Friday Music

In keeping with last week's Dylan flair this song was written and performed by Mr. Bob Dylan in 1967.  The lyrics, some have suggested, echo lines from the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5 thru 9.  The song has also been covered by a number of other artists with the Jimi Hendrix cover becoming most famous.  Only six months after its release the Hendrix cover became a Top 20 Hit in 1968, received a Grammy Award and was ranked #48 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  It is said that it is Hendrix's version that most significantly influenced Dylan's live performances.  A cover of a cover - who knew?

Dylan himself didn't perform the song live until 1974, yet since then he has performed this song live more than any other of his other compositions.

Here's a decent cover of All Along The Watchtower.  Awesome job mixing and editing by the talented people at Playing for Change....

Rolling Smoke

Haven't made these in many moons.

Baby back ribs.

Memphis rub.

Alder wood.

Adrenaline BBQ Slow 'n Sear aftermarket set-up on the Weber Kettle.

After four hours there was this.....

More Critters

From the trail camera there is more.  Including...

Many coyotes

 

Another fawn

And another brood flock 

 

Nature Walk

The Missus and I, along with some of our neighbors, indulged in a guided hike of a Door County Land Trust property situated at the southeast end of the Sturgeon Bay ship canal.

It's an interesting piece of property on a number of different levels.  The topography is a consequence of the retreat of the last glaciation when glacial lake Nipissing was formed.  As the ice cap receded fro the Great Lakes Basin  the water level was considerably higher by a measure of fifty feet.  

As the earth's crust rebounded from the weight of all of that ice the water levels on lakes Michigan, Superior and Huron dropped.  With the rebound, Lake Michigan is receding beneath the ground with the regular appearance of new beaches, and new parallel dune ridges created, one after the other over a period of thousands of years.  

Today we are witness to the remnants of ancient beaches in the form a several dozen parallel ridges and swales as evidence of the beach shoreline.

The resulting (cooler near the lake) micro-climate is also home to any number of post-glacial plant species - several of which are endangered.   

It was home to native people prior to European settlement and there is evidence of their ancestral portages to be found among the sandy ridges. 

Beach ecology is interesting stuff.  And today you can witness the processes that created the ridge and swale topography in action.  As new beach sand is exposed, wind blows the sand into the line of vegetation that parallels the lake.  It is here that the sand collects forming a parallel.

The dunes shelter many rare and endangered plant species and are a fascinating study on species succession starting with hardy beach grasses and plants that set the table for larger plants to succeed as you move further inland.

Dune Goldenrod

Beach Pea  

Fringed Gentian

A mature pine-dominated forest results as the apex ecosystem.  The abundance of hemlocks along with the cooling effects of Lake Michigan has created a forest ecosystem that is more similar of the boreal forests of Canada found hundreds of miles to the north.

Moving inland the species continue to change both in complexity and uniqueness. 

Ground Pine

Running Pine

 Wintergreen (edible and reminiscent of Life Savers)

Dwarf Lake Iris (Blooms in spring)

And from the forest's sinister garden there is Destroying Angel Amanita

You can learn more about Door County Land Trust and places to explore here.

 

What's For Dinner?

This evening’s dinner dichotomy. 

 

 

Whitefish cakes and tater tots. 

Cooked, flaked whitefish, eggs, mayo, onion, bell pepper, garlic, crushed red pepper. 

Similar to a salmon patty or crab cake.

 

Good chow if you can get it.

Don’t dismiss it out-of-hand…..

 

The Garden Chronicles

Yesterday I commenced to put the garden to bed for the winter.  After a frost struck a few days ago it was time.  I pulled almost everything out and chucked it in the compost piles.  All that remains are my Kakai seed pumpkins and the carrots.

Pumpkins 

Following a hiatus of about a decade I introduced cantaloupe to this year's line-up.  They happen to be a hybrid variety producing a smaller fruit that is juicy delicious.  Try it on vanilla ice cream for a real treat.

Sweet peppers have been awesome too.

Hopefully the soil will dry out sufficiently before freeze-up as I'd sure like to turn it over before the snow flies.  That would also afford me the opportunity to burn the remaining petrol in the rototiller.  We'll see.

It's been a very good gardening year.  I'm pleased with the results.

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

September Night Sky

There's a couple of things going on tonight and tomorrow that are stargazer-worthy.

First-off is the New Moon for September. 

