adventures of a canoelover

Ian has a week-long church youth group thingy called “Especially for Youth” (a.k.a. EFY) down in Normal, Illinois. Three hours a few minutes of Interstate 39 going down. I dropped off the boy, he was already chatting with a really nice young man from Texas and a cute girl from Milwaukee, so I felt safe in leaving him in the hands of the counselors.

Once the boy was offloaded, I consulted the GPS. I really did not want to face more Interstate, so I programmed the GPS to give the best route home if I were on a bicycle. It worked okay.

Carlock to Congerville. Goodfield to Eureka to Washburn. LaRose, Varna, Magnolia, McNabb. Spring Valley, Ladd, Cherry, Arlington, Lamoille. So on through the corn belt, past crumbly towns and old grain elevators. Past historic markers (there was a huge coal mine disaster in Cherry, casualties numbered 268 in a town of 500). Past very small rivers that are begging for a paddle (I was sans canot).

I stopped in Arlington because I spotted an old grain elevator next to an abandoned railroad spur. The structure was clearly abandoned as well, even though there was still a huge mound of corn rotting in one of the passageways which was weird. It was a really cool structure…totally unsafe, but cool anyway. Lots of weathered corrugated tin and such. I did find a small piece of tin and I have an art project in mind for it.

I also found a huge pile of railroad spikes, maybe 40 of them, and judging from the head of the spike, they had never been driven into a tie. I can only conjecture someone was sent to repair the spur, dropped the box of spikes and went home to dinner, and then abandoned the job. It’s a buttload of steel, and I am already dreaming of ways to use them.

Total time home: 4 hours, 25 minutes, including all stops. I think I like this method of travel.

*Now listen up, folks. Normal, Illinois has suffered enough already. There are no statements, jokes, jests, barbs or other attempts at humor surrounding Normal that have not been sufficiently beaten to death. You cannot come up with anything new or clever. To wit, I am not going to say anything, and neither are you. Claro?

Ian was helping out at the shop Saturday and while clearing some brush, noticed this nest within a shrub of some sort. I had never seen a robin (Turdus migratorius*) have two babies with two eggs in the nest. Either they never hatched (good, judging from the amount of space available to the remaining fledglings) or they will hatch soon. The fledglings are eating like pigs and have been seen stretching their wings a bit.

I like robins. They’re common, simple birds but they’re pretty and they’re not sparrows. Since I grew up in the desert, they seem a little exotic to me. When I was first married and new to Wisconsin, I observed that it is a Midwestern characteristic to talk about the weather and the seasons. Whereas in California the talk is about who got a new Beemer, here it’s about who saw the first robin (a sure sign of Spring).

I like people who are in touch with the natural world, no matter how tenuous and slight that link might be. For the mindless climate controlled masses on the west coast, where I do believe a substantial population has never breathed non-air-conditioned air, well, they miss out. We get fireflies on muggy nights, and it’s worth it to get a little sticky to see the dance over the prairie grasses.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

*This does not mean “migrating turd.” It means “migrating thrush” since robins are thrushes. “Migrating turd” is a Grateful Dead song, I think. If not, it should be.

If you spend any time driving around country roads in Wisconsin, you will eventually encounter the Midwestern phenomenon I call the GFA Syndrome. We Midwesterners tend to create giant fiberglass animals and place them in public view. The giant muskellunge in Hawyard. The giant loon in Mercer. The big mouse in Fennimore. Delevan’s giraffes and elephants.

There are also wonderful examples of GFAs in other states — Audubon, Iowa has has the giant Hereford, Albert. Idaho has a giant potato (shocker). Apparently there are giant lobsters in the northeast. Crabs in Maryland.

Anyway…I was driving across Highway 13 and saw this cute little guy on the side of the road. The addition of a billboard built into his side made him even more interesting. Herefords are not normally green and white either.

Better yet…you can rent the Giant Fiberglass Animal.

I am SO tempted.

Driving to Douglas County on Highway 13 is really nice. Quiet backroads, 55 gas-saving miles per hour, interesting towns—a nice pace for a vacation.

But if you have to eat something besides Subway or McDonalds, your odds diminish rapidly after six o’clock.

Even with such an inviting invitation, an eloquent plea for us to partake of a sumptuous banquet, nay, a convivium, we still must politely decline the invitation to EAT.

