the same but different

1.     custom

No, we do not max out at 100 degrees today, not that. It is, instead, 105 when we set out to bike to Paul’s café.

A commenter was surprised that we would want to bike in this heat. I suppose there is a bit of lethargy that comes with high temps outside. And yet, this is exactly what pushes us outdoors, too, so that we may challenge ourselves to go beyond the "comfortable."

But I should also say that, except for when we hit the hills, the heat isn’t nearly as unpleasant as it would be were we to, say, take a little walk. And if we go fast, the breeze picks up, so that we sweat, sure, that, but in a cool sort of way.

And did I mention how delightful it is to bike in skirts?

Ed asks – why do women have to wear shirts on top?

Because of custom, because they want to, or because they don’t want to but also don’t want to get arrested.

How can that be? Inequality!

Inequality is not legally objectionable if it responds to different biological imperatives, so say our courts, after all.

We continue biking.

2.     custom, revisited

Early, very early, Ed asks – are you asleep?

(Yes, we do that to each other when we’re anxious to share something.)

Not anymore.

I want you to see this clip I’ve been watching on Hulu. You’ll like it.

It’s an hour long thing, but I get hooked. There are five separate stories of people who find love (or, in most cases they find it) on line. So you think  -- ho hum, predictable. Happens all the time.

Still, I find two of the stories especially touching -- the first (the Czech one) and the last (the Avitar one). To me, they are a vivid demonstration of this simple truth – that there are many conventional paths to happiness but there are just as many unconventional paths to happiness and sometimes those less conventional (and therefore more adventurous) ones may raise eyebrows, but so what – they are oftentimes the most rewarding.

I wont spoil it for you – watch it if you have the time.

Of course, I had to think back to the days when I first started posting here, on Ocean – when so many people thought this whole concept of my daily Internet blogging was odd. As if I'm giving great significance to my very average life (I'm not), as if I believed that anything I had to say was important (it isn’t -- that's not the point). 

Just a few years later I met Ed and the Internet was absolutely central to that encounter as well. Ed is not custom bound and when we met, I, too, scorned much of what was dictated by custom. And so we proceeded in our own way and to this day, if I want to inspire horror in him, I’ll tell Ed he’s behaving like an old married man.

Ed will say – custom, culture – they’re a way to say no to people.

I don’t really agree. Ignore imperatives and you have yourself some beautiful customs to pick and choose from. I have had a Christmas tree most every year, even as I never go to church (or at least not for reasons of religion). It is customary to kiss a loved one when you greet her or say good bye (unless you’re with Ed and then it’s customary to do neither). Custom doesn’t (necessarily) punish or keep people out.

We come back to this topic again and again. It is our custom to do so.

3.     no rain in sight

I cannot take pictures of the farmlands around us. Mostly, the truck farmers don’t come to work the fields on these hot days. Nothing’s thriving. Not even the weeds.

At the famette, I continue to start and end each day with a hose in hand. In some cases, it helps, in many, it barely makes a difference.

4.     mysterious entrance

In the late afternoon, we find a little bird with a still open beak flapping inside the porch. How did he get there? We look for cracks, pores, openings – but find none. 

Maybe you let him in when you entered today?
I did not enter the porch today at all.

Neither did I.

Did he use the cat door?

Eventually we chase him out.

5.     dinner

Frozen lasagna. And believe me, it’s all I can do to put it in the microwave. Frozen seemed just fine. Did I tell you that we hit 105 today?

6.     rain in sight

At 8 p.m. it rained. I mean, not deep, meaningful rain I suppose, but I had my dance of utter joy. For the possibilities. And the hope.

100

Yeah, I like round numbers. Consider these:

100 days ago, the temperature outside, on the front porch, was 50.

100 hours from now I’ll be 59 and 3 months old.

100. Will we be having 100 days of summer? Of dry earth and thirsty bushes and trees?

We bike to Paul’s just as it hits 100 degrees.

Biking behind me, Ed shouts – you look like a character from Alice in Wonderland, billowing ahead. (The reference is, I’m sure, to my poofy sundress.)

Picture worthy?
I think so.

I’ll stop.

No, I want it from the seat of my bike.

Here it is:

Inside that envelope of fabric, there is at least a breeze, not a cool breeze, but still, a movement of air and for the minute that we coast down a hill it almost feels normal. Then we slow down and it is hot again. Parched and dry, hot, hot, hot. 100 degrees hot.

we few...

