Even More Tree Munchers

The resident deer population hasn’t been shy about having their picture taken.

These were uploaded from the trail camera:

Mama and her twins...








And (possibly) a three year-old buck sporting his growing antlers...

Click on pictures to enlarge

There is a resident family of coyotes – I’ve heard them several times howling and yipping. It sounds like demented laughter. Sure would like to capture them on camera.

Rat's Chapel

There is this signage on one of my often-ridden bike routes.

I sure would like to know who this Rat person is and what his Chapel looks like.

It isn’t listed with all of the usual places of worship…

More Peninsula Geology

Door County’s rocky promontories are typical of the bay side of the peninsula. This rock formation is the Niagara Escarpment – that tough dolostone that even multiple glaciations failed to wear-down.

This formation was formed during the Silurian age by tropical seas when Wisconsin was located much closer to the equator.

Plate tectonics can move a continent a handful of centimeters each and every year. Year–in and year-out. Before too long (roughly 420 million years) you might find yourself not on the equator but on the 45th parallel – midway between the equator and the North Pole.

Anyway, the glaciers that once occupied this part of Wisconsin only a mere 10,000 years ago eventually receded. That’s not to imply that they turned around and went back to the polar ice cap. Rather they melted in-place leaving their melt water as a vast endowment that filled the Great Lakes.

Lake levels back in those days were considerably higher than they are today. As evidence of that if you are observant you will find beaches, beach cobbles and sea caves quite distant from the current shoreline and many feet higher in elevation.

In the second picture there is a sea cave just above the talus slope of this rocky cliff. It was formed by the pounding of wave action over many, many years.

It also happens to be roughly 50 feet above the current lake level.

Only about 1 percent of Lake Michigan’s water is recharged by precipitation each year.

Lake levels fluctuate.

They always have.

They always will.

Door County's Old Growth Forest

Door County is home to a curious sort of old growth forest.

The rocky promontories that are typical of the bay side of the peninsula are home to some very old cedars.

Like the ancient white cedar that you see to the left.

Without any soil you’ll find these guys growing out from the rocky cliff-face - their roots exposed but clinging tenaciously to the fissures in the dolostone.

This is hardly ideal habitat. Wind whipped exposure. Ice shoves in the winter. Drought brought on by fast drainage during the summer. Yet these cedars persist – sometimes putting on a growth ring only as wide as the width of a single cell in a year’s time.

The tree in the picture may possibly be many hundreds of years old. There is a very good chance it witnessed the arrival of Jean Nicolet in 1634.

Makes you wish the darn thing could talk, eh?

Stonehenge?

While out making some field observations abut the Niagara Escarpment I encountered this on the bay side of the northern peninsula.

Click on the picture to enlarge and you can see that these stone edifices extend the length of the beach.

I think someone has too much time on their hands.

Chewy Capitalist Charity

I first met these three young entrepreneurs a year ago while riding my bike.

They were at the same location – the middle of just about nowhere but a bunch of dairy farms.

On the exact same date – early Sunday morning.

Peddling their yummy wares for the same price – nothing.

What’s for sale today – I ask.

Young girl - Lemonade and cookies! Oatmeal, chocolate chip and chewy cherry cookies.

Did you make them yourself?

Young girl – I made the chocolate chip and the oatmeal and my mom helped me with the cherry.

I see they’re free again this year. What’s that all about?

Young girl (obviously the threesome’s official spokesperson) – They’re free because you are riding your bikes to raise money to fight cancer we thought it would be a good idea to show-up with cookies and lemonade to help out. We did it last year you know.

OK. OK. What cookie do you recommend?

All three chime-in – Chewy cherry!

Good. I’ll take one.

I have to tell you that the chewy cherry was a good pick. Oatmeal, cherry and chocolate chips – and very chewy. It was excellent. (I need to get a hold of the recipe).

I still cannot believe you’re giving away these cookies for free.

All three in unison – Hey mister. We take tips you know!

I hit the tip can with the last five bucks in my fanny pack. The cycling team behind me helps themselves to cookies and lemonade and stuffs a twenty in the can.

Want to know where all those tips ended-up?

Yep. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Kids, cookies, lemonade and a touch of hucksterism. What’s not to like about that?

Small town America.

That what keeps America great and a smile on my face.

The Escanaba Cleavage

The dog starts, gives a woof and a faint tremor is felt though the house.

At first blush you might think - earthquake?

Nope.

Actually this happens pretty regularly.