Actually, it came across as more of a command. EAT, and EAT you will. NOW. Pull over your car, get out, and EAT, dammit.

We would have but we couldn’t find a parking space.

Gastronomically submitted,

Canoelover

You’ll have to excuse the plethora of odonatia this season, but it is the high season for odonates and I’m making hay while the sun shines. Again, I walked behind the shop and again, lots of fun stuff. Still lots of dragonflies, but I was focusing on the damsels.

These bloody little things are terribly difficult to photograph with a point-and-shoot digital. After throwing away a dozen good photos to get one, I left work this afternoon and forked over the big bucks for a Nikon D200. I am keeping my film cameras for B&W (I still love the smell of a good darkroom) but for the blog stuff, I suspect you’ll see a dramatic improvement in the photos. I now can control depth of field! Yahoo!!!

Well…anyway…

I did get a good shot of a shy fellow, a teneral Variable Dancer (Argia fumipennis). Variable because they change color and vary in color a lot. Teneral because he was just barely emergent from nymph stage. That’s why the straw color…they turn purple/violet later.

I love the word teneral—it’s just a fancy word for the time in between you leave one stage of life but you’re not quite ready for another. Teneral odonates are terribly exposed for a few hours as they transition to adult form. Their wings take several hours to fully harden after emerging, and during that time any number of things can eat them or crush them.

I guess it could apply to many human conditions as well. Your first crush, the first time you drive a car alone after you get your license, the second you turn the key in the car on your way to a first date…face it, you’re teneral. It gets worse. There’s the time between the point you realize you want to kiss someone, and the moment you actually pull it off…totally teneral.

I speak from experience that when you drop your daughter off at college, leaving her in the dorm room alone, the whole bloody family is teneral. My wife was teneral for 1500 miles.

So here’s to odonates who brave the world in their teneral state, and here’s to humans who brave the world in teneral states every bit as dramatic as a damselfly’s first moments testing out its new wings.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

I took a little 20 minute break from the computer today to get outside for some fresh air. There is a lot of odonate activity these days, lots of pairing off and territorial zooming around. Lots of Calico Pennants (Celithemis elisa), a few Common Whitetails (Libellula lydia), plus a bunch of various and sundry bluet damsels and at least one Eastern Forktail (Ischnura verticalis).

There were also a couple of Common Green Darners (Anax junius) paired off and laying eggs, and the ones that were not paired off were apprently pissed off about it. Dragonflies have short lives, so speed dating is of the essence. They were being viciously territorial, and as I was just getting ready to go back inside, I saw something on the water surface fluttering madly. It was a Common Green Darner, looking like he had just been clocked but good in a bar fight. I fished him out of the pond scum and duckweed in which he had fallen and let him perch on my finger.

As you can see from the picture, he is not in too good of shape. Chunks of wing are missing, he’s missing a segment of his left front foot, and generally was having trouble getting his strength back. After a few minutes he started cleaning himself off, especially his eyes. One of the coolest things about Darners in general is that they have huge eyes that meet at the top of their heads, which is one way you can tell Darners from the other odonates. His eyes were soon cleaned off and he proceeded to do the best he can to tidy up, given he was missing a leg and all.

After a ten minutes or so, he feebly took off across the pond. If he were a car, he would have been a rusted out 1986 Chevy Cavalier with a muffler dragging across the ground. He looked pathetic compared to the Ferrari and Lamborghini dragonflies zooming around the pond. Yet he was not dying in the pond, he was flying. At least he might meet his end as a nice meal for a bat, and he’ll die a more noble death.

It sounds silly, but I think even a Common Green Darner would rather die with his boots on.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

P.S. Rosie, I still can’t find my picture of the Dragonhunter I took a few years ago. So instead, here’s a 12-Spotted Skimmer (L. pulchella) from a slide I took a year ago. A little fuzzy but she was a long way away.

The name of this blog is canoelover’s blog. It stands to reason that an actual canoe shows up here from time to time. So I got a new boat. Today I took a short paddle behind the shop and my ballast Gracie came along.

Anyway…the new boat is a Nova Craft Pal. It has a history and a good story.

The Pal is an old Chestnut Canoe design, not surprising given Nova Craft’s tendency to build Chestnuts (like the Prospector and the Cronje). It is, I feel, one of the most versatile light tandems around. Not for expedition tripping for two, but can certainly handle two people and two packs for a BWCA trip. What I find is that it is the perfect canoe for soloing with a dog.

