This Is Drivel

Tag: nature

  • flashback – first tent

    flashback – first tent

    I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon cleaning up the mess of odds and ends which had piled up on my basement workbench. Amongst the detritus, I found four aluminum tent pegs. They appeared to be the tent pegs that belonged to a tent I bought while I was still in high school in, I… Read.

  • IAT Valley View Segment – 10/14/25

    IAT Valley View Segment – 10/14/25

    Today’s hike of the Valley View Segment of the Ice Age Trail didn’t go exactly as expected. My plan was to drop my bicycle off at the southern end of the segment where the trail emerged onto Mill Town Road, then drive to the trailhead on Timber Lane a few miles northwest, where I would… Read.

  • IAT Cross Plains/Andersen Preserve – 10/08/25

    IAT Cross Plains/Andersen Preserve – 10/08/25

    By 1:30 pm I was done walking the Pine Road loop and I still wasn’t ready to head home, so I went for a hat trick — three hikes in one day. According to my guidebook, there was a nearby hike on the IAT I could walk as a loop, so I headed south to… Read.

  • de-fence-strate

    de-fence-strate

    My Darling B has a garden in the back yard with a fence around it. As fences go, it’s pretty basic: a series of 4×4 posts set in the ground about four feet apart, with galvanized hardware cloth stapled to the outsides of the posts. The bottom edge of the hardware cloth is buried about… Read.

  • IAT Cedar Lake Project – 10/2/25 and 10/3/25

    IAT Cedar Lake Project – 10/2/25 and 10/3/25

    I’ve hiked many trails where stepping stones had been arranged to cross a small stream or a shallow river and when I did, I wondered how much effort and ingenuity it took to move those big stones into place. This week I found out. The Ice Age Trail Alliance was cutting a new trail through… Read.

  • IAT Indian Lake segment – 09/28/2025

    IAT Indian Lake segment – 09/28/2025

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    It was such a beautiful day today, I had to get out for a walk, and I wanted to walk a trail I hadn’t visited before, so I drove north and west to check out the Indian Lake segment of the Ice Age Trail. I didn’t walk the full length of the segment so I’ll… Read.

  • wading

    wading

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    I spotted this guy wading in the tall reeds growing along the bank of Pope Lake in Hartman’s Creek State Park. Snapped his photo on the fly with my phone. Turned out okay, if I may say so myself. Read.

  • Hartman Creek State Park

    Hartman Creek State Park

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    I hung my hammock between two tall pines at Hartman Creek State Park, looking forward to a good night’s sleep and a view of the stars. Didn’t get either. Someone down the road had their radio going all night, so I drifted in and out of sleep to the tunes they shared with everyone else… Read.

  • Lake of the Pines / Hartman Creek State Park

    Lake of the Pines / Hartman Creek State Park

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    I slept pretty well at Lake of the Pines State Park, considering I had to sleep in my van. I was hoping to sleep in a hammock, but I was not willing to brave attacks from the squadrons of mosquitoes that would have zeroed in on me while I was hanging it, so I simply… Read.

  • Lake of the Pines State Campground

    Lake of the Pines State Campground

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    I spent the night at Lake of the Pines State Campground, in spite of the best efforts of a biblical swarm of mosquitoes to drive me away. Lake of the Pines is about a four-hour drive from Madison if you don’t stop. I stopped more than once, so it was more like four-and-a-half. I arrived… Read.

photo of the author and the author's best friend