ALONG THE WAY; COOL THINGS ABOUT "BORING" SIGHTS

  HEADING UP TO THE MARQUETTE  COUNTY AREA OF CENTRAL WISCONSIN  -about 45 min north of Madison- to check out one of the many clear lakes around there.
   Can't wait to get there. I always get so revved up for these lake destinations that I miss out on some of the joys of the journey.  Here's some cool things about common sights we see along Wisconsin rds.

   
  STRAY BOULDERS -"Thats A Nice Boulder"  -Shrek's Donkey (or other comments of pretend interest)

    We occasionally see a seemingly misplaced boulder sitting by itself in a field. A little study & I learn they are indeed misplaced; lost children that got "kidnapped " by glaciers from the mother rock (geologists call it Parent Bedrock) & carried away -sometimes hundreds of miles- & plopped down in random spots by the receding/melting glacier.
    These displaced rocks are called erratics which means wanderers.
    How they got into these random spots was a head scratcher to rock heads for many years. Geologists now widely accept glaciers as the culprit.
    These "lost children" can be any size; many ton SUV size & bigger to pebble size.  I find it amazing that some erratics in Waushara county Wisconsin -near Milwaukee- were diamonds. One was a 15 carat diamond!

   

GRASS  -Not many sights more common 😒 than grass; grass along the road in endless variety, grassy hills, golf courses, even the corn & wheat fields are grass. I see so much grass that I definitely don't appreciate it.

•  Grass is the great ground gripper, keeping soil from being washed away. 
• Grass sustains the world more than any other plant; corn, rice, wheat & oats are grass. Cattle graze on grass -to grow up to become steaks & hamburgers. 
•  Grass is ultra important as cover & nesting for wildlife. 
• It is a prime factor in the life cycle of butterflies & moths, which are so important as pollinators for life giving plants.   
                

  In my attempt to perk up my weak appreciation for grass, we gathered seed from roadside grass & turned it into flour & made an amazingly delicious bannock bread out of it. Can't wait to have this with our next fish fry -add to the spirit of the meal.

    TURKEY VULTURES  -Often mistaken for eagles or hawks, these 6 ft wing span, high

flying black feathered birds are a common sight along our routes from spring to fall.

• Vultures are the best gliders in the world! They are the supreme experts at getting the most out of air currents to conserve energy  -you hardly see them flap a wing. 
• Turkey vultures are not birds of prey. They don't have killer talons. They specialize on eating what's already dead. Their naked,
  
  lovely 😕, pink head is designed so that excessive bacteria doesn't cling to them after they've stuck their head into very "ripe" places -nice. They have a very acidic stomach to kill harmful microbes that are in their bacteria filled meals. 
• Turkey vultures smell good  - i.e. they are unique in the bird world for their smelling ability. They often fly low to the ground to catch the smell of decay. They've learned to cruise our highways in search of our next subject:

   ROAD KILLED DEER  -Sorry, not the sweetest of subjects, but how does such a wild & elusive creature, like deer, get hit so often by vehicles?

    In the grand scheme of time, vehicles & roads have only been on the scene for a short time -less than a hundred yrs. The divinely equipped ability of creatures to adapt & survive has not had much time to develop.
   To deer, vehicles must appear like non predatory creatures that mind their own business -staying on their paths, not at all threatening -totally lacking the appearance of any stalking ability.  Yet, they have an unnatural speed that is hard for deer to calculate  -like an elephant with cheetah speed, that is not so good at sharing their trails. These trails/roads have been layed accross land that deer have travelled without problem for many centuries.
 
  DEER IN THE HEADLIGHTS -As hard as it may be for a deer to get along with vehicles  in daylight, at night things are worse.
   Deer can see in the dark much better than we can because of the extra photo receptors in their eyes. Shine a spotlight -headlight- in a deer's eyes & the blinding effect is much worse than it'd be for us; add that blindness to the difficulty of processing the speed of a creature that doesnt give itself away with footsteps - an oncoming vehicle must sound like an approaching gust of wind, not a pouncing predator. The results are disastrous.

     WHAT HAPPENS TO WISCONSIN ROADKILL? A roadkill cleanup business is contracted by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to do the job. They get paid bout $52 a deer.
    On rural rds animals are usually just moved off the rd, pulled into the ditch a distance, & left to contribute their bodies to the ecosytem. On other rds they're brought to landfills.
 
   Can't leave the subject of whitetail deer without mentioning a couple outstanding facts about LIVE deer:

• Wisconsin has the biggest bucks in the United States! (the most in the Boone & Crocket record book).
• Bucks lose & regrow antlers every year. Deer antlers are the fastest growing biological tissue in the world.
• The most famous bow hunter of all time -Fred Bear, travelled the world hunting, says whitetail deer are the most elusive, difficult animal to hunt.

   
   

  GOLDEN ROD   -We see alot of these good looking bushy bursts of golden yellow flowers lining the roadside in late summer. Sometimes called "showy golden rod."

• Young golden rod leaves are edible. Native Americans chewed them to relieve sore throats & toothaches. We tried some leaves & they were amazingly terrible 😝 -dont think they were young enough. 
• Leaves & flowers make a great tasting tea. We tried the tea made mostly from the flowers. With some sweetener added it was very good. Supposed to be good for kidney issues & have a general anti-inflamatory effect.
• You can make rubber from golden rod! Thomas Edison experimented with using golden to make rubber. His friend -Henry Ford- gave him a Model T that had tires made from goldenrod rubber. 
• Growing along side of and at the same time of yr as ragweed, golden rod gets falsely blamed for causing allergies -"hay fever." But its pollen doesn't travel well in the wind -i.e. doesn't make it to our noses like ragweed pollen.

   
     "JUST A ROBIN"

  This story has stuck with me through the years. It comes from tracker/survivalist teacher Tom Brown Jr.

 Tom was then a young apprentice tracker to an apache indian that he calls Grandfather:
     "I once watched Grandfather gazing at a distant bush, thoroughly engrossed in some movement. He stood for the better part of an hour, silent & still, eyes glued to that bush. I could tell by the way that bush moved it was some sort of bird. And by the way Grandfather was paying attention, it must have been some exotic, exciting bird, I thought. I slowly stalked toward Grandfather, desperate to see what had so captivated his attention...Just as I was about to ask what type of bird he was watching, a common robin flew from the bush. Robins were as common as pine trees, so I continued to stare at the bush, but there was no longer any movement. I asked  Grandfather what he was looking at and, smiling; he replied "A robin." "But, Grandfather," I attested, "it's just a common robin. What's so interesting about a robin?" His smile broke to a frown of displeasure and he muttered, "Just a robin!" With that he took a stick and drew a picture of a bird on the ground and, handing me the stick, he ordered, "Show me where all the black marks on a robin are located." He then asked me what color the robins' feet were, the color of each feather, and excactly how they build their nests.
    Needless to say, I was humiliated, I had no answers; I didnt even have the vaguest idea how many black marks the bird had. I looked at Grandfather sadly and admitted, "I just dont know." "Then," he instructed, "it's not just a robin. No two robins are ever the same." he continued; "each is as different as you and I, and we can never exhaust the possibilities of learning something new each time we observe a robin. That is also true of everything else in life, every experience, every situation, every bird, tree, rock, and leaf, for we can never know enough about anything. "Finally," he continued, "you do not even begin to know an animal until you touch it, and feel its spirit. Then and only then can you ever begin to know."