I hesitate to title this as I love ice....

 You all know why. 

However, real true ice made out of water dripping through porous rocks and freezing in ice curtains over rock shelters or rock faces are uniquely beautiful.

Nature creates this with her weather in the winter. The water is almost always seeping through these formations and in the winter the hillsides that don't get sunlight stay colder allowing the ice to begin to form.

I feel that December through March, it is 'my' weird obsession to hunt out ice formations and see them. I enjoy figuring out where is the most likely place they will be and then photographing them. Often, I get to the same place over and over to watch it change.

This is what the ice cave area looks like as the end of winter comes around and the ice formations melt. With the ice is gone, it looks rather bland and uninteresting. In late March, the temps warm and the sun changes its angle and shines through the leafless trees to melt the ice.

What it looked like on Monday with its winter beauty. The top right 'cave' is the one I usually go into and photograph. It isn't easy to get there and it takes a bit of caution and of course good ice cleats.

Charlie explored it, took a drink of chilled ice water and then watched the valley below. He doesn't wander off. If I take too long exploring, he'll come and look at me and then whine.

I swear he is saying "Enough, let's get on with it!"

Mostly the water is always seeping or dripping and the temperatures cause the water to make these formations. Wouldn't it be cool to have a time lapse camera on these?

We made it down to where Weister creek has ice formations on its sandstone walls. I rerouted up and over the hogback and then down into the valley to avoid the fallen trees from last year's storms.

I only used my Infrared camera here because the colors where so fun. The red is the green mosses and a dying pine branch which cover the very small ice formations on the rock. To me, it looked like it could be a fairy cave. 

Why not?

This is as far as I go in the wintertime to this last wall of rocks and ice. You can see where the rains from last week raised the water level and evened out the icicles.

I always stop at this spot and enjoy a few moments photographing the ice formation on this bank of Weister Creek. This was the view on Monday.

I love this spot in all seasons. 

2022:

Springtime:

With each flash flood or heavy rain, the form of the creek changes slightly with fallen trees, roots, and shapes of the shores.

You can probably tell that this is my favorite place to visit in the winter time.

I have many other places I like to see out. I do this mostly solo because I don't have to rush and I can explore as I wish.

Sometimes I just think about blending into these places and never leaving. When my life ends, I'd love my ashes to be part of these places. 

Hmmm? Master Naturalist Class?

 Opinions needed!

I tried this class in March of 2020. We had two classes and then the state was shut down during COVID. This was my first impression of the class....

This is copy and pasted from March 3rd 2020.

The classes run once a week, I think, from April to September with field trips in the KVR during the summer. It is similar to a college course but in all things regarding Nature. I thought I was out of my league when I signed up to do this in 2020. 
However, the opportunity has now presented itself and I have to keep checking for the sign up which starts in March. 

I do have a 2 yr college degree, but it was intimadating to be in a class with PhD's and Masters.
Though, I bet/hope that no one has spent as much time immersed in this area's forests as much as I have. Hmmm.

Whaddyah think? 

First impression of the Naturalist Class

Actually a Master Naturalist Class.

First impression.
5 out of 22 participants are under retirement age.

Most every single person in the room except perhaps 4 of us have had formal training in Biology, Ecology, or some higher degrees of study. Let's just say, as many listed their colleges and degrees and Masters degrees, I started feeling smaller and smaller....
wondering how I could crawl under the table when it came time to introduce myself.

Then I had to speak out to the others.
So much I wanted to say but after listening to all the degrees I just said:

My name is Val Ewing.
I came to this part of Wisconsin by accident. I met a fellow on a Wagon Train and fell in love and moved here.
I don't have a degree in any of this, just life experience.
Why do I have an interest in this class?
Hmmm, well the first year I had a tiny pocket camera I decided to go out and find every wild flower and plant I could daily and record where I found it, when I found it, and record what it looked like.
What was my inspiration?
[Goodness so many things to say but I picked the one thing that really stood out the most.]

