Category: play
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a puzzle to pass the time
The cold spell broke last weekend. It broke so hard that temperatures climbed into the 60s on Monday. Insane. To take advantage of the balmy weather, I’ve been tromping around anywhere the ground is solid enough to walk on. There’s not a lot of that right now. But for four weeks, it rarely got warmer… Read.
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IAT University Ridge
Oh I am so very sore this morning! And a little bit tired, even after a good night’s sleep. I spent the better part of five hours yesterday chopping up brush and stacking it in piles which towered over my head. It’s getting harder to recover from that kind of workout than I did when… Read.
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a fine evening at Alchemy
Way, way back (peers through the mists of time) in 2006, My Darling B worked on the west side of town, almost in Middleton, at the DMV. I worked at a bank in the center of town, right on capitol square. Every morning, she would drop me off on the square, then continue on to… Read.
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IAT Gibb’s Lake Segment – 02/07/2026
Not too far from where I live, only about 40 minutes away by car, there’s a lonely little segment of the Ice Age Trail which winds around the eastern shore of Gibb’s Lake in Rock County. It’s one of those segments of the IAT that’s connected to other segments via a long road walk. From… Read.
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IAT Scuppernong Segment – 02/04/2026
After hiking the southern half of the Scuppernong Segment yesterday, I went back today to walk the northern half. Conditions were much the same today as they were on Tuesday: Sunny, clear skies, a light breeze, temperatures in the twenties. Perfect, except for the temperatures. I dressed for cold weather, packed a lunch, and hit… Read.
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IAT Scuppernong segment – 02/03/2026
The only explanation I can come up with for going out to hike seven miles through the snow in sub-freezing weather today is this: It had been so effing cold for so long that 18 degrees F seemed like a pretty reasonable temperature to hike in, actually. No, really, it did. I stayed inside for… Read.
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deep freeze
Before the weather changed to plunge us into a subzero deep freeze overnight, I had the opportunity to tramp around in the UW-Madison arboretum yesterday while temps were still in the high teens. NOAA said it was 14 deg F but my dashboard thermometer said it was 18 deg F, which somehow seemed, I dunno,… Read.
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IAT Stony Ridge segment – 01/21/2026
After almost a week of near-zero weather, the temperature when I got up this morning was a much more bearable 14 deg F! And it was supposed to get up to a balmy 20 deg F! We’re having a heat wave! I haven’t been out and about much in the past week due to the… Read.
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IAT Blue Spring Lake Segment – 01/15/2026
It was way too cold to go wandering through the woods today. I went for a hike anyway. Temps this morning were between 15 and 20 degrees, according to the NOAA. The thermometer stuck to our front window read 12 degrees when I got out of bed, 14 degrees when I left the house at… Read.
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IAT Eagle Segment – 01/12/2026
After spending all morning writing a blog post about yesterday’s hike along the Eagle Segment of the Ice Age Trail, I got the itch to drive back and re-visit it, maybe finish off the tail end of the trail I started yesterday, and walk a bit more of the trail on the southern end of… Read.
This Is Drivel 