Downed trees slow progress

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

See more photos

We were facing one of our bigger challenges when we launched 36 boats one by one into the pool below the Germania Dam on the Mecan River north of Princeton.

The Mecan (pronounced MI-can) is a narrow trout stream through the wooded central Wisconsin countryside. It makes for beautiful scenery. But the erosion force of the river current, plus time, equals downed trees across the channel. In our case, that was true in quite a few places.

I was the first to arrive and had some time to commune with the Germania Marsh. The expansive 2,500-acre wetland is held in place by the simple, 55-year-old steel and concrete dam. An osprey joined me, hovering on fluttering wings, looking for breakfast.

Year's first paddles, in a word, pleasant

Paddling the Kickapoo required that we be attentive for fallen trees.
See more photos.

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

WYALUSING -- Thinking about the first weekend of paddling for this year’s Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle series, I keep coming back to a word … pleasant.

The people, the paddling, the pace. The scenery, the socializing. The weather and the music — all pleasant.

The people numbered more than 30 kayakers and canoeists. Most were from the Fox Valley, but a few from the Milwaukee area.

The paddling Saturday, May 17, included the last stretch of the Wisconsin River and a short piece of the Mississippi — Bridgeport to Wyalusing — for a total of eight miles. Thanks to high water, the pace was 3 mph when we weren’t paddling, twice that when we helped.

The scenery was towering bluffs, overflowing banks, lots of turkey vultures and bald eagles — seven of them. On one island in a channel of the Wisconsin, we watched two mature eagles and one immature flit half-hidden from one perch to another.

Watching the morning? Count me in

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

TOWN OF HORTONIA — The annual International Crane Foundation Midwest Crane Count is a special morning for me, one I’ve shared with others only a couple of times.

Sandhill cranes are easily recognized by
their grey color and red caps.

This year’s count was April 12. With me — next to the abandoned house and weather-worn barn where I’ve done my counts for more than a dozen years — were Dr. Kevin and Candice Mortara and Kim Krzycki of Appleton and Jim O’Rourke of Green Bay. They are all people I’ve met through the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddles.

I have to say that standing outside for two hours early on a spring morning is not everybody’s cup of cold tea. To participate in the crane count, you must be at your assigned site by 5:30 a.m. and stay until 7:30 a.m. More than 2,000 volunteer counters at sites across six states are sharing your discomfort.

I like it because it is the one day of the year that I force myself to sit quietly and watch the morning come.

We're not out of the woods yet

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

A beautiful moonset makes giving up the woods a little easier.
David Horst photo

I was beginning to wonder if we had taken a serious hit in nature sightings.

We had moved our hobby farm from a rolling oak-hickory woods to 18 acres of hayfield. We weren’t seeing the deer under the bird feeders. We weren’t being treated to the daily parade of turkeys through the backyard.

I was starting to miss the woods in a big way.

Then came spring.

While it has not been reflected on the thermometer, spring is here officially and, apparently, in the hearts and instincts of our wildlife.

The weekend before the March 20 change of seasons, we first heard and the spotted — high up in the sky — the return of the sandhill cranes.

Cranes carry considerable importance for us. We have called our place Sandhill Llama Farm since we fenced in a pasture in the Town of Hortonia 19 years ago.

The name paid tribute to the sandhill cranes feeding in the field across the road, the sandy hill on which we built our house and my fondness for Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac.” Our new soil is clay, so our very name was riding on the presence of the big birds.