96 today, 99 tomorrow and the next day. A weather pattern that’s stuck. I can’t look the truck farmers in the eye. Each day, I feel their heaviness.

Our garden is surviving. Not thriving maybe, but getting by. Each morning, we think strategically where to run water. Who will benefit most? Who will welcome the relief from the endless waves of hot air?

In the afternoon, we consider an outing (at the very least, moving beyond the confines of the cool farmhouse), but somehow we cannot work up great enthusiasm of it.

...until Ed says – want to go swimming in a quarry?

Say what?

I used to swim in a hole east of here – he tells me.

Hole?
Well, you take the road east, get out of the car at the railroad tracks, walk alongside them for a while, turn in and you’ll come across these... holes with water. Once quarries. Maybe.

I have lived in Madison since 1979 and I’d never heard of these. I’m skeptical.

Devil’s Lake had warm water and parasites. And Devil’s Lake is deep! Why would these 'holes' be even safe for the likes of you and me?

We can go look.

Yes, I’m game for that.

Twenty minutes later, we park the car, by railroad tracks, there, just as Ed had remembered them...

We follow along. Five minutes, ten, twenty... I think we may have missed it, Ed mumbles. 

But we keep going. 

I mean – I know we are relying on Ed’s hazy recollection of some watering hole here decades ago, but still, you can't just let go of an idea when you've gone this far.

We find a path!

No, it's a bust. It leads nowhere.

Let's go a little more. 

This can't be right. I don't remember it being far.

We never remember things being far...

And shortly, there’s another narrow path, and this one does lead somewhere – to a quiet and secluded pond, where bugs hover and fish look at you with puzzlement and dragon flies dart, back and forth, as if it were some kind of new game that they'd invented.

It’s hot, and the water is not really swimming stuff...

... but I have to say, it is an oddly magical little spot. The kind of place you dream of going to if you’re ten and you’ve run away from home and plan on never again returning (except that deep down, you hope your family will eventually find you because at night, it seems like this could be a dark and lonely place).

We sit by the water and watch the dragon flies and these guys are too crazy quick for me to photograph on the sly. The fish are more obliging.

But as we are about to leave, my favorite elusive dragon fly sits right down in fron of me and allows himself to be photographed and truly, it’s as if he knew all about people and cameras and could tell when to mess with me and when to finally give in.

We leave and follow a path around this hole and the adjacent one and I have to ask – how is it that you ever found these?

My buddy showed me...

Buddy? Do I know him? 

No, moved to New York some time ago... His name's Gregory...

My more recent history, or at least my memories of it orbit around events in my life as they relate to having daughters. Oh, this was before they were born, oh that was when she was five and the younger one was two. And so on. Ed’s recollections are random. He can't be bothered with chronology, he wont recall a progression -- what followed and what preceded one year or the next.

And still, I sense that in that chaos of memories, he has a real sense of what counted and mattered. His long ago venture out to this watering hole created, for whatever reason, a good memory. 

Watching the fireflies do their thing now, I’m thinking – this, for us, is also a good moment. A very good moment.

We circle the "holes" and return to the car.

In the evening, after a Sunday dinner at the farmhouse with my girl and her guy, we go out to water  the tomatoes. It's Ed's turn to hold the hose.

guilt

Warm again. I don’t even look outside to check on the day. Hot and dry. It’s the way it is each day.

For us, it isn’t terrible. Yes, we’re losing some of our plantings, yes, it’s uncomfortable at midday. But it’s summer -- a time for bare feet and sprays of water from the hose. And we share that water with those who are tickled and thrilled by our random fountains. Not Isis, but birds, for example. They chase drops of water and forget for a while that we are the ones throwing it at them.

It is midday. I set out to trim Ed’s beard. We put an old wooden chair out front and I reach for the cutter. I've never done this before. Ed cowers...

...but I have that immigrant’s confidence and go right at it. I mean, is it that much different than shaving your legs?

So here he is, after the trim.

 

We engage in our own singularly guilty pleasures of working, writing, working, watering. And honestly, quite suddenly,  there's very little left of the day.

Thunder rumbles, not too far off, and yet for once, I haven't any concerns. Come on, bring that storm right over! I'll stand outside and welcome it every step of the way! But it passes us by. Spotty, worthless storms that dump no water on the fields.

