Everything is changing

"Upon a farm that is no more a farm"

I want to hang by my teeth from that sky. Eat it all up. Put it on my ceiling.



"Barbed wire is sharp"...and over 120 years old.

" And no one's asking Cal
About that scar upon his face
'Cause there's nothin' strange
About an axe with bloodstains in the barn
There's always some killin'
You got to do around the farm" - Tom Waits

If I had this man's friction engine, I could retire right now.


Or if I had this big fancy traction engine, circa 1911. 110 horses. Very rare.


Antique hog oilers. Itchy pigs rubbed on them and the oil would kill lice. Models include Hogs' Delight, Rubber-In, The Fox, etc.



This man loves hog oilers.

Property of Capital Newspapers. Oh how I love using nice cameras.

Spring comes to the hinterland

the riptide is raging and the lifeguard is away

I went to San Francisco to visit friends and family, see a new place, get my money's worth out of Delta Airlines (long story) and lastly take a break from sending out my resume.

On one day, we hiked from the redwoods to the sea. It was pretty much exactly like a Woody Guthrie song.


At the entrance to Muir Woods, right by the toilets. Just in case you had any protesting to take care of at the same time.

Matt made me pose.




Shelter from the wind.

Early morning, the arboretum.

Slapdash January update.

1. Still warm and sunny here.


2. I am a sea-eating creature, here. It's so nice to not worry about mercury or the cost of transporting saltwaterfish all the way to Wisconsin.


3. New people in town. Some of whom like Scrabble.


4. Others of whom like jumping off bridges.


5. Stunning vistas, etc etc etc.

6. Not pictured, work, which I am still glad to be doing. More than ever, actually.

Go see do

I bought a bicycle on Friday. It's pretty sexy for a really basic mountain bike. Saturday I rode it up and down a mountain, so now it doesn't look quite as embarrassingly shiny. There is something giddying about summer starting (again), a good bike, a million places to go.


I've been asked to post more photos (sorry, Mom), so here are some examples of these million places to go.


Silvermine Nature Reserve & mountain bike trail.



Llandudno Beach


Llandudno Beach with dog


Hout Bay from above

I like hike

I went on a pretty fantastic hike up Table Mountain (via Skeleton Gorge) on Saturday. It was the first really significant thing I'd done by myself here, barring a few afternoon and morning walks around the City Bowl (museums, coffee shops, gardens), and while one passer-by told me I had pretty terrible friends if none of them wanted to hike with me on such a beautiful day, I was glad to have some introversion-indulging alone time to think about anything but what to say next.



It was the sort of hot, bright day that you get in Madison around early July, minus the humidity. It will get hotter. The topside was humming with dragonflies and enormous bees and the occasional stream-dwelling frog. Oh, and hikers. Tons of hikers. I think I made about a dozen friends just by passing them on the trail and exchanging pleasantries and then passing them later on the way down. There was this old Canadian, also hiking on his own, and we chatted at various points. He told me, "People from the United States are only ever from four places. Either they're from California, or they're from New York, or they're from Texas, or they're from the United States." He was happy I knew where Calgary was, and I was happy he knew where Wisconsin was. Recognition. What is this instinct to friendship with people based solely on geographical proximity?



I found a big rock off the trail to eat my lunch and spy unseen on passers-by, and then, deciding I wasn't ready to go down the other ravine yet, took off for Maclear's Beacon, named after Cape Royal Astronomer Thomas Maclear. It added about 2 hours, but the views were spectacular, and, you know, there's a certain magic to reaching a named destination or a summit, to looking down on as big an area as possible from as great a height as you can.

super happy photo post

Depressed about the economy, your social life, or the number of kids in South Africa who have nowhere near a fair chance in life? Observe how beautiful this mountain in the middle of Cape Town is!