Cattle in the Field

Posted on August 14, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

One last post of photos from Ohio. (The one in today’s post was actually taken by my dad. I may have cropped it, but that’s all the credit I can claim 🙂 ) Although I’ve been back for a few weeks now, I’ve been very busy catching up on work. I had intended to put up this post on my last evening at my parents’ house. But we needed a really early start the next morning for our drive up to Milwaukee, so between packing for the trip and trying to get a decent night’s sleep, I didn’t.

Up on the hill behind my mom and dad’s home is a field where a neighbor grazes cattle. Being a city girl, I am pretty fascinated by the proximity of livestock to their patio. I like to sit outside and drink my coffee while watching them, sort of the way I’d sit on a dock on a quiet lake Up North watching loons or maybe on a pier at the ocean watching the seagulls.

A few observations on bovine behavior:

Their young are clearly “young.” The really small calves stay close to mom, and when they stray too far away, their mother starts to bellow in distress. Maybe because she’s worried? Or her udder is too full?

The older calves seem to pal around with each other, racing down the hill and then gamboling together like puppies—whirling, feinting, pouncing, and just having a grand time.

Until, as my dad phrased it, the day comes when suddenly those youngsters are 800 pounds on skinny legs and have to eat all day to keep themselves going.

The grazing is relentless. The entire herd seems to move as one unit, consuming its way from one end of the field to the other, where it then turns around and launches its voracious collective appetite in the opposite direction. And grazing is loud. These animals don’t nibble. They tear the grass from the ground with a decisive ripping noise. From far away, you’d never guess how violent sounding that peaceful tableau of cattle on a hillside actually is.

Shortly after I got home, the video below appeared in my feed after one of my friends liked it on Facebook. Watching it reminded me of those young cows playing in the field behind my parents’ house.

And seeing it right after my week of watching cattle so closely, I began to wonder whether cows actually have more personality than I ever previously guessed. The answer is yes.

There are lots more videos like this on YouTube, plus videos of cows navigating staircases, activating latches to open doors and gates, pushing levers to turn on water faucets, and best of all snuggling up against their favorite humans and closing their eyes in pleasure to savor a chin scratch.

Kinda makes me want to rethink the whole hamburger thing.

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Visiting with Sonia

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

What a nice surprise this afternoon to discover that my old friend Sonia was broadcasting her WMSE (91.7FM) “Blues Drive” radio show from the Grohmann Museum to promote Gallery Night. I was working late this afternoon when I saw her set up with all her equipment in the corner near the second floor elevator. When I stopped to say hello, she put me on the air and asked me about my students, the museum’s art, and my blog.

As I tried to explain my blog’s name, I realized it could use a better title than “KatherineWikoff.com.” It seemed so simple when I set it up, especially since “Katherine Wikoff” was the first potential domain name I tried that wasn’t already taken when I went to register my blog. A “titled” blog name would be a lot easier to describe and a lot more memorable than my own “name” name. But, oh well. It is what it is.

Sonia and I have known each other since working together many years ago. In October 2012, a few months after starting my blog, I visited her while she did her Friday afternoon “Blues Drive” show at WMSE and then wrote up an account of our conversation in a blog post.

It is one of my most viewed posts ever. So if you’d like to read more about the voice behind Milwaukee’s best (actually America’s best, in my opinion 🙂 ) blues show, you can link to my “Sonia – Blues Radio DJ” post here.

Posted in Life, Milwaukee, Music, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Remo’s Footlong Hotdogs

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

A visit home is not complete without a stop “in town” (because my parents live somewhat “out”) at Remo’s for a footlong hotdog with sauce. They keep frozen pint containers in back, so it’s easy to take some home to Milwaukee!


Posted in Food, Travel | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Unfamiliar Familiar

Posted on July 16, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

Lots of memories stirring, first yesterday at a flea market with my mom and then again today at the grocery store.

Like these guys, which I never see in my daily life. It wouldn’t shock me to discover that some of my students might not even recognize what they are.

And then these Southern treats on the shelves at Piggly Wiggly.

