Mama Rosa

On a recent visit to the Naked City we took some time to take a stroll through a new park in our former community; Wauwatosa’s Firefly Grove Park.

 

Meet Mama Rosa, a towering 24-foot troll sculpture created by world-renowned artist Thomas Dambo.  She's the first of his trolls in Wisconsin and a striking symbol of sustainability and imagination.

Made from trees recycled from Wauwatosa's urban forest and other materials from the city, Mama Rosa weighs over 4,000 pounds and features flowing hair crafted from oak branches. In her hands, she holds a bouquet made from old Wauwatosa streetlight posts—an artistic nod to her curious, flower-picking nature. 

The park is a one-of-a-kind experience featuring a picnic shelter, accessible play area for children of all ages, a pump track for BMX and mountain bikes, a living willow hut, sledding hill, walking paths and stormwater management features that filter up to 600,000 gallons of stormwater during major rain events.  There is a solar power facility at the park that reduces its carbon footprint, LED lighting from repurposed city lamp posts, landscaping incorporating native trees and plants and future plans to connect with the Oak Leaf Trail.

Firefly Grove Park was built 100% with grant funding—no local property tax dollars were used.   "Mama Rosa", was funded using hotel and motel room tax revenue—specifically through Wauwatosa’s Tourism Commission, intended for tourism and community attractions.

 

Check it out; it's located at 1900 North 116th Street in Wauwatosa, WI. 

War Monger

Hardly a day goes by that I'm not tickled to have experienced a 1960s childhood.  This toy was produced by REMCO in the early 1960s as part of their Marine Raider series included in their Monkey Division line.

It featured a 19-inch mortar tube mounted on an adjustable bipod and base plate.  It included 5-inch plastic shells with an adjustable spring-loaded launching mechanism.  Shells were launched with a trigger.  

Regrettably, I never had one of these.  If I did, I could have raised the standard of backyard warfare to an entirely new level.

Periodically, one of these finds its way to E-Bay and Craig's List but they're usually missing the sighting optics and/or the shells.  A complete set-up sells for hundreds of dollars.

Nevertheless, I did have one of these.

A genuine REMCO Monkey Division Jungle Guerilla Warfare helmet.  Naturally, it has been lost to the trash heap of poorly executed childhood battles.

Shucks...

Friday War Monger

For a change of pace there is no music today.

Instead there is this gem that I stumbled-across on the interweb.

In the early 2000s the US Army adopted the recruiting slogan of An Army Of One.  It was short-lived and eventually replaced by Army Strong.  Regarding the former Army of One I wonder if recruiters took a page from the marketing of toys to boys in 1964? Prescient?  I digress.

If ever there was a real-life reenactment of my childhood this would be it.  This is how we played.  And boy oh boy did I covet this as a tool of backyard warfare.  My parents and my buddies parents never indulged any of us with this multi-tool of world domination.  I figure they knew intuitively that anything as sophisticated as this wouldn't last until the end of a day's ordinary battle......

Baby Carrier

 

The 1960 Corvair baby cradle

Touted as a "safe" and comfortable way to carry your baby.

Pointing out that this is the warmest place in the car since it has a rear engine, and the engine vibrations can lull the baby to sleep.

Friday War Monger

For a change of pace there is no music today.

Instead there is this gem that I stumbled-across on the interweb.

If ever there was a real-life reenactment of my childhood this would be it.  This is how we played.  And boy oh boy did I covet this as a tool of backyard warfare.  My parents and my buddies parents never indulged any of us with this multi-tool of world domination.  I figure they knew intuitively that anything as sophisticated as this wouldn't last until the end of a day's ordinary battle......

 

Inflation

Evidence of the ubiquitous nature of inflation are these advertisements from the early to mid- 1960s.  

Which, coincidentally, were my childhood years.

No doubt inflation is an insidious thief - particularly when it is thrust-upon an unprepared population.

Nevertheless, the historic record is undeniable.

It's been running in the background all along.

Factoid - When I was a kid i would take the city bus downtown to visit the public museum.  Aside from bus fare mom gave me money to eat at the Woolworth lunch counter.

Simpler times for an 8 year-old

If memory serves that bus fare was 15 cents.....

Five Lousy Unsupervised Minutes

In a special to the Journal Sentinel - psychotherapist, author and trainer, Philip Chard, published a column that I found both fascinating and alarming. 

The human bond with nature is ancient. transformative, deeply spiritual...and eroding.  Consider that children, on average, spend less than five minutes a day outdoors engaged in unstructured play (spontaneous, self-directed, open-ended), but tally over seven hours face-to-screen, leaving an entire generation in jeopardy of losing this vital connection. 

Allow that to sink-in for just a bit.  Five lousy minutes.  This child of the 50s and 60s is scratching his head and wondering what the heck? 

For the entirety of my lifetime free play time for children has been in a steady decline apparently reaching a munificent five minutes a day.  Disturbingly, it is imposing an obstacle to children becoming balanced, well-rounded and confident adults. 

At risk of becoming preachy my recollection of childhood was one of being a free-range child.  Never feral – yet only indoors when there was peril of wind, rain, lightening, extremes of cold or some other outside force.  My buddies and I would spend an entire day traipsing thru the woods, building forts, playing ‘combat’, hide and seek, capture the flag, kick-the-can and other sports for which we made-up the rules along the way. 

Chard makes a good point about a sizeable body of research concluding that interaction with nature is good for us physically, mentally and spiritually.  It is essential to our well-being.  Moreover, in the absence of embracing Ma Nature there is evidence of increased episodes of anxiety, depression, attention deficit disorder and hurry sickness - an overwhelming and continual sense of urgency.  Add to this evidence of increased aggression. 

