the new casino in Redcliff.  The major steelwork is now up, surprising progress given the weather.  It will no longer be Isle Vista Casino, but Legendary Waters Casino.  We will continue to report on its progress.
    We hadn’t driven Hwy K in a month either, and we checked to see whether the Larsen’s place had been plowed out by the town, and we can report things look good for maple sugaring.  We drove down Lohman Road to look at the logging that is being done, and encountered the footprints of the local wolf pack in the snow (but no deer tracks).  Further down Hwy K we spotted two hen turkeys next to the road, and the one pictured flew up into a roadside tree and sat there, quite unconcerned.  This is the first we have seen  turkeys this far north on the Bayfield peninsula.