Water and Milkweed

     A while ago I signed up with the Bad River Watershed Association to do some water testing.  They assigned me to a stream about an hour bike ride away that's near some agricultural land.  I know, I know, a lot of farmers see people sampling water downstream of them as a threat, as anti-farmer.  They would say the reality of farming is having runoff of nutrients.  I see it differently: nutrients/manure are valuable and if the nutrients are in the stream they are being lost.  If I was a farmer I'd want to know if my money was flowing down the stream.  And even if nutrients weren't worth much I'd like to know if I was having a hand polluting.

     Anyway, instead of adding to our environmental pollutants by driving to the sample site I rode my bike there.

Loaded up for water sampling

     Before I left home I had packed a peanut butter sandwich and though I was a bit hungry when I got done at the sampling site, I rode to some DNR land near home - the sampling site is near a highway and this place is just off a lightly traveled gravel road.  Here most of the sound is the stream talking as it flows over rocks and not so much cars whooshing by.

A car or two drove by on the gravel road near here as I ate my sandwich.  

     As long as I can remember I've been into the outdoors.  I enjoy just hanging around outside but I also enjoy utilizing natural materials.  After I got home from sampling I switched to the Krampug (the love child of a Surly Pugsley and a Krampus) and went out to collect some milkweed.  I located a stalk of milkweed, spread the seeds that were left, cut the stalk down, smashed it with the flat of my knife (milkweed has a hollow stem and crushes easily) and busted up the stiff part of the stalk to bend it into loops as seen below.  There was a bit of moisture in it so now it is drying inside and I'll start processing it soon.