Three Generations of Big Deep Girls

Little Cabin in the Big Deep Woods

Just returned from northern Minnesota after ten days at my mothers cabin. Can you believe we had thirteen people living out of this little cottage? My brothers Greg and Eric and their families and my mom, Pete, Ali and Davyd and I were there the last three days. I always welcome these reunions, even in little cabins where you have to ration showers and battle mosquitoes.

Before and after we visited friends, baked pies, kayaked, swam, knitted, took daily hikes, relaxed in the hammock, fished, Davyd learned to row and drive the motor boat, we picked cottongrass, had bonfires, drew and gathered photos of wildflowers and fell asleep to loons singing. Ali and Davyd told me they were bored a few times and I answered that boredom and creativity sit right next to each other - each presents undiscovered opportunities!

My grandparents had a cabin the my five siblings and I visited when I was growing up. It was much the same. Life was simple and we made our own fun. The sun was warm, the air was sweet and each day adventure and celebration was where ever you decided to find it.

Blast From the Past

February 1835 - I have always dreamed of time traveling and I finally figured out how. The map on the left is from the original land survey of my neighborhood completed in February 1835. If you live in Wisconsin you can go on a fascinating virtual hike of your backyard by jumping in at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SurveyNotes/. Most townships have a general description and a listing of trees along the survey lines of each section. I took my online hike to help decide which trees we would plant in our yard to best match the natural vegetation that would have been here. We chose Swamp White Oak, Basswood and White Cedar.

Garden Babies

Eric and Logan knew the way to my heart when they gave me seeds from Midewin Tallgrass Prairie for a retirement present. Upon receipt last February I felt like I had received a pot of gold. Little bags of precious prairie plants.

We made a ceremony of preparing the precious seeds for stratification - half of them nested in the crisper of my refrigerator through winters end and the rest planted in vermiculite and tucked in a dark corner of my garage. As spring approached we transferred the flats to the garden shed. This weekend it felt as if I was dishing up fragile desert as I moved the tender seedlings from the flats to pots. The Echinacea went gang busters and the Echinops bombed. Tomorrow the crisper seeds go in the ground. Expect another report in August.

Eric and Logan you are aces!

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

"Better to be deprived of food for three days then tea for one" - Chinese proverb.

Another perk of retirement is time to read! Davyd and I now make weekly sojourns to the Whitefish Bay Library. The artwork and murals are bonuses to the great selection of books.

In his book A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage artfully weaves the legacy of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola. The history of each beverage is interesting enough, though I also enjoyed thinking about “we are what we drink.”

The story begins with beer about 4000BCE – which naturally followed domestication of cereal grains and pottery - and offered a choice more sanitary then drinking water. I liked the Mesopotamian image of drinking beer out of large urns through straws to avoid sipping debris.

The sophistication of wine, ceremony and politics of tea, ties to academia and coffee and initiation of globalization via bottles of Coke all made this one quick read worth passing on.

The book concludes with an epilogue to water. Safe drinking water is highlighted as key to human rights around the globe and a likely fulcrum for future conflicts. It makes sense that we conserve the most basic of our cherished natural resources. Cheers!