... but there were trumpeter swans...
... I walked out on the beach to try to get a better view ....
... but Meade climbed down a muddy slope to get closer shots... which you can see over at The Puparazzo... which is mostly about dogs, but our main dog Zeus had flown the coop (to Michigan). And yet when we got back to our car, we encountered a dog... a wonderful Treeing Walker Coonhound.
The Treeing Walker Coonhound has "a clear, ringing bugle voice," and the trumpeter swan has "a deep, trumpet- or bugle-like honking." And from where we were we could also hear the brass of the University of Wisconsin Marching Band wafting over from the stadium a couple miles away.
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You missed the big game.
"You missed the big game."
We made it home in time for the game. We watched on TV and could hear the cheers from the stadium, even with the windows shut.
Actually, we had it recorded on the DVR and we were semi-simultaneously watching. At one point, I took a nap. I woke up and heard a big cheer, so I went downstairs to find out what happened. Meade did a replay, and I watched until the end.
At another point, we paused it to do a little cooking, and Meade was out on the deck and heard a big cheer.
It's cool to watch it that way, and frankly, I prefer the TV experience for football. I'm not really much of a crowd person, but I love to SEE the crowds, especially knowing they are close enough to hear, and I'm very proud of my school for delivering such a fine big-crowd experience for the kids and the alums.
It's a big part of UW and I doubt if any school gives the students more in the way of spectator-sports fun.
You see more of the game on TV, but my brother is a big football nut, so I go mainly as a way to do something with him. And there is something special about Camp Randall. It was especially fun yesterday as the gopher fans turned from boisterous, in your face, "we're going to win this time" to somber resignation. And, there was much Axe Action yesterday. Good stuff.
I have a (bleak) picture like that.
In town for the big name and went for a walk on picnic point at noon. I was wondering while walking what I would do if I saw the two of you, and decided a simple smile and good morning would suffice. You must sometimes wonder when people examine your face whether they know you from the blog and, if so, whether they are friend or foe.
Anyone ever ask for your autograph?
It's not bleak but just dormant.
Surf's flat there on the little lake. It's been breaking at SToNey point over on big Lake Superior as of late. Members of our freshwater tribe have been getting some good rides if a little chilly. Phil Edwards always said - "The beach is just something I cross to get to the waves."
Are you sure they're trumpeter swans and not whistling swans?
Upon a Letter from a Friend Which Included Mention of Swans
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
– Yeats
The span of years hasn't helped the eyes
Adjust to beauty’s knot in troubled times,
Nor eased the heart into its frame. Surprise
Is taken wedge by ounce
With gin and limes
We raise to give to Providence its half a chance.
You wrote to say that beauty’s gauge these days
Has been a ratio of swans per wing
To children growing old. – Here lie the ways
That lead to winter, straight
From early spring
To bleeding grapes which fill the untapped tun of Fate –
You said that swans preferred the Danube now
To Rhone or Rhine: in lamentation’s flight
Or drifting flocks of Charon’s candid dhow,
Each freights the stony ken
Of final night
With multiples of starry Cygnus – cob and pen.
How strange to think upon your mated swans
As each a year of moments gliding past us:
Their slender necks submit to clear-eyed Fons
As our own eyes blear with
Tears of Bacchus,
Who keep us blind to Leda’s fortune – beauty’s myth.
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