Bandstand

Bandstand, Jacksonville (Illinois) Community Park

This is one of two beautiful, historic bandstands in the Jacksonville Community Park. The intricate Victorian detail earned a third bandstand in the same park a home at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

For Christmas, this bandstand is decked out in festive lighting.  I've been hoping for snow, so I can get pictures of it to make into holiday greeting cards, but so far --- no snow.

3 Men and Their 3 Wild Women

I just loved the Wisconsin Concrete Park in Phillips, Wisconsin. It was one of the "finds of a lifetime." I spent several hours there --- nobody else around.  This place is an American Folk Treasure!  

HOPE

Tiny detail in one of the walls at the Dickeyville Grotto in SW Wisconsin

Hope is that thing with feathers 

that perches in the soul 

and sings the tune without the words 

and never stops... at all.  

~Emily Dickinson~

Think About It

South Superior Shoreline

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, 

we borrow it from our children.  

~Native American Proverb~

Don't Fear the Reaper...

Dead mayflies, July 2nd, 2006 - Trempeleau, Wisconsin

On June 30^th, 2006, I was en route to an artists’ retreat outside of Duluth, Minnesota.  On the way, I had planned to spend a couple nights in a very unique 19^th century hostelry, the Trempeleau Hotel, on the Mississippi River (north of La Crosse) in Trempeleau, Wisconsin.

That evening, as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed lots of bugs flying against my window screen. The next morning, the sidewalk was covered with dead, winged insects.  I asked a local in the laundromat around the corner what they were, and the elderly gentleman told me all about the annual Mayfly Hatch.

The nymphs (larvae) of the Mayfly live and develop underwater, in the muddy bottoms of rivers and streams. For a couple days in the summer, they leave the river and become adults, which mate in dancing swarms of winged frenzy after the sun goes down.  They only live a couple days, at most, during which time they lay their eggs over water and die.

They’re harmless, but sometimes the bridges across the river have to be shut down when the layer of smashed, dead bugs become too slippery for safe travel. This particular year the hatch was so huge it showed up on the National Weather Service’s Doppler radar.

On July 1^st, the Trempeleau Hotel hosted a small rock concert at their outdoor stage featuring Blue Oyster Cult.  The concert started well before dark and the hotel grounds were packed with people sitting on blankets or in lawn chairs. 

The music was great, but long about dark, the second night's swarm of mayflies arrived.  I’ll never forget the surreal sight of thousands of flying insects dancing (and mating) to Don’t Fear the Reeper in the sky overhead. That song was absolutely perfect for the natural phenomenon of the brief and frantic “love story” taking place above and around us. The crowd became a sea of flailing arms as people tried in vain to keep the annoying bugs out of their hair. The band played a few more songs after that, and it was the first time I was ever glad for a concert to be over.

The next morning I went out in the street and took pictures (above) of the mounds and drifts of dead mayflies, especially thick under the light poles. They smelled like dead fish.

Many months later, I was surprised to see a short article about the unusually large Mayfly Hatch of 2006 in the National Geographic.  It’s a travel memory I’ll never forget… a bit of serendipity, being in the right place at the right time to witness Nature Living Large.

A Cruel Thing

Civil War Reenactment - General Grierson Days - 2006, Jacksonville, IL

What a cruel thing is war:  to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.  

~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864~

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!  

May your New Year be blessed with 

health and happiness and all good things!

Swan with Young

Swan with young, Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
~Gerard Hopkins~

Pickin'

Music is forever; 

music should grow and mature with you, 

following you right on up until you die.  

~Paul Simon~

Mural Artists

Mural artists at work in Jacksonville, Illinois.

Mushroom Rocks

Garden of the Gods State Park, Southern Illinois

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody 

contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind. 

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery~

Welcome All

Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe~

The Artist's World

Self-directed artist retreat. 2 weeks in a cabin in the Arkansas Ozarks (2009).

The artist's world is limitless.  

It can be found anywhere, 

far from where he lives or a few feet away.  

It is always on his doorstep.  

~Paul Strand~

Beasts of Burden

Wisconsin Concrete Park, Phillips, Wisconsin

If all the beasts were gone, men would die 

from a great loneliness of spirit, 

for whatever happens to the beasts 

also happens to the man. 

All things are connected. 

Whatever befalls the Earth 

befalls the sons of the Earth. 

~Chief Seattle~

One Red Leaf

The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge~

Alas!  Even that one, last, red leaf is destined to fall...

Perseverence

Rocks along the southern shore of Lake Superior, in northern Wisconsin

Difficult things take a long time, 

impossible things a little longer.

~André A. Jackson~

How many years (a hundred maybe?) did it take for this long strap of metal, aided by the crashing of the surf of Lake Superior, to grind its way into this stone? Could it be debris from a long ago shipwreck?

Blue Rose

At a cemetery in Greene County, IL

For what is it to die 

but to stand naked in the wind 

and to melt into the sun?  

~Kahlil Gibran~

Bottled Poetry

Sign on a building in Old Town Galena, IL

Wine is bottled poetry.

~Robert Louis Stevenson~

ILLINOIS: Farm Country

View from a rest stop off I-74 
between Galena, IL and the Quad Cities.

Family Plot

A very old family plot in a cemetery 
somewhere in the NW corner of Illinois. 

Duck with Reflections

Reflections of Galena, Illinois in the Galena River.

Leafy Screen

How strange that Nature does not knock, 

and yet does not intrude!  

~Emily Dickinson, letter to Mrs. J.S. Cooper, 1880~

I was doing a load of laundry in a funky little laundromat next door to the Trempeleau (Wisconsin) Hotel in the summer of 2006 when I had to use the bathroom.  I was so surprised to find that the window was covered with vines, I had to run out to my car and get my camera.

Dwelling with Nature

A log-end wall in a home I visited on Grand Lake in Minnesota

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries 

of the earth are never alone or weary of life.  

~Rachel Carson~

Cold December Sunset

The poetry of the earth is never dead.  

~John Keats~

Camel Rock

"Camel Rock" at Garden of the Gods State Park in Southern Illinois

We spent last Christmas in a cabin in Southern Illinois. There wasn't much to do at that time of year, but we did visit Garden of the Gods State Park, famous for its beautiful rock formations.

Home Is...

Lincoln's New Salem State Park, Petersburg, IL

Home is where you can say anything you like 

cause nobody listens to you anyway.  

~Author Unknown~

What IS a Blog?

Part of my Antique Bottle Collection

A blog is a message in a bottle, both in purpose and likely readership.  

~Robert Braul~

Rock On

Decor at a cafe in Lewiston, MN
There is nothing wrong with today's teenager that twenty years won't cure.  

~Author Unknown~

...A Swindle and a Crime

Mark Twain Impersonator at a street fair in Hannibal, Missouri

Life is purgatory at all times, & a swindle & a crime

-- yesterday it was hell.

- Mark Twain in a letter to William D. Howells, 24 September 1902

Stone Ivy

St. Mark's Catholic Cemetery, Winchester, IL

One of my favorite pastimes is visiting old cemeteries.  I'm fascinated by 19th century gravestones.  Some have elaborate carvings, such as this one found at St. Mark's Catholic Cemetery outside of Winchester, IL.

From Yesteryear

This old wagon wheel has been propped against our porch
for the past 23 years. See how it's sunk into the ground?
The cow jaw was found out in the woods.