Basque in Shakespeare?

 

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I went to the Just Bach concert. Today was choral works; they had two of Johann Sebastian's older cousins also on the program, and one of the pieces was "Furchte Dich Nicht" by Johann Christoph Bach, which I sang with the Lutheran choir ages ago, and which I listen to pretty regularly on YouTube. Which version? All of them! I hadn't heard it live before (other than when I was singing it myself), and it was so beautiful that I cried. The pieces by JS Bach were gorgeous too. Afterwards I saw Pete the Sailor Man and the guy we hiked with at the beginning of the pandemic, and they had a woman with them I hadn't met before. She said, "That was so beautiful, it was almost enough to make me change religions!" since she's Jewish. If you want to hear this music yourself, it will be posted on the Just Bach website on Sunday. You can always find previous concerts there as well.

The Professor Formerly Known As Banjo Player tagged me on social media with a post about how Shakespeare actually threw some Basque into one of his plays, but nobody realized it because it was nonsense words, since he didn't actually know Basque but was kind of familiar with the sound of it. This got me thinking about how, during the pandemic when I took that Basque class online, it made me feel twenty years old again because that was how old I was when I was living over there, studying the language. I am so far from fluent, but it started to come back to me, and even more interesting was when we discussed Basque culture and it actually sounded familiar to me, as if I had grown up in it, because I had lived in it for several months. I did feel a little weird when I was picking up the language more quickly than my classmates, who all had Basque last names, and it felt like they were sort of resentful. That's not to say that I wouldn't do another online Basque class, given the opportunity, but as far as I know, our teacher isn't offering them anymore. They did say I was an "honorary Basque," and they even said I was a distant cousin, since the Irish are supposedly the most genetically similar to the Basques. There is just no substitute for living in a place to really learn the language, and maybe if I ever get a chance to do the Camino, I'll get to speak it again, since that goes right through Basque country. And despite the pleas of many, many of us, DuoLingo shows no interest in creating a Basque course. Bummer!

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Crazy Frank's Flea Market Loot

 

Yesterday I worked on campus and then in the evening had a condo board meeting. Today I worked on campus because I had an in-person meeting, and then a couple of faculty met with me too. All that is to say that I don't have much to blog about the last couple of days; I went to the Allen Centennial Gardens and took photos of some of the lovely flowers, but they didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. However, I did get some good photos of our loot from Crazy Frank's Flea Market in Mineral Point. First, here is Travalon's stuff:

The only thing that might not be self-explanatory is the bobblehead of a Green Bay college-league baseball team that no longer exists - it's a bullfrog. Also, the figurine to the left is Popeye, if you can't quite make it out. The little truck says "Warner Bros."

Here is my stuff:

In the back row are a blue dog and a big baseball Beanie Baby bear, and between them the Spain Beanie Baby bear and "The End" Beanie Baby Bear, which sounds ominous but I assume was the last one in the series. Then there are the bride and groom Beanie Baby bears, which seemed appropriate when we are fast approaching our tenth wedding anniversary, and in between them is a little pineapple made of semiprecious stones. There are sort of rainbow earrings and an intriguing necklace (I love the magenta color) with an ankh on it, and in front is a sun catcher. The only thing that cost in double digits was the pineapple. 

I'm not really pleased with any of the flower photos I took at the gardens, especially the tulips that looked so vivid in real life and pathetic in my shots, but I did see something interesting. A while back I had blogged about the difference between a daffodil and a jonquil: a daffodil has one blossom to a stem, is larger, and has no scent, while a jonquil has multiple blossoms to a stem and often is fragrant, like paper whites. I did see these jonquils, but I didn't notice that they had a scent.

And then I saw this: it seems to be a daffodil, but this one stem has two blossoms.

I would say this is just an anomaly. I have sometimes seen two tulip blossoms on one stem, or even two calla lily blossoms on one stem. I'm calling this a twin daffodil, not a jonquil. When we were kids, we would often find a giant double dandelion blossom among all the regular blossoms, but I haven't seen one in years. Then again, I don't spend as much time inspecting dandelions as I did as a kid. Those had some pretty impressive seed heads when they went to seed - extra wishes!