I’m trying really hard to not get down in the dumps over this – yet my Spider Sense is tingling as something deep inside speaks to me that this cannot be allowed to persist.  It simply isn’t good for children and other living things.  Do I have an easy solution or a quick fix for today’s 10 second sound-bite minds?  Hardly.  Nevertheless, we should all be making an attempt to leave no child indoors.  It’s for their own good. 

Read the entire column here and visit Chard’s homepage here. And FB page here.

Forest Exploration Center

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac   

Yesterday was a good day for Wisconsin's Forest Exploration Center (FEC).  Yup - that is now the official name for the 67 acres of  state-owned forestland on the historic Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa.   

The FEC earned the unanimous support of Wisconsin's Natural Resources Board for the Tier Three Management Sheet (pardon the jargon) and advance the mission and vision of the non-profit organization.   

Progress is being made towards the construction of an ADA trail, stormwater management, controlling invasives, reforestation, restricting access to sensitive wildlife habitat, getting urban children in the woods and much more.  

Raising a toast to sustainable forestry.  

Cheers!  

Learn more about the Forest Exploration center at their homepage:  http://www.forestexplorationcenter.org/   

And like the FEC on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/forestexplorationcenter/

How to Make a Proper Pudgie Pie

A few days ago I turned my hand at a task and tool that has grown dusty with age - a Pudgie Pie maker acquired in a campground store from my camping days of yore.  That rhymes doesn't it?

In any event the art and science of making a proper pudgie pie is firstly to have a pie device - a hinged clam shell tool with long handles.  

They're not very expensive, readily available and considering I've had mine for somewhere around three decades (give or take) they're pretty durable and very versatile.

Spread butter on a couple of slices of cheap white bread, slap a slice of cheese between the slices, clamp the pie maker around the sandwich (butter-side out), thrust it into your campfire and in short order you will have a fabulous toasted cheese sandwich.

click on images to enlarge

Care for something different?  Mozzarella cheese and pizza sauce.  Or pre-cooked taco meat and cheese.  How about ham and egg?  Raisin bread with cream cheese?  If you're avoiding butter use nonstick cooking spray.  

Short on inspiration?  If you Google 'pudgie pie recipes' you will get 44,400 hits in .52 seconds.

If you are disinclined to camp in the great outdoors use your BBQ kettle or gas grill.  If you have a gas range in your kitchen you can do this on your stove top.

We experimented with dessert pies this week and met with some success with the following combinations:

• Wonder Bread, strawberries and milk chocolate

• Wonder Bread, peanut butter and Nutella.

• Angel food cake and strawberries

• Angel food cake, Nutella and strawberries.

• Wonder Bread, honey crisp apple (cinnamon and sugar) and Brach's caramel.

The possibilities are endless. We're thinking blueberries and cream cheese need to be involved next time.

The Camping Experience

Over the many years The Frau and I have been acquainted (and married) we've done a great deal of camping.  We've camped across the breadth of Canada, south to the gulf shores, all of the southwestern US, most of Wisconsin and we even took a Jeep trip across the rocky mountains.  

In the past decade and a half we haven't done much camping at all - a result of two homes, a tree farm other recreational pursuits and a dearth of time.  Nevertheless, we've culled-thru and saved most of our camping equipment when we down-sized the past winter.  And it was fun to break-out the Eureka, heavy-duty Outfitter model A-frame tents to invite the grand kids to camp in the yard.  It was a first experience for the grandson and a positive event for him as well.  We discovered the Labs enjoyed the experience as well.

It also scratched an itch I've forgotten and perhaps when I retire some day there will be more time for camping pursuits.  

Raising a toast to fun times out of doors and around the campfire.

click image to enlarge

Order Out of Chaos

A week ago I posted  a picture and description of the ingenious and positively brilliant scheduling device that The Frau placed on the back hallway of the house.

It worked like a dream.  Who needs a smartphone when you have Post-it® Notes, paper, extra tape and a blank wall.

The grand kids did a fine job of rolling with the ebb and flow of our unstructured scheduling, last minute changes and the vagaries of the weather. And when we got down to the last day there were only two leftover yellow sticky notes remaining:  Making Bread and Running Thru the Sprinkler.

With the exception of a loaf of bread and the sprinkler we accomplished everything we planned to do plus some unplanned events that materialized out of nowhere.  Everything including the Roaster Chicken!

click image to enlarge

The ten activity-packed days literally flew by in a flash and daughter and the grand kids are gone now.  As a consequence things have grown quite a bit quieter and it's going to be a lonely adjustment without a five year-old waking me up for breakfast in the morning.

Truthfully, I'm plum, worn-out. 

Order Out of Chaos

With a five and fourteen year-old grand child in the house for a week and a half The Frau devised an ingenious scheduling device.  

click on image to enlarge

On the wall of the back hallway are sticky-notes for activities on the wish list.  A huge range of possibilities ranging from boating to roast chicken or picking cherries.  The vast range of possibilities can be shifted physically from day to calendar day.  The kids are largely responsible for the list with input from the adults.  The simplistic beauty of the organizational calendar is its flexibility.  For instance yesterday the boat battery was not charged to a reliable level to risk a three hour cruise so beach day was an easy substitute.

Order out of chaos.  The grand kids are wearing me down...

Independence Day

Found an old photo last weekend that speaks volumes about summer times past.

All the cousins (from that year) sitting on the back stoop of the house I grew-up in.  Probably 1960 or thereabouts.  Those were the days of free-range children.  Most of us are brown as berries - evidence of long hours out of doors.  I'm the one with the shaved head in the middle.

 click on image to enlarge

Might have even been the Fourth of July.  Raise an ice cream cone to Independence Day today!