Doug and I try to eat as locally as possible, and with a year-round farmers’ market in Madison, we are still getting apples, and root vegetables grown last year – even cabbages, which are so much sweeter and more flavorful than anything that has been drenched in petroleum while being […]
I’d like to share my second article that appeared recently in The Dodgeville Chronicle. I’m covering a 4-part series of evening presentations called “Floods, Droughts, Land and Energy: What Is Wisconsin’s Future.” (Check out the first installment How Will Global Warming Affect Wisconsin.” “We all have a role to play […]
Thanks to the polar vortex, this winter has had some real teeth here in the Midwest. I have listened to many complaints about below zero temperatures and our thick blanket of snow. I’m looking on this winter the way I might have gazed at the buffalo if I could travel […]
Anyone who lives in or has traveled through the Driftless Area (where Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa meet) can see at a glance that this is dramatically different from the land encircling it. Because this region was untouched by the last three glaciers, it is defined by rugged ridges and deep […]
Think globally – act locally! I got a chance to do just that recently when I read in the local newspaper, The Dodgeville Chronicle, about an upcoming 4-part series of evening presentations called “Floods, Droughts, Land and Energy: What Is Wisconsin’s Future.” We now live about 11 miles from Dodgeville, […]
January 6 was the coldest day in the past 10 years here in rural Ridgeway. A newly-named weather phenom, known as a polar vortex, had descended on the Driftless Area. In downtown Dodgeville, -22F was flashing out front of the Wells Fargo Bank – and a brutal wind produced a […]
Deer are the largest and most dramatic wildlife most of us see on a regular basis. This summer we enjoyed watching a mother and her two fawns regularly explore their botanical buffet within feet of our bedroom window. They were incredibly endearing at such close range, but a cloud hung […]
Gorgeous, delicious and toxic! Their nuts are super nutritious and a mouthful of earthy flavor. Walnut wood has vivid grain. When peeled, they reveal a muscular, sculptural beauty. Everything about […]
I’ve been given honey twice in the past few weeks. What a wonderful gift! It’s a gift that has been given twice. People gave it to me, but bees gave it to them. Some new friends, Amber Nicole and Paul, gave us a jar of Mad Urban Bees honey. http://www.madurbanbees.com/ […]
Last July, Doug and I joined the timber-raising of one the carpenters who helped build Underhill House. (Check it out in my post Timberframing with Friends: Sweat, Love and a Little Drama. ) Prairie and his partner Lindsey are restoring an old farmhouse. The back of the house proved too far […]
Digging in the Driftless 