Gracie is a phenomenal canoe dog. No restlessness, just in when I say “in” and out when I say “out.” If she wants a drink, she politely leans over and takes a few licks between paddle strokes. When she is tired, she lies at my knees and goes to sleep.

Anyway, I once had a wood/canvas Pal. Lovely boat, but it was 80 pounds if it was an ounce, and while I love the aesthetics of wood, I sure don’t like the weight. It was for somewhat selfish reasons that I suggested to Nova Craft three years ago that they start making the Pal. It fit into their line-up, gave a little more user-friendly boat for lighter loads, and of course, was gorgeous. It also has a good pedigree, and anyone who paddles one wants one.

Roch from Nova was here last weekend for a Nova Craft Rendezvous. He brought along a special order Pal but that boat was somehow damaged in shipping. The customer is getting a new one, but in the meantime—here was a cosmetically damaged canoe. So Roch made me a sweet deal, I get some gelcoat and make a small repair, and voila, Canoelover has a Pal again.

Needless to say, I’m stoked. 45 pounds is a long way from 80, and none of us are getting any younger. Now I can go on solo trips with my dog again. She will also be pleased about this, I believe.

The best news…the lakes are all no-wake. This means it will be very quiet. A nice change.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

P.S. Watch this space, I am getting two new boats next week. It has been quite a dry spell. 🙂

The best thing about camping in a rural, lightly populated area is the ability to walk around holding hands. Down the middle of a road. For miles, with no sign of an automobile.

P.S. It is not an optical illusion caused by the camera angle or lens. My ankles are really that skinny. Which is why my daughter calls me Chicken Legs.

I seriously racked up some good husband points (GHPs) tonight.

Stephanie needed to bolster her supply of brassieres. By bolster, I mean replace the one left that was about ready to die. You see, like all sane women, my sweetheart hates bra shopping. The problem is you actually have to go to Kohl’s or some other such place and enter it, walk through a maze of bras (I didn’t know there were that many breasts in the Universe) and pick out ones that look like they might actually fit human females.

I was a good soldier, helping her find sizes (that information is classified. I am already in deep doo-doo for even writing this). I endured the furtive glances of women who looked at me like I had crossed a DMZ. “This is a woman’s world. Go away. Shoo!” What was I doing in the bra section at Kohls? I mean, they weren’t hanging around in the jock strap section. That’s because the jock strap section is one end cap. Three sizes, one style. White. I am not exaggerating when I say there are acres of bras.

Weird Fact One: least half of the bras looked like something that someone somewhere thought someone would think looks good. These were all 75% off. Bras with leopard skin print with a frill of pink lace. Black Watch tartan bras. Ginham bras for the Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm look. Nude bras (what’s the point?). Notice to designers: animal prints are so 1970. I think the last animal print bra I saw was on Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate.

Weird Fact Two: There has been significant drift in the bra cup size world. What used to be no longer is. Just like in grad school where every gets an A, apparently A is now B, B is now C, C is now D, and D is now something I don’t need to know about. I did see one 40 EE. In camo. I’ve slept in tents that were smaller.

It only took an hour, and we’re done for another 12 to 18 months. Mission accomplished. Someday someone will make bra shopping painless, charge $75 each and clean up.

My friends Dustin and Hovas have a sweet little home they built on a section of land outside Bayfield, WI. It’s a home-grown effort, and while it lacks some of the fit and finish you find on a custom-built home, it is one of my favorite places to visit. It reminds me of my shack in the backyard, just a lot bigger.

One of the coolest thing about the Long residence is the outhouse. Since they’re almost off the grid and have no septic field (the clay soil isn’t good for septic), they have a cistern that needs to be pumped out periodically by the local honey wagon. To keep the pumping to a minimum, they use a graywater field for showers and such, but the biggest savings is to eliminate waste water, and that means an outhouse.

Forget everything you think you know about outhouses. This is not a fiberglass shell, plastic seat with a crappy door that doesn’t shut that smells like a Monsanto Superfund site. This is what outhouses are supposed to be. There’s almost no odor because it was ventilated properly. There is plenty of reading material on the bookshelf. There is tons of light due to two nice windows. It is as nice a place to [insert your favorite euphemism for defecation] as anyplace I’ve ever used except for one other spot: a latrine overlooking Seagull Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It was a little, er, exposed, but oh the view…