Paddle starts with Portage

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

I loaded up my kayak and pointed the truck south toward the headwaters of the Fox River.

That’s the way it is with the Fox. You have to go south to get to the Upper Fox and north for the Lower Fox. Counter­intuitive but driven by gravity, which we know is the law.

The launch point was the Indian Agency House, one of several impressive historic sites in Portage. This is where government Indian agents meted out federal policy. Native Americans might see it more as the scene of the crime.

It is not the very beginning of the Fox, which is off beyond Pardeeville.

About 30 kayaks and a few canoes took part in this second of the North East Wisconsin Paddlers series for this year, this one in partnership with the Fox­Wisconsin Heritage Parkway. The first drew 79 boats for a current­-aided sprint down the Wolf River from New London to Hortonville.

Counting on a good morning

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

HORTONVILLE -- Thirty-two was the number I entered on the form under "Total number of sandhill cranes observed or heard."

It is the biggest number I've recorded in some years for the International Crane Foundation's annual Midwest Crane Count, which took place Saturday. But the most I saw on the ground at any given time was two.

My statistics were built on cranes flying in, flying out or flying over. I heard them congregating, but they chose to settle in a depression behind a few rows of last year's corn stalks, just out of my view.

Remembering Ellen Kort

This column first ran in May of 2010 in a week like this one, following the annual Midwest Crane Count. Ellen Kort died this morning. I hope she gets her wish.


Sandhill cranes lift poet to flights of fancy

How about starting your workday by getting a call from Wisconsin's first poet laureate? 

She says she enjoyed reading about the Midwest Crane Count and has something she wants me to hear. It's a poem about sandhills. It's a poem about how, when she dies, she wants to come back as a sandhill crane.

My computer is still booting up. My brain is trailing even farther behind. Then I am graced by lovely words from the trusted, calming voice of Ellen Kort.

"If there is faith at the appointed hour / if light breaks open and this time I get to choose / I will come back as a sandhill crane," she begins.

Sandhill cranes are my resource, too

By David Horst sandhill7@gmail.com

For many years, I listened to the moans of my newspaper colleagues as they went off to what they described as an endless evening covering one of the spring Conservation Congress hearings held in each of Wisconsin's 72 counties.

Sandhill cranes call in the hayfield
of Sandhill Llama Farm

Last Monday finally found me at the Outagamie County conservation hearing at Appleton North High School. I was there for the birds.

While the hearing did grind on like a tortured old winch motor, it only lasted about an hour and a half. No one shouted. No one booed. In fact, not many people even spoke. Even so, I felt like staying through the whole hearing should have earned me a cap or something.

DNR conservation warden Thomas Sturdivant dutifully read through the often minute changes in regulations for fishing in this location or trapping at that hour of the day. Then he came to proposal No. 25 on the green ballot. It was to create a hunt for sandhill cranes.

Check my email address, check the name of our farm, check my license plate and you will see I am a fan of cranes. I raised my hand and made my way to the microphone to state my case for a vote against crane hunting to a crowd I knew was not in my camp.