My Grandmother Pearl was a Naturalist of sorts. She could hear a bird and identify it, she could walk past plants and tell you if you could eat them. She took us berry picking in the wild woods and we encountered bears. She knew her fish, and she knew wild life tracks. In fact, I was pretty sure she knew everything about anything in Nature.
I wanted to be like my Grandmother.

The fellow next to me didn't have a degree either but was eloquent in his little speech talking about how he liked to roam and stop to look at things and wonder why. [I wished I'd used that line!]

The binders we were given are worth the price of the class itself. But they are huge and weigh a ton! I've already found a hand out that I think Allison and I could really have fun with as a pocket guide.
Wonderful Wacky Water Critters published by the University of WI.

So it looks like I'm going to have to write a field journal. Most of the samples given are so dry.
Saw a Robin, 35 degrees out, sunny, ...date
and location...

Meh. You all know me. I just can't write like that.
More like.
I was wandering down to the creek when I spotted the first green leaves of a wild strawberry plant. I sat on a log to ponder it for a while and listened the the chickadee above me and I'm sure I heard a Robin. And of course I'd go off on a tangent regarding life in the forest and regrowth including wondering ...if the strawberries will be so sweet...and yadda, yadda....

Uh oh, I am in trouble!

Restless weekend

The weather wasn't exactly super nice this weekend and I felt too restless to settle down on any one thing so.....

I started on the next chair...the very very ugly one. This one is going to be super simple. The top will be this old green color. The legs another more turquoise-ish color, and then the crossbars a nice blue. 

I got this far and had to find something else to do.

Debra at She Who Seeks, posted her art space, so while I was organizing my messy space, I thought I'd take a crack at mine.

This is what it looks like where I keep my paints while I am in the middle of a project. Messy. Messy. I do clean it all up and make it tidy at least a few times a week since I dislike clutter.

I have another space where I do a lot of my table top photography. 

The tubs hold bits and pieces I've created for Diorama photos. I use the bits for creating scenes.

I have bits and pieces of cardboard and repurposed 'trash' to make scenes. The original thought was to toss the 'bits' when I was done with them. However I keep using them over and over in different scenarios so I had to find a spot to store them.

The different drawers hold Lego Minifigures along with some other little 'toys' that I like to use for photography.

Toys are my favorite thing to do.

[Everything in the shot below except the little Droid are bits of things that were trash. I painted the bits, used old dried coffee grounds glued to surfaces for texture, and made a lot of whatnots ---> that's okay, I don't even know what the whatnots are!]

Sometimes I attempt still life shots of interesting bits of plants.

I'm not very good at this, but I need to keep practicing to get better at it.

Hopefully I will! These were supposed to be 'flat lay' shots. I didn't like the shots that much but found the textures of the plants and the old wood I placed it on to be interesting.

I worked on making a wire tree. I'm still practicing how to do water droplet macro photography. Right now the outdoor world and forest isn't exactly inspiring.

So I took this wire 'tree' and used a clip to hold it upright. I took a wooden block I'd painted years ago and stuck it behind the 'tree'.

I was going to practice 'water droplet' macro photography. So the tree looked like this.

I used a heavy gauge wire and then had wrapped jewelry wire around it to make surfaces for water to cling to.

The fun part was the macro 1:1 part. This is where focus and what I saw through the lens got interesting. I took a lot of shots, but this one is the one I settled on.

When working with with these small droplets and this close up, everything is manual. 

That lead me down the road to the world of abstract macro photos. The shot below was a red feather I had in my craft stuff. I used an old CD as a backdrop. I did a double exposure sort of and ended up with this.

Does it mean anything? Nope, not really, but the colors are vivid and it was a brain engager. 

My table top looked like a disaster when I tried something else and it didn't work. I put everything away. When I get frustrated, it doesn't help creativity at all. I have to clean up and give it a rest.

I took a walk in the crunchy and icy snow instead and got a breath of fresh air.

When I came in I looked at my desk and thought....I should be answering my Aunt's letter. She is old fashioned, we write hand written letters. 

I took out my Lensbaby lens and ... well....

this is the shot that made my day.

By the way, I was still to restless to sit down and properly write my Aunt back. 

