Troutbirder II

Troutbirder II
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Saturday, November 15, 2008

On Wisconsin On Wisconsin

We recently spent a few days in Wisconsin with out friends John and Joanne. The idea was to take in some museums in Milwaukee and field test some German cuisine and beer. On the way down we stopped in Mineral Point to see a great little railroad museum. The town is noted for many artists of various crafts and Pendarvis. Pendarvis is the remnants from the era of lead mining. Thousands of Cornish miners worked the mines in the nineteenth century and built their homes from limestone and wood. Platteville Wisconsin and Galena in Illinois(the home of U.S. Grant) have similar histories.



In New England they call these type of add-on homes "stitchers." There the house is expanded all the way to the barn.



We also saw large flocks of migrating sandhill cranes who were feeding in cornfields, adjacent to the highways. This was the greatest number of these magnificent birds I had seen in several years. We previously saw hundreds of thousands along the Platte River in Central Nebraska in 2006.












8 comments:

  1. Wow, those cranes are great - I've never seen them before - I guess they must not come this far south. Nice going virtual sight-seeing with you again!

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  2. I'll pass on the beer (don't like beer) but bring on the German food. YUMM!
    Those Sandhill Cranes are so beautiful if a bit odd looking.

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  3. Those houses that go forever and attach to the barn really amazed me when we saw them for the first time. And to see that many Sandhill Cranes would be great. I have only seen one.

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  4. What a neat place. Love the crane photos. :c)

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  5. Very interesting - thank you for sharing -

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  6. It's always neat to see the Sandhill Cranes. Have you ever stopped at the Internation Crane Foundation in Baraboo? It's on my list for next summer.

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  7. How luck to get some pictures of the sandhill cranes. Quite a few in that flock. Good luck to them.
    Marnie

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  8. My great-grandfather was a Cornish miner that lived in Mineral Point. I'd like to find more information about him! We were there a few years ago, but only as tourists. This is an interesting part of the state!

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