Enjoying the Wild Life

The wild life we are enjoying is the kind found outdoors - not our wild and crazy shelter in place life.  We continue to do a nice long walk each morning to get the blood flowing, escape our four walls for a bit, and get some fresh air.  As spring is slowly arriving we have been able to watch the birds and other wild life come out to play and do their spring things.  Today we hiked around the UW arboretum and actually managed a picture of a muskrat - remember we thought we saw one in Lake Mendota.  Also saw a beaver, sandhill crane (see last weeks post), baby ducks/geese, several turkeys, redwing blackbirds, cardinals, and a host of other small birds.  Quite the menagerie for just one walk.  As usual we discussed and debated all the problems in the world - especially whether nicotine inhalation is going to be added to the tools to fight the virus.  It would be especially ironic if inhaling nicotine from an inhaler suddenly becomes prescribed to offset the worst of the virus.

Other than that we have stayed remarkably busy inside with various stuff - including finally christening our pottery room by firing up our pug mill (pug mill = big extruder that mixes clay and water, then removes all the air and spits out nice, malleable clay for throwing pots).  So stay tuned and hopefully we start turning all that clay into something you'll find as a gift cluttering up your nice home.

Just in case it wasn't clear - we really liked the Buddha holding up the limb of the tree.  Not sure what came first - someone had a Buddha they needed to figure out what to do with, or someone had a drooping limb that they needed to figure out how to support.  Yes, that is the kind of things we are down to discussing during our walks - we have really run out of new topics (today's included: should corporations have first amendment free speech rights, is it arson if you burn down your own house but don't file for insurance and don't call the fire department, are there really beavers in Lake Wingra (yes, we checked when we got home), will there be fall sports at the University, and, of course, the afore mentioned nicotine use).