And yet, for us, it is, in so many ways, a beautiful day.

You want take out Chinese for dinner?
Sure.

It seems right. Put down the hose, head over to pick up steamed this, stir-fried that.  I ask Ed to pull up when the sun seems to take one last sweep before hiding behind a cloud.

Day's over. Things I could have done? The list is long. Does it matter? No, not at all.

a cheat

It goes without saying that we make no effort to keep any of the grasses alive at the farmette in this period of hot, dry weather. We care little about “lawn” and indeed, eliminate as much of it as we can by extending flowers, vegetables, trees, sometimes quite randomly, into the landscape.

But I do care about our flowers and Ed cares about the trees and so we keep our well pump working as we run the hose (and many extensions of it) from one end of the property to the next.

It’s not likely that we’ll dry out the well. But being inclined to ask *what if* questions, I do ask Ed: what would happen if we depleted our own little water supply?

I should check the water level... he tells me. Yes, please do!
The thing is, I don’t know how high it was before all this started...

And so I shrug off the *what ifs* and we continue to try to keep the young trees alive and the newly planted beds from turning into straw.

For a moment today, it looked like it may rain. As I ride Rosie to work (I know I am not paid to work now, but that’s one big cheat because I have an endless list of work related things to accomplish this summer), I feel a drop on my arm. And then another.

...and that’s it. It pains me to think that much prayer, dancing and wishful thinking may have been done in the hope that it would rain.  But, the clouds came and left, accomplishing nothing (except maybe giving us a respite from the heat for a few afternoon hours).

[It was cool enough to stay on the porch for much of the morning. It's a good time to watch the birds outside. I did not know, before today, that these yellow finches suck on flower petals.]

In other news, various events and eating opportunities surrounding my daughter’s September wedding are coming upon us and I can’t help but think about food that will be consumed then. And, too, about how little attention I give toward food preparation now, when the days are long and hot and Ed and I are terribly distracted by keeping plants alive and by discovering new technologies.

Ah, you didn’t see that one coming, right? Well now, Ed is the biggest time suck for me in all months of the year, but never more than in the summer. So often it is all about fiddling with technologies.

This evening he and I spent hours, really many hours perfecting the art of finding cheap ways to fly to places you want to go to. We haven’t a trip before us. Not in the next few months. But it’s enough that we have one sometime, somewhere. A theoretical possibility sets the search engines in motion and we’re off!

(If I were to lose my job, I think my next best set of skills are those related to finding travel resources – how to get there, what to do, where to stay. Ever since my mom tossed an AAA book into the back seat of the black Chevy Impala back in 1963 and said – here, find us a cheap motel for the night, I became a travel resource junkie.)

And so tonight Ed and I surfed together and did indeed leapfrog over one site to the next, excelling at beating prices until they shriveled to small sums, until I said, firmly, so very firmly – enough! Time for supper!

...which was, again, inconsequential. Leftover broccoli (!), defrosted shrimp and horseradish sauce.

I’ll say this – out on the porch, by the light of the setting sun, in the cool breezes of a Wisconsin summer evening, perhaps you'd call it a cheat, but I felt it to be a quite luxurious meal. (Ed joined me once he replaced yet another part in our terribly aging cars.)

these days

Much of what we talk about has to do with the kind of summer we’re having: a great one (all this time away from work). Awful (the heat, the drought). Busy (free times are the busiest times... go figure). Sedentary (can’t help it – writing calls for keeping your buttocks in one place.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Sleepy (see above: it’s authentic, I swear!)

It is, by any count, an unusual summer. Your heart breaks for the farmers who are so terribly affected by the dry heatwave.

At the same time, you can’t help but marvel at this: there are no mosquitoes. Zero.  Every evening, I stand outdoors, hose pointed at this plant, then another, for hours on end and I’m not fanning myself, no, not at all. The evening is bug free (except for the wasps – they’ve established nests in the garage, in the garbage cans, the mailbox... they eat other bugs, Ed reminds me when I want to swipe at them).

These days are also easy on the cooking. (For example, tonight’s supper is broccoli and scrambled eggs. Does it get more boring than that?)

And it’s starting to feel like there is (to Ed’s dismay) a wedding in the air (not mine, not mine... Ed, I don’t want to hear it! Your feelings about weddings are duly recorded. And dismissed.)