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Travalon Twice Thwarted

 

This morning something was wrong with my brain, because I really struggled doing French on DuoLingo. I've never made that many mistakes in French, and rarely in Irish. Then Travalon and I went to Mass in the gym, and I was having trouble with the chant notation, thinking it was different than what we were actually singing, but when I looked again, it was correct. The priest seemed to be suffering from the same confusion too; he decided to do the final blessing in Latin, which he never does, only it sounded like it was half in Spanish. It really sounded like he said, "In nomine Patri, et Hijo, et Spirito Santo." Or was my hearing confused? Of course, knowing that I carry a gene for Alzheimers (though it is a gene for the late-onset variety), I wondered, "Is this it? Am I in decline?" But when we got home, I looked up common causes of mental confusion, and one was dehydration, which makes sense because I don't think I drank enough water yesterday, and also my liquid output smelled odd, another symptom of dehydration. So I drank 16 ounces of water, and that seemed to wash the confusion away.

Today Travalon and I split two of the chocolate bonbons.

We split the two on the bottom, the 24-karat gold one and the sea salt toffee one. They were so tasty. The ones on the top are chili and candied ginger with saffron. Sorry, no pictures of my loot from yesterday, I never got around to taking them, but I somehow forgot to post this photo yesterday:

It's a closeup of the padlocks on the pedestrian overpass that people seem to put on it when they get married. I know yesterday's post didn't have nearly enough photos, and you probably feel shortchanged, so I do deeply apologize for that.

Today Travalon and I went back to the Lodi segment of the Ice Age Trail so I could show him the sweeping vista he missed last weekend. He took some photos along the way:

We got to the top of the bluff, but right at the spot where you turn the corner and see the beautiful vista, there was a sign that said: "Ye kennae go no further." Or at least that's what my mind is telling me it said because I've been watching too many videos of a woman who teaches the "Scots Word of the Day." What it actually said is that we had to stop because there was a controlled burn ahead. Travalon went ahead anyway, so I followed him, but there was so much smoke that we turned around. If I get lung cancer in twenty years, we'll know why. So once again Travalon was thwarted in his quest to see this vista. However, we could kind of see it down at the bottom of the bluff. Here are some photos.

Then we went back to Whalen Grade and saw a Bonaparte's gull.

We saw gulls and pelicans in the distance.

There were scaups closer to us.

And two male northern shovelers.

"Hey Frank, want to know how to be a better musician? Stay tuned..."

We stopped by the dam in Sauk and saw three pelicans there.

Also, Jilly Moose sent me this photo, of a rosary she made for her niece who received her First Communion today. I love the colors!

I was a bit scared of going to Irish class, considering my failure at French this morning, but I seemed to be my normal level of incompetence and not anything noteworthy. At band practice there were a couple of times I read the notes wrong on an Irish jig, but I was looking at music on someone else's stand that was at an awkward angle for me, so maybe not any reason for concern. And when I did DuoLingo once I got back home, my French skills were back on point. So I'm going to guess that my cognitive skills aren't declining sharply but were just foggy because of a lack of water yesterday. I did have a drink at the dive bar, so that on top of not drinking my usual amount of water might have been enough to do it. Guess I'm getting too old for alcohol.

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Savor the River Valley Tour

 

Today was a wonderful day. The Dairyman's Daughter had told me about the Savor the River Valley Tour around the Spring Green area, which was somewhat like the Art D-Tour that I have posted about in the past, only with family farm tours and lots of food. Travalon and I had a relaxed morning at home, then we headed out the door and were right behind Prairie Man, who had a new dog in the car with him. It looked a little like Michaela, but not exactly. We headed to Arena and stopped at the boat landing there.

On the way to Spring Green, we saw this beautiful hill.

Our first stop was Brouhaha Roasters, a coffee roasting business run by three teachers, where we tried a free sample of their coffee and bought two bags. Then we went to a tea shop/art gallery, where we split a slice of chocolate peanut butter pie. Here is a photo of some of the sun catchers for sale.