I really should do that. 

Do you have a creative area that you knit, sew, cook, or do something amazing in? I don't do most of those things. 

Afternoon delight

I have to admit, I am pretty rusty at taking water photos on the fly. Our creek dried up a couple of years ago after the great 2019 flood and the 5 years of drought we had. Our creek still has tiny springs here and there, but it is mostly a dry bed until Mother Nature decides to remodel again.

Yesterday was one of those crazy days.

Kristi texted me and asked if I wanted to come over and we could visit and do 'something'. Yep, I was up for it after the gym.

I grabbed Charlie and we left for who knows what kind of 'something' Kristi had in mind. After we hung out for a while and chatted, she suggested we go on a hike.

This is her photo below. When I found out we were heading into a valley with a stream, I was like a little kid. Time to play in the water!

My OM camera has a built in Neutral Density filter so here I was trying to take a 1/4 sec exposure of the water flowing over the rocks.

I walked through the stream to squat down and shoot a couple of quick shots. I'm never quite sure how new hiking partners will tolerate my propensity to stop and 'shoot' a lot. So i was quick at it.

This camera has some dang fine stabilization built in.

I then turned and looked up the valley. The south facing hillside was lit up with brilliant brown/orange light that reflected on the stream. I told Kristi that I could easily spend hours in just this one spot.

My sneaky friend took shots of me playing in the water. Charlie had a blast keeping us both supervising.

There was so much to see and Kristi wanted to show me more of the valley and the stream.

I will admit, that I was like a little kid on Christmas morning. I kept oohing and ahhing and dropping down into the water and picking up rocks.

If things were left up to me, I'd just build me a little hut in the valley and hang out with the stream. So much to see and explore!

 

The Bike Trail

 was not glamourous today. In fact, the lack of snow, the lack of any wind, and the smoke from people's woodstoves combined with the smoke/steam from the corn dryers gave the valley a look that was unreal.

When Charlie and I got to the 2 mile mark we decided to turn around. One of the mega dairy farms had a guy out with machinery clearing land and piling up trees in a pile that was burning. The shot below is smoke, acrid, nasty smelling smoke.

I imagine they were clearing the edges of the fields for more area for their hay crops. I had planned to go just a bit further but Charlie was dragging his feet and I decided that the smoke was very unhealthy.

The things that did surprise me was the abundance of food for the birds along the trail. The edges of the bike trail were covered in grape vines, multiflora rose buds, dried wild grapes, old man's beard, and highbush cranberries.

When we got back to the long bridge over the Pine River, we took a break as the smoke was clearing. It was time for us to have a snack and water.

As we finished up, I looked to the southwest.

The sky was turning ominous. Charlie was still dragging his feet so we made our way slowly back towards the parking area.

Walking slowly was actually a bonus. The skies were turning ugly, the land looked dreary, but birds were everywhere.

I noticed something I hadn't seen before while bicycling. The busted up farms, dilapidated buildings, and a variety of old machinery hiding in the weeds.

Another thing I'd never noticed was the sewage treatment plant hiding behind trees and small hills. But that explained the strange looking sewer lids that one would normally see in cities. They resided in a pasture.

I could hear water running through them. 

Oddly enough when I stopped to look closer------

I found a mystery.

Shoes.

And more shoes. The Converse shoes looked actually pretty decent. But what on earth???

 

I had a sudden onset of the creepy shivers. You know, the kind of thing you feel when something awful is nearby.

I imagined a creepy clown climbing out of the sewer cover.

 

Sometimes my imagination tends to run away. Is this where Stephen King's clown, IT lives?

I needed to get out of the house and do some walking. Movement outdoors seems to help my attitude and brain and it seemed to be a good way to enjoy the January Thaw.

Staying home

Oddly enough, my New Year has been full of activity so far. Yesterday morning was so foggy one couldn't see beyond a 1/4 mile.

Pictured is my 'desk' where I do all the icky paperwork. Sorting, filing, bill planning, and more sorting. I set this spot up after Christmas so I didn't have to do it on the kitchen table. For my amusement, I purchased a 'Lava Lamp'. I loved the one we had as a kid and when I want to take a moment to stare at nothing and clear my head.

The lamp is there with its colors and blobs floating up and down.

I can daydream while watching the blobs of wax drift up, cool off and then drift back down in various shapes.

But the desk isn't for daydreaming [which I excel at]. 

The first order of business after chores with ice cleats was to get the previous day's mail on the ridge and get started on the 'homey' chores I'd ignored for the past few days.

Below was the surprise of bits of frost that the fog left on the plants on the ridge.

Unfortunately I had to go back and do those chores I dislike. 

Laundry, vacuuming, cleaning stuff. My House Cleaning Fairie has been rather lax in showing up so it seems I have to do it myself. I even washed windows! 

I set Pandora to Neil Diamond, Electric Light Orchestra, and Harry Chapin music and ripped up my chores.

The music really really got me into the groove. In fact I finished in record time and even started to work on the old Christmas chair to paint.

The sun came out. Charlie sat on the porch.

When I watched the news from MN a bit later, I was in shock at what happened. There are laws governing Lethal Force. Putting a gun to a woman's head who is unarmed and trying to flee is not covered under legal Lethal Force. The protocol is to take her license plate and arrest her for obstruction later.
Any officer who carries a weapon and goes through weapon training and qualification EACH year as I had done for 10 years knows this. It is drilled into our heads. 

That officer should be arrested by MN and charged under state laws which are unpardonable by the president. 

Federal Law regarding Lethal/Deadly Force:

From the Department of Justice: 

1. Deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.
2. Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle. Firearms may not be discharged from a moving vehicle except in exigent circumstances. In these situations, an officer must have an articulable reason for this use of deadly force.

Body shops and caves

 

So I finally got a carwash and took my car in to see if they could buff out the scratches on the right rear side where that lady hit me two weeks ago. The damage was more than I thought it was, however, it is cosmetic. That said, I'm pretty particular about my 10 week old car.

Talk about sticker shock. Think of your modern cars as Lego cars. If a part gets damaged, they have to take the bumper covers off and repaint it. They can't buff those parts out, they are not metal. 

Okay. That was enough bad news for Monday morning. So instead of doing my paperwork, I took a drive while the body shop worked up an estimate.

I ended up at Wildcat Mountain State Park to visit the very large Ice Cave. It is a short walk and is very popular on the winter weekends so I figured Monday was a good day to go.

It was amazing as usual. Below is a tree root that got ripped off one of the rock bluffs with the last big rain and washed into the picnic area. I didn't have anyone to stand in front of it for size.

Evidence of family fun in the picnic area:

The trail was straight forward and very level. I'd say it is only a quarter mile long to the rock shelter, but once there your jaw drops.

The scale doesn't look that imposing. So I set up my bendy tripod and did a selfie. 

I'm still not next to the rock wall which drops about 6 feet down behind me. But I did walk around the ice curtain and take shots. The piles are where the ice melts and drops and then forms again.

Below.
10 years ago with my stepdaughter in blue and grand daughter in the middle. Me in the skunk hat. By March, the ice curtain is massive if there is a good winter of thaw and freeze.

This is why I find winter so amazing and exciting here where I live and why I learned to dress for the weather and enjoy winter hiking more than summer hiking.

The water comes off the rocks and eventually runs along the rock wall and into a small creek which empties into Billings Creek.

The colors were beautiful.

To get around all of the ice, cleats are recommended.

I left there and took another drive to see Warner Creek. I walked around the rock bluffs and explored some of the rock formations that are so unique.

Charlie wasn't really with me, but I had his Mini in my pocket so I could take a shot at the unusual rock structure.

I am never short of amazed at these rocks. The details almost look hand carved and are so tiny that if you don't look close you'd miss it.

When I got home from my drive and exploring, I felt calm and collected. I was able to sort paperwork and text the lady that hit me.

To my utter surprise, when I sent her the estimate she replied that she would contact the body shop and pay for it.

This indeed has been a very auspicious beginning to 2026.