Who could doubt, too, that it is a time of Isis. In all the permutations that he introduces to our day.

In the morning...

And in the evening...

It’s all very distracting.

In a good way.

night noise

Since we’ve been back (one week!), Isis has been kind enough not to sleep in the farmhouse. Let’s just say I don’t encourage him to overnight here and most of the time, he seems content to leave by midnight to prowl, or do whatever it is that cats do at night.

Last night was different. Isis did not spend the evening with us and I thought he may have called it a day earlier, until, just before going to bed, I open the windows (it's a cooler night! yes!!), while continuing to chat away with Ed. Isis hears our conversation. The door bell rings (in case you don’t remember – we have a sound sensor that functions as a doorbell if any living creature passes by).

No! You don’t have to let him in! – I say this without any hope at all that Ed would leave Isis outside when he’s obviously trying to come in.

And so there is Isis, in my very least favorite space: between Ed’s shoulder and my shoulder, on the bed, content, nails clinging to the quilt cover, purring away.

But not for long. Two hours later he’s meowing to go out. I leave that one to Ed.

One middle of the night wake up, several more to come.

Another hour passes. I’m dozing, but then I’m wide awake. Did the door bell ring again? I can’t tell. I listen for a repeat – no, nothing. Ed snores, I go back to sleep.

Within minutes, I’m awake again. There's loud, very loud howling. Coyotes? Cats in love? Cats fighting?

Ed!

Go to sleep, gorgeous. He’ll wake for a doorbell, but not for night noises. Me, I worry. Is Isis being attacked? Again?

I go downstairs, open the door, call out to him. Isie-boy, Isie-boy! He comes trotting up the walkway. Whatever it was, he’s not hurt. I let him in, relieved. He’s back on the bed, this time at Ed’s feet.

...until an hour or so later, when I wake up to the sound of him throwing up. On our quilt cover. Thanks, pal. I saved you from the night’s horrors and you do this. Ed takes him out, wipes up the mess (a very temporary fix), we try to sleep.

But an hour later, the door bell’s chiming again. Ed’s up, stumbling down the stairs – no Isis, no anything.

By now the sky is not so dark. Predawn. We pick up our laptops because really, you can only try to sleep so many times in any one night.

Here’s Isis playing, later in the day. In case you're wondering -- the cat is doing well.

In other news: I was late for every appointment today because... well, Rosie the moped cried “no fair.” I’d neglected her for months and expected her to rev up and deliver now that I’m back. She balked. So there was that. Sorry, Rosie. But can we please get going? Crank, crank, roar. Finally.

It's nice to be zippin' around the rural roads again.

 

Second item: we're still pumping water onto the garden round the clock. I'm not sure it helps, but it makes us feel better.

Third item: I’m on the Capitol Square (it's the night for a picnic and a concert on the square) enjoying the most perfect outdoor evening (however warm and dry it is during the day, the evenings are back to a delightful cool) with my daughter and her fiancée. It's good to be around people who are happy. They are happy.

For the first time in the ten years I’ve been coming to these outdoor events, I bring my laptop. People eat, drink, talk quietly (unless you’re by a rambunctious lot), I type.

The ride back to the farmette is magnificent (battery still dead; crank, crank... roar!).

And finally: Tomatoes! Thanks to my nephew, as well as Ed’s insistence that nitrogen supps are good for growth (don’t ask), our crop out back is thriving! Today, we have our first (small) harvest!

There are few things as delicious as  plucked tomatoes, still warm from the afternoon sun.

thoughts and photos

1.     Thoughts

An article in the NYTimes, written by a literary types, attempts to set forth the context for why people travel and how they go about doing it. (Through managed tourism? Through a more humble exploration? Through uncomfortable encounters and enlightening observation?)

I had to read it, of course. I spend every spare penny on travel (and in younger years I spent money I had yet to earn on it too); indeed, I find a period of several months without leaving home to be – tough. Having someone explain to me why I do this is... interesting.

As usual when reading these kinds of speculative essays, I find myself protesting the stated categories: it’s this or it’s that. Well no, for most of us who are energized by observing (through a lens, or at a café bar on the village square) a world of strangers, it’s most of the above.

