Meadhouse potato harvest!

At 10:35 this morning.

"Slowly, he attracted followers, like-minded individuals interested in living sustainably, outside traditional supports, who were captivated by his thrifty ways and homesteading solution..."

"... and by the lovely short videos he posted: of desert cottontails eating off his mother’s Limoges plates; of dung beetles rolling a cow patty like a stone; of bees drinking from a pan of water. Within a few years, nearly a million people had visited his blog — more recently, the number was well over four million — and he had a core group of 1,000 or so regulars who followed his daily struggles and small triumphs...."

I'm reading "John Wells, 64, Who Fled New York for the Solitude of the Desert, Dies/A fashion photographer, he built a do-it-yourself life on 40 lonely acres in West Texas, living like a modern-day Thoreau and telling millions of his experience on a blog" (NYT).

Is it good to see the word "blog" in an obituary? Yes. 

It's also good to see someone memorialized for his frugality: "[H]e sold his house for $600,000 to a family of five, winnowed his possessions down to what he could fit in a rented truck and set off to build a new life. He paid $8,000 in cash for his 40-acre parcel. His property taxes that first year were $86.... He started with a tiny shack, where he could live, and equipped it with a bunk bed, a galley kitchen and a desk...."

Sandhill cranes take a long lunch.

From the driver-side window, Meade takes a 24-second video:

 

After our hike, riding home, 2 hours later, I take a 24-second video from the passenger-side window at exactly the same spot:

One might casually and shallowly dream of needing to eat constantly, just to maintain a healthy weight. Perhaps you'd love to take a pill that would put you in this predicament. But imagine living like this!

Ducklings — paddling and scampering.

Today, on Lake Mendota:

Sunrise with ATV and UFO.

 

At 7:16 this morning, video'd from the shore of Lake Mendota.

Tundra swans on Lake Mendota — yesterday at 1:30 p.m and today at 6:58 a.m.

I thought I could turn away from the eastern sky for a minute, because it was just looking like this...

The swans were kicking up a fuss at 7:06 a.m. over here toward the north...

The loon at sunrise...

... on Lake Mendota at 7:35:

At the Coot Café...

... you can talk all night.

No sunrise photo today, but we were out there on the shore of Lake Mendota at 1:48, watching the coots.

Last night's Homecoming Parade.

The Mystery of the Waterfowl.

This morning, at sunrise, we analyze the birds.

Sunrise — at 7 — with the UW Marching Band.

It's "On, Wisconsin!" and then random music provided by the silhouetted couple's boombox:

Then the band was playing what to me sounds like random notes, and when I played the video on my desktop just now, Meade says "Send me that one," and I was puzzled....

I'm told it's "Hail Purdue," and I get it. Meade grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue is his original home team, and he wants to send the video to someone in West Lafayette. Don't you think it's nice that the band plays the enemy's fight song? It's a tradition, a welcome, played pre-game.

Breakfast.

"Minimal interference — that's my goal."

I had to be careful, sharing the forest trail with a turkey.

"Sonny and Cher sing 'All I Ever Need is You' as the device destroys some of the most beautiful objects a creative person could ever hope to have, or see..."

"... a trumpet, camera lenses, an upright piano, paints, a metronome, a clay maquette, a wooden anatomical reference model, vinyl albums, a framed photo, and most disturbingly (because they suggest destructive violence against children's toys, and against the child in all of us) a ceramic Angry Birds figure and a stack of rubber emoji balls" (from rogerebert.com):

 

The NYT reports on the backlash and Apple's caving to (hydraulic) pressure: "Apple Says Destructive iPad Ad ‘Missed the Mark’/People in the creative world widely panned a commercial showing a giant hydraulic press squishing objects ranging from paint cans to a piano":

Sandhill cranes listen, then speak.

Just now, on the shore of Lake Mendota.

This morning, I attempt to take the gentlest possible approach to getting past the puffed up, hyper-vigilant turkey.

Follow my long sunrise shadow....

The male is so enthusiastically puffing up that his wing feathers (audibly) scrape the pavement.

"If nothing else, reflecting on the social roots of your political opinions and behavior should prompt some humility."

"Even if you hold the 'correct' political beliefs, you may not deserve to congratulate yourself for them; your moral righteousness could be an accident of birth or a product of good social fortune. So on what grounds are you permitted to feel snidely superior to your peers who — simply because of their different life circumstances — wound up on the other side of the political aisle?... The contingency of our own positions also raises the distinct possibility that others’ opinions contain overlooked elements of truth."

Writes sociology professor Neil Gross, in "When It Comes to Politics, Are Any of Us Really Thinking for Ourselves?" (NYT).

Another occasion to roll out the old adage, "All the assholes are over on the other side":