Aunt Jemima's maple syrup envy. Vol #2 - A cabin in the woods.

As I mentioned in the first post of this series, the cabin we stay in belongs to friends of my brother's. It's located near Dodgeville, WI and sits in a valley on 1,000 acres. Beautiful and quiet. Deer feed in the fields below the cabin, the dogs run around at their leisure...might hear a tractor or chainsaw or an errant gunshot here and there but other than that...quiet.

We didn't turn the water on for fear that the pipes might freeze after we left. So we pumped water into buckets and used them for dishes and washing up. But no showers. Too much trouble. It's just us - who cares? There's no heat aside from the wood we burn in the fireplace. Electricity, yes. No TV and cell phone reception is 5% to not at all. We have satellite radio and we listen to two stations - Old Time Radio (more on that later) or Bluegrass. The radio's never turned off.

The video below gives you a nice tour of the cabin.



Click on READ MORE! for a few more pics, just to give you an idea of where we lived for a 6 or 7 days.

NEXT POST: Vol #3 - The soggy mountain boys start burnin' sap!

Deer stand.

Breakfast. And milk.

Dinner. Pork and beans. And milk. Come on - we're from WISCONSIN.

Outside looking inside looking outside a barn.

View of one of the barns from where we were burning the maple sap.

Barn wall.

Jas and the dogs - Molly and Zol (at his feet) - relaxing with Daddy.

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"Song at Sunset" and a cabin in the woods.

1 SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat—you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.
2 Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

excerpt from "Song at Sunset" (1867) by Walt Whitman, from "Leaves of Grass"

A cabin west of Madison in Wisconsin. A thousand acres. No one around. Spent this past Sunday through Monday there with my brother. It's difficult to leave...

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Abandoned hunting cabin in sepia.

I really liked this "color" shot of the inside of the hunting cabin. So I included it. Click on READ MORE! to see the sepia pics. I spent a day and a half in a cabin with my brother - western part of Wisconsin nearer Madison. Jason was collecting maple sap to make maple syrup. He took me for a ride around the property - and we found this.

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#17 - "Grace Notes from a Bohemian in Wanderlust." Avoca.

("Grace Notes from a Bohemian in Wanderlust" is a series of posts about my 3.5 week May vacation in Seattle, Chicago, Milwaukee, Lake Tomawk, WI and Miami. They're in no particular order - you can type "Grace Notes" in the upper left hand corner of the search feature and all the past posts will pop up.)

There's one special place in a little town named Avoca, WI where my brother goes 'shroomin' for morel mushrooms (that's Jason above). If you've never tried them, you're missing out. It's a delicacy (you've got perhaps a 2-week window in the spring to pick them) and they're expensive if you have to buy them. $25-35 a pound fresh. I've seen dried morels advertised for $220 a pound. Not unlike caviar or truffles.

It's private property - 1,000 acres. If you step foot on it you WILL get shot, guarantee it. Jas and I spent a day and a half there enroute to our fishing spot in Lake Tomahawk back in May. Click on READ MORE! and come take a looksee.

Real log cabin. No heat, but it has electricity. 1,000 acres like I said. This view is from the main road.

Here's a closer look.

Those buck have all been shot with gun or bow on this property. My brother has one up there...I think it's toward the bottom - way in the back. Ask any of the "regulars"...they know whose is who's. Who's is whose?

Saw this plaque on the wall. Made me think about our fishing trip we were enroute to in Lake Tomahawk. Made me think of PETA too (they don't like us fishin' neither). They just don't understand.

Calf and her momma.

Barns have a lot of character, if you didn't already know that. I spent some time taking headshots of this one.

Jas and one of the regulars (foreground) visiting from Florida relaxing on the porch. Nice guy - can't recall his name now.

That's the barn I was taking pictures of earlier. In an unintentional ode to "Edgar Sawtelle", this shot turned out hazy but I liked it. Justyna thought it was wonderful (my friend who recommended the book, "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" to me).

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Chapter 14 - "Richard Le Breton & V.W. lounging"; Notes from Lost Man's Lane Cabin, by Richard Le Breton.

"Ohhh weren't those times primal, dear?"

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Chapter 13 - "Yellowwood State Park"; Notes from Lost Man's Lane Cabin, by Richard Le Breton.

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Chapter 11 - "Fire"; Notes from Lost Man's Lane Cabin, by Richard Le Breton.

"The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast volume of light and heat; this I understood was the Yule-log, which the Squire was particular in having brought in and illumined on a Christmas eve, according to ancient custom."

- Washington Irving

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Chapter 5 - "TexturizedArtisticFilmGrain Cabin"; Notes from Lost Man's Lane Cabin, by Richard Le Breton.

(WAIT! There's more...)

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Chapter 2 - "Molasses"; Notes from Lost Man's Lane Cabin, by Richard Le Breton.

Aunt Ella's Molasses Cookies. It's a family recipe on the Ircink side. Got a little domestic in the cabin in the woods this past weekend.

I can't share the recipe with you - or I'd have to kill you. (There's already one person who has the recipe that I regret giving it to. Did it as a Christmas gift. Hers suck and I pray she'll eat one someday and choke on it.)

I've turned molasses eschewers into fans. 6 dozen gone in 20 minutes at the office. One couple fought over them during their divorce settlement. A mother was in such a fit of ecstacy upon tasting one that her water broke prematurely (3 days early). The baby was instantly addicted to the cookies. It's said that in Gnawbone one man threatened another man with a Bowie knife for taking the last molasses cookie from a batch I had delivered to a tavern there.

They just may be the answer to "peace on Earth, good will toward Men".

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