Irish Fest in the Barn and Highway 60 Road Trip

 

Sorry for my silence the last few days. I'll get to Sunday and Monday soon, but first, here are a few photos of the graves we saw in the Token Creek Cemetery on Saturday, on our way up to Horicon Marsh. Some of these are of soldiers who died in the Civil War!

Sunday after Mass we drove to Arena for Irish Fest in the Barn. (Sorry, I didn't take any photos of either the inside or the outside of the barn.) There were two stages, one in the barn and the other on the porch of a house, so that the audience sat on the lawn, and they had singers and dancers all day long. This was in the Driftless Area, and we took a short walk up this road along Mound Creek.

My first Irish teacher was there with a native speaker, so I got to speak a little Irish. We had shepherds pies for lunch, and there was a stand selling "Scottish blossoms" of all the clan tartans, so I got one of the Hat Family Tartan and put it on my hat.

There was a fountain on the grounds (this barn is generally used for weddings), and when I took a photo of it, some random guy walking by offered to take my photo in front of the fountain.

I was wearing my Bru na Boinne (Newgrange) T-shirt, and several people stopped me to talk about it: had I been there? They wanted to go, or they had been, and it was the coolest thing they'd ever seen. Travalon and I did participate a bit in the caeli dance at the end of the evening, but we are old and out of shape, so we only did one dance. Afterwards there was a jam session open to everyone - next time I will have to bring my mandolin! Or my fiddle! Or both...? I was not surprised to see a lot of people there I knew, but I was surprised by who some of them were. Never knew they were Irish music lovers! It was a lot of fun - I highly recommend Irish Fest in the Barn. It's more chill and a far more beautiful setting than Irish Fest in Milwaukee.

We stayed at the Round Barn Inn in Spring Green, and this cool artwork hung above our bed.

The original round barn was a (sadly defunct) restaurant, but there is a replica round barn that holds a very lovely swimming pool that was open until 11! We swam for quite a while, until teenagers invaded.

Since the restaurant was long closed, we weren't sure where to get breakfast, but there was a diner in Arena that was open Memorial Day, so we backtracked a few miles and had a large breakfast that held us most of the day. Then we drove to Muscoda, still pronounced MUSS-ka-day and not Muss-KOH-dah. Here is their War Memorial, appropriate for the day.

As we walked along the river walk, we heard a band and then a 21-gun salute from the cemetery, where they were having a ceremony for Memorial Day. Here are some photos along the river. The walk smelled lovely because of all the black locusts in bloom. (On Saturday, Horicon Marsh smelled heavenly because of all the honeysuckle in bloom.)

We took a walk on the path in the woods as well.

We saw these mushrooms that I am pretty sure are edible.

I also found Muscoda Moe on the ground. It's a piece of prickly pear that was just lying there. I have no idea if cacti grow wild in Muscoda; we didn't see any. Muscoda Moe was our traveling companion, but I had to get him some sand, and I knew just where to find it...

... in Boscobel! Just outside of town we stopped at a scenic overlook, and we saw this eagle.

Here are some photos from the park in Boscobel, where they have lots of sand.

I thought from a distance that they had decorated the middle cross for Easter, but it's just a bush growing up alongside it.

Then we went to Wyalusing State Park and admired the view from the overlook.

I love this bridge.

In the parking lot we saw cowbirds, with their shiny brown heads.

Then we drove down to the boat launch. Years ago I saw a pileated woodpecker there, and yesterday we did hear a woodpecker pecking on a tree, but we never saw it. This is the railroad crossing right by the boat landing.

We didn't take a photo of the fishing pier, which was partly flooded yet an intrepid couple had waded out to it and were fishing from it. We headed back, stopping in the same parks in Boscobel and Muscoda as we had on the way out since nature called. In Gotham, Travalon was delighted to see the bar called the Bat Cave has reopened, but we didn't stop there. We had to get back to go to Rich's Memorial Day cookout. He had some issues with his email invitations, and mine had gone to spam while apparently some people never got them, but there were still quite a few people there. Mr. Icon is visiting from Alaska, and his beard is bigger than ever. He says they call him "Santa" up on Kodiak Island. I wanted to plant Muscoda Moe in Rich's garden, and El Vegetariano backed me up on this. He calls prickly pears "nopales," which is the Spanish word for that kind of cactus, and we agreed it would be a good garden plant because if it survives, it will produce fruit and pads that we can eat. Yum! Then a bunch of us did Night Prayer from Rich's yard, in the dark. That was... interesting. But it mostly worked.

Famous Hat

Redheads and Woodcock (Post IS (Mostly) G-Rated, I Promise!)