Several years ago I published a post about the problem of light pollution and how it can mess-up your viewing of the celestial bodies on a dark night.  Tonight offers a terrific opportunity to venture outside for what might be the last of the autumn stargazing before the evenings grow colder.  This is because it will be extra dark tonight.  The darkness is a consequence of the new moon.  

With this new moon, the earth, moon and sun will align with one another in a straight line.  The moon will fall between the earth and the sun appearing in front of the sun and hidden by the glare. 

In this alignment the moon is 'disappears' because the side we see not illuminated.  Word to the wise - never observe anything in the direct path of the sun.  Doing so may damage your eyes and cause permanent blindness. 

Tomorrow evening Jupiter will be making its closest approach to earth in 70 years and will be directly in opposition to earth.  Opposition is the astronomical term for when a planet is in directly aligned behind the earth opposite of the sun.  This can only occur with the outer planets and under these circumstances the planet is not only easier to view - it is viewable all night. 

You will find Jupiter in the constellation Pisces (the fishes) and will appear as the brightest object on the eastern horizon just after sunset.  How it Jupiter will climb depends upon your latitude.  Where we are (half-way between the equator and the pole Jupiter will rise to roughly 50 degrees. 

You can learn more about other planets you can view here.

Soup of the Day

It’s funny how your carefully-planned and organized day can be upended on short notice.

This was not on today’s agenda.  

I woke to a dark, dank, damp and dreary day to haul a barrel of recyclables and three bags of trash to the local dump. On the return trip I was to fetch vanilla coffee creamer. 

In any event, the butcher at our local grocer had smoked ham hocks in the same isle as the coffee adjunct and considering the weather in an instant of inspiration I grabbed some of those smoky porcine knuckles along with a couple of bags of Navy Beans.

 

Navy Beans are small, oval-shaped beans with a white skin. They have a mild, delicate flavor. These are the beans used for my mother’s infamous baked beans. These white beans were named Navy Beans because of their inclusion in the U.S. Naval diet during the second half of the 19th Century.  But I digress.  There was soup to cook and the dang house smelled pretty good as the day progressed. 

There is a long and storied tale about the year Navy Bean soup was served at deer camp. Delicious chow, it was it was a roof-raising experience.  As much as I know everyone pines for a the return of this favorite an Asian fusion venison soup is likely to be featured in 2022. But I digress again. 

In any event, after a hiatus of a couple of years Navy Bean soup is what’s for dinner at fireside this evening.  Solid comfort food.

Plenty too for the freezer. 

Raising a toast to smoked pork hocks (geräucherte Schweinshaxen). 

 

Clearing-out the rest of the garden and putting it to bed for the year can wait until another day. 

Pro Tip - My late father always added a spoonful of vinegar atop his bowl of bean soup.  Scratch your German itch and give it a whirl.

 

Critters

From the trail cameras there are...

Mama and the twins

A brood flock

A fawn

And the obligatory coyote

Friday Music

Composed and sung by Bob Dylan Knockin' on Heaven's Door is included in the soundtrack for the 1973 movie:  Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.  Released as a single – it rose to Number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.  It brings back a number of fond memories from my last year in high school.  It's been covered by countless other musicians including my favorites Eric Clapton and Guns N’ Roses.

This is a particularly nice version including Dylan and McGuinn from 1976.  Enjoy….

Love Your Neighbor

I want to be perfectly clear from the outset.

I am not picking a fight.

I want to talk about the subject matter of this post.

Before we permanently made the peninsula our legal residence The Missus had a long and storied career as a poll worker.  She eventually rose to the position of Precinct Captain and was the boss of all of the poll workers who diligently served to conduct free and fair elections at a local precinct level in Wauwatosa.  Don't take my word for it - ask my pal, Six-Deuce, who faithfully appeared there on the occasion of every election to exercise his franchise.

Anyway, I think the last election Jill worked back in The Naked City was 2016.  Even then she began to become jaded about rumors, rhetoric and whispers about how insidious forces were at work.  That the citizen neighbors who conducted and supervised local elections conspired to steal votes and overturn election results.

In 2020 it grew in scale and ferocity.  

While Jill was no longer a poll worker there was no escaping the reality that there was indeed a small group of individuals in our small community that were convinced that our Dominion Voting Machines (used to tabulate paper ballots) were somehow connected to the Italian military or were created in Venezuela at the direction of long-dead Hugo Chavez to manipulate the vote count in such a fashion that the election was stolen by means of an algorithm that switched votes or that the ubiquitous paper ballots were manufactured from bamboo in China. 

I've known our Town Clerk on a personal basis since 1994 and at the time she shared with me that while the accusatory swarm of public records requests were perfectly legal, and answered in their entirety, she had never witnessed anything like it in 42 years of public service. 

It sucks when dedicated and honest neighbors who perform democracy's work to conduct a free and fair election are hounded by furtive glances.  Whispered accusations. Rumor, innuendo and unfounded allegations.  By their own neighbors.

Good people can become discouraged.  This can make recruitment difficult in the face of baseless accusations.  And it can become easier to unvolunteer.

The dedicated neighbors doing the right thing were not Feeling The Love.

I think I know right from wrong.  And this sort of treatment is wrong.

Nevertheless, nobody has quit.  And knowing Jill's background she's been recruited by our honest neighbors to join with other honest people in the community to continue advancing the noble work of honest elections.  Honesty counts for a lot among honest neighbors.

Good people, performing the work of a democratic republic are unintimidated by unfounded lies.  They are patriots armed with only their integrity, character and the ballot box.

Sure, there's election fraud out there, I've blogged about it on any number of occasions.  Don't take my word for it.  Click on the subject:  Fraud to the left of this post and you'll find examples such as this or this and many more on the subject.  All of that aside, the level of fraud is not on the scale to overturn an entire election.

Don't take my word for it - ask the former guy's Attorney General and countless courts that threw-out baseless allegations in the dust bin of legal history.  I hate to repeat myself but as Bill Barr eloquently put it:  It's Bull Shit. 

In closing, I would ask this.  If you have incontrovertible evidence that my lovely wife is a member of a wicked cabal committed to stealing your vote you should tell it to her face.  Then call the County Sheriff and file charges.

Put-up or shut-up.

In the upcoming November elections I shall not cast a ballot for any candidate who persists in spreading The Big Lie that our elections are rigged.

For those of you who have not embraced the Big Lie please vote your conscience whatever direction honesty and character point you. 

Doing the right thing prevails in the end.

And Love Your Neighbor.....

 

Astronomical Arrival of Fall

September brings us another astronomical event - the equinox - when days and nights will be approximately equal in length. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this marks the tipping point where the sun will rise later and nightfall arrives sooner.  As things have grown cooler around these parts you don’t have to remind me that autumn is in the air. This is the time of year we stack firewood and roll-out the long sleeve t-shirts and long dungarees.  Pumpkin seeds are harvested and roasted too.

Equinox (Latin for equal night) the amount of daylight is nearly equal to the hours of darkness. 

 

Even though the equinox happens at the same moment worldwide the precise time for you depends-upon your time zone. Translation: this equinox comes early in the morning on September 22 at 8:31 AM CDT.  Meanwhile - south of the equator - spring is about to begin.  If you live on the equator the sun will be positioned directly overhead at high noon.

We live just shy of the 45th parallel (equidistant from the equator and pole) and it has been fascinating to observe the transit of the setting sun as it has moved from its furthest advance to the north to now set in the west.  The sun only rises due east and due west on two days of the year - The spring and fall equinoxes. 

 

Wildflower Walk

Meet Helenium autumnale - named after Helen of Troy and the autumn time of the blooms -  commonly knows as Sneezeweed. 

It is not a weed - it is a member of the vast family of Asters (Asteraceae).

It begins blooming late summer and persists into the fall with sometimes as many a 100+ flowers on each plant.  Multiply that by many multiple plants and it puts on a stunning display of blooms.

It grows throughout the wetter clay soils of our rain garden.  While there is no way to know for sure it might have been included in a native wildflower mix I threw down following the installation of the rain garden.  It's also entirely possible the seeds came in with the ducks.  It's anybody's guess.

The deer appear to avoid it so if anyone wants to propagate it in their yard come by this fall to shoot some deer and collect seeds.  It is a maintenance-free and lovely flowering native plant.  And the pollinators go nuts for it.

 

Here's a historic tidbit about this plant that you can use to amuse and impress your friends.  Back in the day the early settlers collected the leaves and flower petals of this plant, set them aside to dry and pulverized it into a powder that was utilized as snuff.  Hence the sneeze.

 

Locavore

Recently a spent an afternoon at Waseda Farms for a visit and a tour.

According to their webpage the Waseda operation dates back to 1933 in Pulaski, WI.  Thomas H. Lutsey worked on the family farm as a youngster.  

