Creepy Things in the Woods

Halloween.  A good time to reveal some of the scarier things seen on our trail cams in recent weeks.

Wolves are on the prowl.

Here is a timed sequence.  First:  11:13 pm

Same location a half hour later....

Offered without an explanation:

Guess it is time to re-read The Lord of the Flies....

Ghostie Bot

Some of the kids on the robotics team wanted to keep a test bed up and running for use as a Halloween candy delivery robot.  We really need some of its parts for a new project but what can I say?  I work for them not the other way around.

Later the kids added arms.  And panic.

Ghostiebot versus a Service Dog....

Monday is Halloween.  At the end of the school day the plan is to have the high school team drive Ghostie around the middle school distributing candy.  That should be interesting.....

Well, Hi Little Guy...

You run across interesting things on scouting trips in the woods.  This little guy in the hollow of a tree is nowhere near any dwelling places.  Who put him here.  And why?

Looks like someone she met in the joint.

So who has fallen the farthest?  Martha Stewart in the checkout line at Walmart?  Or your humble scribe for stooping to such a pun?

Enigma Three (2022)

 

Last week I fear I over worked the brains of my middle school codebreakers.  Or maybe they did it to themselves.  Some of them are extremely clever and the test ciphers they cooked up for each other were quite nasty.

So this week a bit of physical exercise.  

GPS scavenger hunt time.

I'm not the incorrigible junk picker I used to be.  Why sometimes I can even walk past a dumpster and just look in without hauling stuff out.  But I did come across a couple of perfectly functional GPS units recently and they are perfect for our purposes.

Because it is too much work to set up actual geocaches I just set a series of "waypoints".  These are coordinates the kids will be directed to, but they still have to figure out, from the name of the waypoint, what to be looking for.  And I don't make these easy-peasy.

Eventually they had a collection of letters.  Looks a bit like a ransom note:

This is a clever bunch.  They had the anagram figured out in short order and still had fifteen minutes of time left.  So we took another run at random cipher breaking with frequency analysis.

They did better this time.

The mix of physical and mental activity seems to work well.  The former probably helps the latter.

Ultimate Wisconsin - Through the Time Portal

Recently I reported on my discovery of a little tavern at a lonely crossroads in very rural Wisconsin.  It had the appearance of a place frozen in time.  I was not entirely sure it was a going concern but on consultation with an expert - one of my sons - I learned that it was.  "Oh sure, Vanderhyde's.  Amazing place.  You'd love it.  Mom would hate it."

On a recent drive north I went by and amazingly the neon Leinenkugel sign was glowing red.  Actually in my imagination the whole building was surrounded by a shimmering aura that suggested it was a Gateway into somewhere or somewhen Else.

It was just after 12 noon when I stopped by.  There were no other cars in the parking lot.  When I went in there was a woman there but it was hard to tell if she was a patron or the bartender.  She seemed chatty enough and eventually went behind the bar to get me a beer.  Alas if I was hoping for a line up of tasty drafts it was not to be.  The beer was in cans.  Most of it was Light Beer.

The décor?  Vintage, I don't think I saw anything from the 21st century.  Green Bay Packers stuff.  Mildly saucy calendars from years past on the wall.  Somewhat more outrageous posters oddly stapled to the ceiling.  It had the vibe of all taverns at mid day, quiet but with expectations of later revelry.

Taking pictures when you are the only patron is a little awkward but the bartender did fuss about doing a bit of cleaning here and there.  Lots of things needed dusting.  So I took a few.

Their sign also indicates groceries were for sale and technically that is true.  A few shelves.  Cans of beans and boxes of cereal spaced widely.  But what's that up above?

An selection of posters from a local brewery that went under in 1974.  Some of them have calendars from '72 on them indicating they were made special for Vanderhydes Twin Oaks Station.  I guess this was a combination grocery, tavern, gas station back then?

I've never seen anything like this from the Bruenig brewery.  They would be of considerable interest to collectors.

After a bit another guy appeared.  Once again he had a comfort level that made it hard to tell if he was a customer, an employee or the owner of the place.  He seems to have come in from a door that connects to the house in back.  Nice fella.  Beard like ZZ Top.  Had opinions on things.

I can't say I've never seen a place like this.  Because in fact I have.  It was in Northern Minnesota in the early 1970's.  It was called The Brimson Store and combined the functions of grocery, post office, tavern, community center.  But goodness that was almost a half century ago.

A place like Vanderhydes should not still exist in this day and age.  Long may it continue to anomalously do so. 

But seriously, does it exist inside a time space bubble defined by a shimmery red aura?  I just made that part up.  But when I went looking on the internet for better pictures of the place this, honestly, is what I found:

 

Decide for yourself.  Best way to do so is to drop in.  May you emerge safely back in your own time space continuum as I did.

Wooly Bear Weather Report, October 2022

Folklore assures us that studying the bands on wooly bear caterpillars in the fall will tell you how band winter will be that year.  An exact formula for how the black and brown content, or perhaps the width of the strips, actually should be read is elusive.  I've always thought the more black the worse the upcoming weather, but who knows.

Maybe not even the bears.

The first week of October I rescued three of them from a road they were trying to hike across.  They curl up into a ball when disturbed.

Near as I can tell these three all have different patterns.   Huh.  And when they felt safe again the took off in three different directions.  Somehow I doubt their stubby, if admittedly numerous, legs will carry them far enough apart that weather conditions will vary at their respective locations.