 

This morning Travalon and I went to our garden plot and spent some time weeding. My little plants seem to be doing okay, but I still have half the garden to plant. Hopefully this coming week I can get some work done there... Getting my hands dirty made me very happy, and Travalon noted how chipper I was today. I think everyone needs to get out there and in touch with nature, especially the kids he works with who always have their eyes glued to their phones. Growing plants would give them so much more satisfaction than social media does.

Then we drove to Horicon Marsh, and on the way we stopped at the Token Creek Cemetery where some soldiers from the Civil War are buried - that seems fitting for this weekend - but I forgot to ask Travalon to send me those photos, so I'll post them later. Maybe Monday! 

The first place we stopped in Horicon was at was the overlook. From there we could see a swan.

Here is a view of the marsh from the overlook.

We also saw this really fluffed-up pelican.

Then we went to the place where we often see the white-headed goose, and he was back!

We had seen an egret from the road just before we got there, so we backtracked a tiny bit, and the egret was even closer, and on the other side of the road.

Then we went to the Dike Road Trail, and on the road to the trail we saw open water with all sorts of ducks on it. I believe the two ducks in the foreground are gadwalls, and they have just had some hot mating action so they are fluffed up with post-coital satisfaction. I think the one behind them is a female mallard.

We also saw a pair of redhead ducks.

On the trail itself we saw two pelicans flying.

We saw three cormorants in a tree.

As we got closer, two flew away, but one hung on until we were almost beside it.

And we saw an Eastern kingbird just like the ones that had been swooping around our dock last night.

This female killdeer was trying really hard to distract us, so she must have had a nest nearby. She would get very close to us, making a lot of noise, then she would pretend to be injured, hoping that we would follow her away from the nest.

Here is one of the pelicans we saw flying, now swimming.

Then it flew away again, circled around, and came back toward us.

We also saw three black birds that I thought at first were the three cormorants, but they had long legs. They weren't cranes, and they definitely weren't herons, since they held their long necks out straight. Travalon didn't get a photo of those, but when we came back on the path, he got lots of photos of Mama Killdeer doing her Oscar-worthy "I'm injured!" act.

This isn't the clearest photo, but you can see how the cormorants swim with only their necks sticking up above the water. Travalon said, "It looks like the Loch Ness Monster!"

Along the road we could see egrets. One was alone.

Except... it had its reflection to keep it company.

Not far from it, two were hanging out together.

Here is another photo of the solo egret and its reflection.

Along Highway 49, I hoped to see coots with babies. We did see a few coots, but no babies - they're probably hiding in the weeds. We did see this male blue-winged teal.

And lots more redhead ducks.

This is a pie-billed grebe, just like the ones we often see off our dock.

This duck's back looks more white than gray (compare him to the one behind him), so he might be a canvasback rather than a redhead. The two species look very similar.

As we drove along the car tour on the way to the floating boardwalk, the car in front of us was stopped right in the middle of the road. At first we thought that was very rude, since people usually pull off to the side if they see something interesting, but he couldn't have pulled off to the side, because this super cute little bird was there. Sorry these photos are so blurry. I googled "brown checkered bird with long beak," and immediately a picture of our bird popped up. It's an American woodcock.

I have never seen one in real life before! I have seen videos of their ridiculous walk, often set to club music. They do look like they have a boogie in their step. 

Of course I have seen male robins many times before.

This tree swallow is on the rope along the floating boardwalk. It's so shiny and blue.

This male blue-winged teal was doing a great job hiding in the marsh grass, but Travalon spotted him.

This male mallard was standing proudly in the open. The female was hiding in the weeds.

I did see a male wood duck, but he had ducked (ha!) out of sight before Travalon could get his camera ready. 

As we walked through the woods, we could see May apples in bloom.

We saw a red-winged blackbird in the exact spot where we saw a scarlet tanager almost exactly two years ago when we came to Horicon Marsh with Rich.

As we drove along the car tour, we saw another egret.

On the other side of the car, we saw a large goose family.

And a little sandpiper.

On the way home, we stopped at Patrick Marsh, and on the far side of the lake we saw a huge pelican convention. Too bad, they were on the near side of the lake when we passed by on our way to Horicon Marsh.

People keep posting photos of yellow-headed blackbirds they see at Horicon Marsh, so I was hoping to see one today. There are supposed to be a lot at Patrick Marsh too, but we didn't see one there either. Technically I have seen one, since I posted a photo of an immature one on this blog a couple of years ago, but I have never seen an adult male one. They are more common west of the Mississippi, while the red-winged ones are more common on our side of the river, but they are certainly around. I have my bucket list of birds I want to see, including baby coots, but then I'll see a bird I never even thought of, like the American woodcock today, so that makes up for not seeing the ones I was hoping for.

Famous Hat