I don’t smoke and do not own an ashtray. However, I grew up in a time when every household had ashtrays because even if people in your own family didn’t smoke, you’d eventually have company over who did. I’ve never eaten a Moon Pie, and I’ve only ever made sausage gravy from scratch. I didn’t even know it came in cans.

Encountering these items, so alien and yet so immediately familiar, conjured up a weird sense of nostalgia: evoking a past not really mine but filled with strangely comforting memories all the same.

Posted in Life, Photography | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Southeastern Ohio, Saturday Morning Panorama

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

My sister’s land again. So peaceful here.

Posted in Nature, Photography | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Clouds over the Countryside

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

One thing I don’t like about living in a city is that in the ordinary course of a day you don’t see much of the sky. Buildings and trees block out most of what’s not directly overhead. In the country it’s a different story. I love seeing the sky here.

Clouds hung low over the countryside in this view from my sister’s house earlier today.

And sunset lit up a tall bank of clouds above the field behind my parents’ house this evening.

Although I’ve enjoyed seeing expansive clouds during the day, I’m hoping for a cloudless night before I leave. So far it has been too overcast to see stars, and I don’t get to see them at home. Sure, in Milwaukee we have Orion and the Big (and sometimes Little) Dipper. But city lights block out starlight. And the few stars that manage to shine through are nothing like what you can see in the country.

Where, on a good night, the sky looks like someone poured an entire canister of salt across black velvet. Just an astonishing number of stars, providing a glimpse into the infinite universe.

Posted in Nature, Photography | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

I’m visiting family this week in southeastern Ohio. This is Appalachian coal and tobacco country, known physiographically as the Allegheny Plateau. I was so happy to see this familiar advertisement on the side of the road this morning that I asked my dad to pull over so I could take a picture. We don’t seem have Mail Pouch barns in Wisconsin, although Wikipedia tells me that some were painted there. According to that Wikipedia article on Mail Pouch Tobacco barns, all barns were painted between 1891 and 1992. As can be seen with this barn, most of the signs are deteriorating with age. I know their days are numbered. Some year I’ll come back for a visit and there will be no Mail Pouch barns nestled into the hillsides along winding country roads. That makes me sad.

A better look at the sign itself

Posted in architecture, Life, Photography, Popular culture | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

The sky is bigger than it needs to be

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

Partly sunny? Partly cloudy? Or . . . ?

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We all gotta start somewhere

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

Just came across this 1984 music video for a song by country singer Ronnie Milsap, “She Loves My Car.” Recognize the “girl” who’s our hero’s love interest?

Posted in Movies and film, Popular culture | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Milwaukee Bucks Arena, June 2017

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Katherine Wikoff

The new Milwaukee Bucks arena and the training/sports-medicine facility just kitty-corner (Milwaukee-speak for “catercorner”) across the street are coming along. I took these photos late Friday afternoon, when all the construction workers had knocked off for the day/weekend. Usually each structure is surrounded by worker-bee cranes.

So here is the actual arena. That’s glass over on the left, just inside the curved outer wall.

You can see the lack of glass in this picture from about a month ago.

And then here’s a photo from a cloudy day earlier last week, where you can tell for sure that section is glass because of the reflection of the church spire at the bottom.

So, moving on, here is the skywalk running across Juneau between the parking ramp and the arena. I know that the building on the left is a parking ramp because if you drive down McKinley Avenue, the street that runs north on the other side, you can see the long, parallel-slanted concrete floors.

Remember this photo from our mid-March snowstorm? (From my post “Snowblowing the girders“)

Well, here’s what that building looks like today (well, last week 🙂 ). If you look closely, you’ll see that they’ve planted skinny little trees up next to the building. We’re already to the landscaping stage!

 

If you want to see a gorgeous rendering of what the completed Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin Sports Science Center (and the arena) will look like, you can find an image here on the NBA’s website: http://www.nba.com/bucks/release/bucks-froedtert-medical-college-wisconsin-partner-sports-science-center-and-community-health/ 

And finally, here’s a random older photo of the arena just because I like it. As I scrolled through my camera roll this afternoon, I happened upon this eerie picture from a foggy morning last February.

Posted in architecture, Milwaukee | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments