Pristine lakes, badgers in Wisconsin, and a bunch of Wisco celebrity news
Happy Friday, Wisconsin! We made it through another week!
And oh, wow, we got some snow up here in Wausau last weekend.
OK, the forecast did call for snow, but I sort of ignored that and went about my business. Then, when I woke up on Sunday morning and was greeted with about 4 inches of the stuff blanketing my neighborhood, I was taken by surprise. Gee, I've only lived here like 50 years, and I'm still shocked to see snow in mid-November?
I also felt this pang of regret. I still had some warm weather stuff planned. Some bike riding, some kayak paddling.
But you gotta reshift your thinking fast when you live in Wisconsin. Henry the Goldendoodle doesn't care what the weather is, he needs his outings. As we took our morning walk through the quiet white landscape, I started to get excited about cross-country skiing and ice skating. Oh, man, especially ice skating. I've been watching for ice in eager anticipation of getting in some wild skating.
Speaking of those activities, I can't wait to go up north and do that on the lakes I learned about from naturalist John Bates of Manitowish.
A couple of stories about our water
Bates has spent the past few years identifying, visiting and writing about special pristine and undeveloped lakes of Wisconsin, and the result is a soon to be available book titled: "Wisconsin's Wild Lakes: A Guide to the Last Undeveloped Natural Lakes."
The idea, he said, is to create "a deeper sense of belonging to a place, a deeper sense of connection to places that are truly natural."
Read more: "Northwoods naturalist John Bates helps us explore 'Wisconsin's Wild Lakes' with new book."
► People in eastern Wisconsin are helping to improve the quality of our water by planting wild rice. Frank Vaisvilas presents a hopeful story: "Here's how Indigenous wild rice is helping restore wetlands in the Green Bay area."
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What else is going on in Wisconsin?
If it's the Badger State, how come I've never seen one? It's complicated, a story by Alexa Jurado, explains: Why is Wisconsin the Badger State — and do actual badgers live here?
Meg Jones was a great Wisconsin reporter. We miss her. From George Stanley: "A scholarship will honor the legacy of Wisconsin's great armed forces correspondent."
Warm up with a couple of stories, one about coffee — "Less like Starbucks, more like Willy Wonka: Flavored coffees lead the way for Berres Brothers Coffee Roasters" — and another about brandy and other adult drinks — "Spirits from Milwaukee distillers Central Standard, Great Lakes released for the fall and the holidays."
And hey, Wisco celeb news:
Correction: Last week I got overexuberant in my enthusiasm for Molly Seidel, and goofed up. As a couple of readers pointed out, Seidel did not break the overall American marathon record, but rather ran the fastest New York City Marathon ever by an American woman.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Be Wisconsin: Wild lakes, badgers and Giannis Antetokounmpo news