The world elsewhere is never better than my own, even as some things there, far away function in ways that are more to my liking (and of course, some things function significantly less well). And while I’m on this topic of “better” (or worse), let me say a word about showers. I mean the public ones – at beaches. Both France and Spain have lovely outdoor shower heads (the Spanish ones are newer, aesthetically delightful, but in both countries, they are superb) for the general use of the public. We found them indispensable – wash off the salt, the sand, refresh yourself, move on.

Yesterday, at Devil’s Lake, as I noted here on Ocean, we read posted warnings about swimmer’s itch (in case you don’t know, it’s a gross parasite that enters through your skin and causes rashes, swelling, etc etc, sometimes for weeks on end). Tips on how to minimize the possibility of this include rinsing yourself in a shower right after the dip. Ed swam, I waded – so a rinse was in order.

A rather large and ugly building to the side housed a toilet and two shower stalls for each gender. A line was forming at the female end of things and I poked my head inside to see what the hold up was. Close the door! I was told emphatically. It’s crowded enough in here. I closed the door and waited. Minutes passed, nothing. I looked in the door next to the showers – a general toilet area. I poked inside the shower area again and got the same  -- close the door! Two women, not showering at all, were changing. Well okay, but I suggested that, since this was taking a while, they may want to use the space next door, as the line was getting long for a shower. I got the loudest public scream in my face I ever remember getting. Shut the door now! We want privacy! There was spit and fire in her eyes.

I thought about this for a minute. Privacy. Our big entitlement. Mine, mine, not anyone else’s. It struck me that if someone screamed at me in this way in, say, France, I’d have to think that there’s pent up anger seething there, among the people. But then, France doesn’t have closed off (in ugly buildings) shower stalls, so I’m not likely to ever face this problem there.

So I wondered if maybe we are a nation of very angry people. As the media broadcasts our general dissatisfaction (with Congress, with each other), as opportunities for expressing anger flourish (blast away at the person you don’t agree with – it’s your right!), maybe we let it all out at the expense of looking for something less... well, loud?

I am reminded sometimes of a children's book I had for my girls a long time ago -- "Screamy Mimi." We live in times of very many screamy mimis.

I’m allowed to express my opinion! Yes, but must you? Isn’t it like second hand smoke – it so often harms those in the vicinity and it seems more and more that we cannot get away from it, because everyone is smoking angry words of rage?

So back to my thoughts about why I travel (and, too, write about travel): for one thing (and there are other things), it helps me see the good ways people treat each other. Sure, I'm on the prowl for it. There are plenty of hopelessly angry and disenfranchised people in France and Spain. I know that. But how does the rest of the population cope? We can always use additional insights here, no? I’m interested in finding this out. And so I like watching the small everyday things: the way people greet one another in the bakery or at the market. Or leave stale baguettes for someone's chickens. The way kids learn to surf on the beach. The way they all use public showers. Kindness to strangers, even when the strangers are a pain in the ass, toting cameras, knowing too few words and understanding too few customs. I like that. It gives me hope.

2.     Photos

My daylilies [“Hemerocallis” -- or hemera ('day' in Greek) kalos ('beautiful') -- the flowers that are right at the front of the farmhouse]  should be starting their colorful parade in July, continuing at least until mid September. I plant them with that in mind. Instead, they’re nearly done for the season. A final tribute then, to the flowering of the farmhouse pretty girls:

cool

It seemed like a good plan to take a few hours out for a walk and a swim today. The draining heat hasn’t eased much (a handful of degrees lower than 105 doesn't count) and so looking for outdoor activities is not easy.

If you’re a Madisonian, thinking of where to go for a cool escape, what's your go-to place? Devil’s Lake. A cool body of clear water with beaches on both ends and towering bluffs at the side for good hiking. About an hour due north.

That was the plan.

But Devil's Lake is tricky. The hiking trails are a mess. Maps stray from reality. Reality strays from the predictable. And once you lose your markers, you'll never reclaim your path. The best you can hope for is some safe return home. This way or that.

Then there's the matter of a cool, clear, deep lake – since when has Devil’s Lake turned murky, shallow and warm?

I know, I know, we need the rains to fill the streams to flush out the warm waters of our lakes some.

In the meantime, we have what we have.


Okay, so this is our day:

Breakfast on the porch – with the hope that we wont quickly jump from 70 degrees in the first hours of the morning to 90 by noon. (Hopes dashed in this regard.)

A hike along the trails at Devil’s Lake. It should have been forest and bluffs, instead it was forests and meadows and a lot of warm sunshine in between. (No dashed hopes there, just a lot of hot confusion.)