I thought they were beautiful, but the prices were way too high for what I could afford. Then we went across the street to the general store where I played a few weeks ago. (True story: during the gig I put my FitBit on my right wrist - I usually have it on the left one - and not only did I get my move hours, but I got active and even vigorous minutes!) They were selling fancy chocolate truffles, so I bought a box, but we haven't eaten them yet. Then we drove out to Lone Rock, a small town west of Spring Green, where we had empanadas at a small tortilla-making factory. They were giving tours too, but we just headed to the coffee shop in the Round Barn, which our map said would be open until two... but it actually closes at noon on Saturdays. That's okay, because Travalon really wanted to go to a 50's-style diner called Rumbleseats, so we had lunch there. Notice the dinosaur on the light behind Travalon.

As it turned out, we both took photos of the bathroom. I loved how the women's bathroom had a message that was readable in the mirror, so I took a photo of it but didn't realize how scary I looked in it!

The men's bathroom was done up in comic book style.

We thought the tour at Ducks in a Row Family Farm was at 2:30, so we got there just before that... and everyone was leaving because it was actually at 2:00. But it's okay, because we could still see the Jacob sheep and their lambs. This is an heirloom breed that is small and kind of looks like a goat, except they have wool. They are spotted, which is why they're called Jacob sheep, because Jacob (in the Old Testament) got all the sheep from his father-in-law's flock that were spotted. They also have four horns, both the males and females. The rams have some pretty impressive horns. Travalon couldn't help taking a ton of photos because these sheep are so adorable!

Here's a little bitty lamb!

And here's one that's almost all dark except for a white patch on its forehead, and it doesn't seem to have any horns. Maybe it's a different breed?

On this farm there were also chickens (no photos of those, sorry) and these cattle that looked a bit like bison. The young one is in front.

This little guy has three horns instead of two or four:

And here's another dark sheep with two horns.

"Let me out!" Look at that face! Aw!!!

Some were in little igloos, since it was a chilly day for April.

This baby lamb and its mother were trapped in their igloo for some reason. This was probably explained on the tour that we missed.

The landscape around there was so hilly and gorgeous.

We continued on Highway H and stopped at a dive bar in a tiny town called Hyde; the bar is called the Hyde Store. Travalon is on a dive bar kick lately, and this checked all the boxes: beer in cans, cash only, pull tabs, bar dice, in the middle of nowhere. Sports on the TV? Check.

Tavern T-shirt hanging off the antlers of a deer head? Check.

We kept going toward Ridgeway and passed this blond "heeland coo" in a field. It was happily grazing, but when I did that lateral clicking sound that all animals seem to respond to, it looked up.

Then it realized we had no treats for it, and it went back to grazing. We headed into Ridgeway, where we saw this gorgeous old church.

(It's not Catholic.) We went to Meadowlark Mill and bought a hazelnut croissant and an elderberry hand pie, neither of which we have yet eaten. We'll probably have them for breakfast tomorrow. The mill is on Ridgevue Road, and I can see why they call it that, because there was quite a lovely vista behind it.

Since we were so close to Mineral Point, we went there and stopped at Crazy Frank's Flea Market (photos of my loot soon), then we took a brisk walk on the ATV trail.

I love these little micro-islands:

Mineral Point used to be a lead mining community, so these next shots (like the shot tower) probably relate to that.

And this is the old train depot, now a railroad museum:

This building predates Wisconsin statehood:

We took Highway 23 north to Spring Green, and to the east we could see Blue Mound. We passed a spot that said "Scenic Overlook," so we stopped there, but we couldn't really see much to the east because of the trees. However, to the west we could see vistas, including the House on the Rock.

There was a pedestrian overpass above Highway 23. The padlocks have dates on them, and we realized people must put them there to celebrate getting married.

This is the Infinity Room at House on the Rock. My readers may remember the photos of us in this room from last November.

Back in Spring Green, we went to a supper club right on the river (sorry, no photos) at the Wisconsin Riverside Resort. It was a true Wisconsin supper club with an extensive soup and salad bar, which we indulged in. On the way home, we saw a gorgeous sunset.

When we got home, I remembered that we had to feed our neighbor's cat, but we saw no sign of her. Then on Night Prayer, the Dairyman's Daughter and I talked about our adventures on the Savor the River Valley Tour. She and her sister went to mostly - maybe all - different places than we did, but she also really enjoyed it. This is definitely something to put on the calendar for next year!

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