Sunday afternoon Wife 1.2 thought a walk in the Arboretum would be a good idea, and I concurred whole-heartedly.
November is weird, though. Could be 60. Could be 20. Could snow. Could rain. Or it could be benign. What is certain is that it’s between seasons. Fall is over (no leaves except on the beeches), and Winter is unwilling to really push her luck. If she comes too early, the people will rise up. Actually, us upper Midwesterners are pretty stoic when it comes to weather. If Winter comes early, we’ll just give her the one-finger salute and put on another sweater and maybe a toque.
The cool thing about between seasons is the ability to see structures. With the leaves off the trees and the snow not yet blanketing the forest floor, you see things. Like mounds, built between 800 and 1,000 years ago by the Effigy Mound Culture, the ancestors of the First Nations people of Wisconsin, the Ojibway.
Over 20,000 mounds covered southern Wisconsin when the Europeans arrived in the mid 1800s. Many were lost to the plow, but many more were saved by archeologists. Very few of these mounds were burial sites, but speculation and observation leads many anthropologists to believe they were for celebration of astronomical milestones. Loamhenge, not Stonehenge.
There are benches scattered throughout the woods, usually where there’s some sort of overlook. I can’t really call them vistas, because vista implies some sort of long view, like Cedar Breaks or the Grand Canyon. Overlooks are smaller, more intimate, and a lot more modest in a Midwestern sort of way. “Aw, shucks, it looks pretty dere but it’s no big deal…” The benches are usually affixed with small plaques that tell the sitters to whom this bench was dedicated.
So it was a nice walk. I resisted the temptation to make Leaf Angels. Sometimes I think Wife 1.2 has a moderating influence on me. Instead, we just walked, leaves crunching under our feet. That’s all I needed.
Respectfully submitted,
Canoelover