A quick dip in the warm lake waters. For me – only up to my ankles. Something about the sign cautioning against swimmer’s itch (even though the park ranger swore they haven’t had a complaint for two weeks now!) was off-putting. (So hopes dashed, at least slightly in this regard.) Note alternative to swimming: fold out chairs in the water.

But hey, the exercise is splendid, the meadows are ever lovely and verdant and the company is superb (Ed, please don't hide your face!)

It was a wonderful day. (No dashed hopes at all in this regard.)

movement

As I consider the three days since our return, I see that they have one thing in common: in all three, we’ve slowed down to a crawl. Whereas during our trip, each day had a good dose of walking, hiking, or swimming, since we’ve been back, each day has had a good dose of sitting. Yes, there was a market outing and there have been many hours of watering, so not every moment has been spent on the couch, but I do have to admit that especially on hot days, it’s hard to come anywhere near the amount of activity that we typically have when we’re away.

Sunday. Ed, we have to return to our more active ways! (I say this now that the temps have dropped a handful of degrees.)

And so in the morning, we plan on doing one of my favorite small loops – a combination of kayaking-biking that brings back memories – it’s the first such “excursion” that Ed and I did in the year that we met.

We eat breakfast on the porch (at last! it's 'cool' enough!)...

...then I poke out a few wasps from the hinges of the old pickup truck (this, after poking out a few wasps from the lid of the second garbage can, having already done this once from the lid of the first garbage can) and we load it with the two boats and two bikes. Off we go.

...Toward Lake Kegonsa, where we leave the bikes. We drive then toward Lake Waubesa and put in the kayaks on the Yahara River (just after the damn).

It’s a lovely little run – not taxing at all, but it’s bird filled (and algae filled and, unfortunately, in the Mud Lake – dead carp filled) and the breeze is wonderful and the sky is blue and it just feels good to be pushing at water again!

My Huck Finn Ed says to me – we should take the boat down the Yahara this summer, all the way to the Mississippi... (The Yahara runs into the Rock which, in turn, eventually runs into the Mississippi). I say – okay.

Our summer play is just like that: plans hatch from the seat of a bike, or a boat on a very warm day.

As we glide into Lake Kegonsa, the Sunday boat traffic picks up, but that’s okay, we get out here, leave our kayaks and bike back toward the truck.

The bike ride itself is mostly flat and delightfully bucolic.






Ed rides always a few paces behind me. I comment over my shoulder that my tires need a little more air and within seconds I hear a little crunch and I think surely I must have flattened one. I glance back and see that my tire is just fine, but Ed and his bike have landed in a ditch.

Now, Ed is one experienced cyclist and I have never ever seen him fall. Yes, I know that many years ago he broke his collar bone going down a hill fast and flipping over something on the road, but that was then and it was a hill and this is now and we are on a stretch of simple, quiet roads.

Eventually I learn that a car came up on him and in trying to merge behind me, what with my lackadaisical la-di-da peddling, he managed to hit my tire and take a tumble.

He’s not hurt and indeed, the whole incident is one that is chuckle worthy, nothing more than that, but I post about it with the hope of encouraging all out there to wear helmets, because even on the simplest runs, you just never know.

We're pedaling along, and we pass a nature trail and we’re curious about this too, so we leave our bikes and hike down a bit, past willows and tall cattails and prairies that haven't yet turned yellow and brittle.


 













We push around an old, abandoned tennis ball, outdoing one another in the distance of the kick.

In the course of this rambling kind of a day, we come across your typical side of the road corn and melon stand and we pause to buy both, but it’s sort of a sad moment because typically, corn here spills from trucks loaded down with it and it is joyously sold in huge quantities to willing cob loving buyers. This year, the crop in southern Wisconsin is in severe trouble because of the heat and drought. The family selling what little they have looks grim. Rain, where the hell are you this year?

In the evening, my girl and her fiancé came over for supper, which of course has the corn and the market tomatoes etc etc. An Ocean commenter reflected that when you are on vacation, you always eat better than when you’re home. That’s not true for us. We eat with great care at home and we let go of any hard and fast rules when we travel. And so it’s good to be back to a fridge filled with veggies and seasonal stuff.

But let me repeat – may we please help out the growers in the south of our state by giving them (us) some rain?