It is blasting from the mining operation up the road a piece.

If any of you have ever traveled the length and breadth of the Door Peninsula you've probably taken notice of the rock.

There is rock everywhere.

The spectacular cliffs. The promontories. The bluffs.

And the views from Cave Point County Park on the Lake Michigan shore.

If you ride your bicycle around the peninsula like I do you will also notice the thin topsoil.

Within the boundaries of the peninsula there are more than 94,000 acres of landmass with an average soil depth of eight inches.

There is bedrock everywhere.

The consequence of which is that if you wish to build a road, bury a utility cable, drill a well or install a sewer you might find yourself having to tunnel, trench or blast your way through dolostone.

You can even see the joints in the bedrock through the thin soil cover because moisture and better rooting conditions support slightly better plant growth.

This would be the Niagara Escarpment.
A very tenacious formation of dolomite limestone that extends all the way from Buffalo, New York through the Fox Valley.

Multiple glaciations were unsuccessful in wearing it down.

About 10,000 years ago when the last ice age visited Wisconsin my part of the world was buried beneath an ice sheet more than a mile thick.

The earth's crust is still rebounding from the weight of all of that ice.

Looking at that map you can see how the escarpment transects the peninsula. Visualize the lake Michigan lobe of the glacier extending south just to the right of the line and the Green Bay lobe of the glacier extending south immediately to the left of the line.

Geologic time is slow but relentless.

And that ice sheet melted and receded.

If you are observant of the coastlines of the peninsula you can actually locate where the ancestral high water mark and beaches are located - including the inland lakes that had previously been part of a much larger Lake Michigan and Green Bay.

I sometimes wonder about what man-made influence conspired to melt an ice sheet a mile thick only a mere 10,000 years ago.

A blink in geologic time.

Paleolithic campfires maybe?

I digress.

Anyway, about a mile or so from the farm is the demarcation line identifying the point where the two lobes of the glacier split and went their separate ways. There is a rocky outcrop of tough-old dolomite limestone that even all that ice could not carve down.

Here it is-

Now it is being mined by modern means.

Into gravel. Hence the blasting.

What nature could not finish - man will complete.

And fast - geologically-speaking.

Turning it into road-base and the raw materials for concrete.

We're pretty lucky having built upon what the Government Land Office Surveyors originally described as a swamp.

Oh sure, we have a seasonally high water table but we also have almost eighteen feet of soil.

To be fair - that would be where the well was drilled. About two hundred feet away is a rock shelf where a rock saw had to be used to cut a passage for the electric utility lines.

See what I mean about that funky average depth of eight inches?

It is complicated for sure.

So, Swamp, you are being long-winded again. What's your point? When are you going to get to the juicy part about the cleavage?

Many years ago I was fishing with my a couple of my deer hunting compadres - the Wench and the Dutchman - the original deer camp.

After a long day on the water - whilst I regaled these two gents of my new-found knowledge of geology and the natural world - we eventually sought landfall and the comfort of Joe and Nancy's Bar in Rosiere.

Joe and Nancy have long-since retired and the establishment is now Why-Lee's.

(Incidentally - I recommend that you go there for the blue gill sandwich on Fridays. Tell Lee that Swamp sent you.)

Somewhere along the line, and after more than a couple of beers, Joe might have asked how the fishing was.

Instead of simply answering the question with a direct answer the Wench went off on a tangent and launched into his own reiteration of what he had learned in his abbreviated geology lesson on the boat that day.

Considering the circumstances he got most of it correct.

Joe was thunderstruck. He was probably thinking - These guys aren't fishermen. Fisherman are liars. These guys sound like scientists.

The Wench was actually doing pretty good with his bar stool geology dissertation.

Everyone else at the bar was now paying attention.

When he got to the part about the formidable rock formation which marked the split between the Green Bay and Lake Michigan lobes of the last glaciation he reached deeply into his arsenal of knowledge.

He employed props.

Grabbing a napkin holder he placed it on the bar to illustrate the Escarpment.

Salt and pepper shakers followed to identify the location of the glacial lobes.

Tap beer glasses we used to show the movement of the glaciers.

Pausing to take a long pull from the western-most lobe of the glacier, he gathered his wits, summoned the reserves of his short-term reservoir of knowledge, slammed the beer glass upon the bar top, thrust his finger in the direction of the napkin holder and bursting forth with enthusiasm for his new-found scientific knowledge, exclaimed...

That is the Escanaba Cleavage!