Thomas founded Gold Bond Ice Cream in 1946 with a novel idea to manufacture ice cream and sell it from milk trucks during delivery times.  One of his inventions was the Paddle Pop - ice cream on a stick, dipped in chocolate and covered in nuts.  

The Gold Bond Company operated for decades under Lutsey's leadership until sold to Good Humor-Breyers, who owned the Popsicle and Klondike Bar brands.  

In 2008, son Tom Lutsey acquired the current Wasda Farm in Baileys Harbor, which had previously been owned and operated by the Priests of the Sacred Heart.  To this day their cattle are referred-to as Holy Cows but I digress.

Following a cancer scare Tom Lutsey directed farming operations in the direction of sustainable, certified organic production and the rest is history.

The name was retained from the prior Jesuit Order and remains a mystery as there is nothing on the interweb to suggest the origin.

Tom's children Matt and Jeff continue to run day-to-day operations.

Tom

Grass-fed beef

Chicken and egg production

Baileys Harbor farm market 

You can lean more about Waseda Farms here.  

Be sure to visit.

You are what you eat.

Trail Maintenance

Trails are brushed and trimmed and ready for the fall hunting season....

The Bears Still Suck

 Go Pack!

Friday Music

A Memphis pop rock band dating to 1963 the Box Tops greatest hit was The Letter.  

Composed by Wayne Carson this was the number one hit in 1967.

September Night Sky

Our eighth planet is Neptune.  You'll need a pair of binoculars or a telescope yet Neptune should be viewable in the night sky thru January of the new year.

Sky Map - Stellarium

Planet earth will be positioned directly between the sun and Neptune tomorrow evening.  Astronomers refer to this phenomenon as Opposition (word of the day). Opposition is an optimal opportunity to view an outer planet.

This image was taken from the front porch a year ago,  If you trace the arc of Saturn and Jupiter from right to left - and squint really hard - I think you can spot Neptune adjacent to the center-left margin.  Fomalhaut (the loneliest star) is visible where it is expected to be - left of center in the lower 20% of the image. 

Fränkisches Volksfest

 

From my hometown.... 

50 years Franconian folk festival

110 years agricultural district festival

Wiley Coyote

Before I venture-out to service the trail cameras here are some more pics of the resident coyotes.  Different locations, different dates and times and maybe some pups.....

International HQ

Not many people are aware of the fact that the international headquarters of a notable non-profit is located right here on the peninsula.  Last week, my neighbor Kelley conducted a tour of the HQ and their operations and I was privileged to attend.

Whitetails Unlimited (WTU) was founded in 1982. Since then, its ongoing mission has been realized primarily through funding provided by WTU’s Grassroots Program. Funds generated at WTU events are awarded as grants to support approved local projects that foster WTU’s mission.

This operation is singularly the largest postal service and United Parcel Service customer on the peninsula.  Fulfilling the needs of fundraising events for local chapters around the country requires that the org have an inventory of  more than10,000 firearms rotating through their warehouse operation during any given week.  Trust me - I actually witnessed the inventory of firearms alone.

To date, over $116 million has been expended on projects including: scholarships, assistance to wildlife agencies, research, habitat enhancement and acquisitions, public education, hunter safety, anti-poaching measures, and cooperative projects with other conservation organizations.  For the last fiscal year (ending June 30, 2022) $2.8 million dollars was distributed to thousands of projects and causes.  

For more information on WTU current programs, the links are here here for your review.  They include the following: Hunting Tradition, DEER Program, HOPE for Wildlife, Staying on Target.

The Whitetail Unlimited homepage is here.

 

Talking Turkey

While out brushing trails the other day I spied a mama whitetail and her fawn observe my work.

Same for a couple of brood flocks of resident turkeys.  

It would appear they approve.

And they're certainly not bothered by the clattering noise....

The Garden Chronicles

I don’t know about you but there is a big whiff of autumn in the air lately. With football beginning the wood box is filled to the brim. 

The garden is nearing the end too. 

There was a Hail Mary sowing of lettuce, radishes and spinach a couple of weeks ago yet everything else is about done. 

Even the tomato avalanche is waning. 

Once, again, I’m reminded that when you live equidistant from the equator and the pole every waking day of our short growing season is precious.

Big beefsteaks are heading for the canner.

Kitchen counter snacking tomatoes.

Vine-ripened plum tomatoes will be converted into pizza sauce.

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!