Tuesday, August 4, 2009


To combat boredom and get to know and appreciate our environment a bit better, Charlie and I went to Cherokee Marsh yesterday afternoon. The marsh is 1210 acres of living wetland that filters upland runoff, using excess fertilizer to grow marsh plants, and slowly releases cleaner water to the lakes below. Nature's fantastic, especially when unhampered.

It's huge- the marsh. There are 7 miles of hiking trails which we did not embark on, and then winding boardwalks all throughout the marshy ground which we did travel upon. The grasses and cattails are taller than I am. You get a feel for what wisconsin should be like, was like, before all of the veridian homes and apartment complexes started popping up. I swear, everywhere I turn there's a wingra plant, a gas station, a target, or a housing development in wisconsin. You can see the land beneath it- you know it's great farming land (what are we, zone 4? like vermont?) but instead it's been overdeveloped. Beautiful sloping hillsides and draping, weeping willows now sit, part of someone's yard. Sometimes, you escape that. Sometimes, you're driving and all of a sudden- BAM- you're in the middle of farm country. And there's just rolling farmland for as far as you can see. I love that about WI. It catches you off guard every time. But then, as soon as you were in it, you're out of it again, finding yourself amidst an edward scissorhands housing development.

This is life, though. The world's overpopulated. People need places to live. Housing developments are cheap, and give some semblance of home and neighborhood.

Though I try not to live by the things Jim Morrison did and said, he was right on when he said.. the future's uncertain and the end is always near. Let it roll, baby, roll.

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