Apples, Corn Mazes and Bike Rides, oh my!

As autumn slowly (or kick-ass quickly, as the case currently is) descends over our northern state, the cooler air, smell of dying leaves and wood smoke from those lucky enough to have fireplaces serves to remind me that it's time again for a few of my favorite things:

1) Pick-your-own apples and pumpkins! There are a number of farms all over the state and many near to Madison that allow folks to come in and gather their own goodies. It's a fantastic way to spend a Saturday or Sunday morning/afternoon and the bounty is delicious. This site, though the layout is a bit wonky, is a very decent resource of local PYO farms: http://www.pickyourown.org/wigo.htm

A yearly favorite for me and my friends is the Eplegaarden, just down Seminole Hwy into Fitchburg. They've great swaths of apple orchards, pumpkin patches and hay rides. Plus I'm told there's a haunted barn, too, though I haven't braved that adventure just yet.

2) Corn mazes! It seems kind of schlocky, I know, but how often do you get the chance to wander around in a castle or Bucky shaped maze made of corn? dane101 has a good list of local-ish mazes to check out.

3) Autumn bike rides: summer's great for a ride, sure, but there's all that sweating and humidity and mosquitos to worry about. The fall colors up here are gorgeous, more-so when see from the saddle of a bike instead of trapped inside a fast-moving vehicle. There are lots of organized rides through the state, but you can also tour independently. Some great organized rides for both mountain and road biking are:

• The Fall Color Festival - (mountain bike) Saturday, Sept. 29 at the John Muir Trail in Kettle Moraine State Forest (Southern Unit). I've been on these trails and they're amazing; extremely well kept, smooth single track for both beginner and advanced riders. Good obstacles but nothing too crazy if you don't want it. The colors in the park are bound to be amazing.
• Sugar River Bike Tour - (road) Saturday, Sept. 29 starting at Veteran's Memorial Park in Brodhead, WI. Supported ride with 15, 30, 50 and 100 mile route options.
• Maywood Earth Ride - (road) Saturday, Sept. 15 through Sheboygan County, with 12, 25, 50, 65 and 100 mile route options.
• Rural Hill & Valley Experience - October 13 & 14, Elroy, WI. With routes for road, mountain and family bikers, this looks like quite the event. The bike trail from Elroy to Sparta is world-class and incredibly scenic. Plus there's a bluegrass festival in the evenings that registered riders can get into for free.

I only wish I could make each one of these rides, but the laws of time and space prevent me from doing so. Still, worth trying for at least one or two over the last remaining months before we go into our annual deep-freeze. Sadly, I'm not hardcore enough to keep riding through the snow.

We Got Film

The Capital Times has a piece about NFL player Chad Johnson filming a potential Super Bowl ad in Middleton on Tuesday. Which is, y'know, pretty neat.

"ProVideo, a Madison-based video production firm, makes commercials for GoDaddy.com, a Web site domain registration company, and was in charge of the Middleton shoot."

(side note: I wonder if this one will include scantily clad women growing more scantily clad as the ad progresses. Does Middleton's new status as the "#1 town in the US" mean they disallow sexual innuendo on their high school football field? Because that would be a shame.)

Now that we've finally gotten around to passing legislation to create funding and incentives for film companies to come to Wisconsin, this sort of thing is likely to start happening a bit more often (though a lot of the action so far seems to be in Milwaukee, which is too bad).

There are a number of independent movies recently filmed in the area and now looking for distribution and/or making the festival rounds, most notably "Madison," starring long-time American Players Theatre favorite James DeVita. For the super-independent fare, you can turn to internet superstars Blame Society Productions, who brought you the "Chad Vader" series. Hilarious horror more your style? Check out "Zombie Hero" from Digital Mad Videos or, and I'm a little biased here for being involved in the production but I swear it's completely awesome, "Massacre! The Musical" from Graveside Productions. No attention span? There's always Wis-Kino, the scrappy film making group open to anyone with a camera and a dream.

Before I leave you with the current "Massacre" trailer, I'll just sum this all up by saying that damn, this state sure has a lot of talent floating around, waiting for the harsh light of the national spotlight to fall upon its pasty features. I can't name all of the projects here, but you get my point. The coasts have their benefits, but seriously, stop hogging all the attention, eh?

$100 billion

Allow me to get a little political for a moment.

The LA Times asks:

“The president will ask the nation to pay for the next 11 months in Iraq with billions of dollars and hundreds of lives. We think this sacrifice will be in vain, because only Iraqis can heal their national wounds. And so we ask instead: What else could the United States do with a guesstimated $100 billion to reduce the strength and the appeal of Islamist terrorist groups worldwide?”

Here’s my list, in no particular order:

1) The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM): "RESULTS will press for $1.3 billion, the U.S. fair share of the funding needed for the GFATM for 2008. The GFATM is an enormously important and innovative multi-donor funding mechanism providing grants to some 136 poor countries to tackle these three major killer diseases. It is now providing two-thirds of all donor funding for tuberculosis and malaria, is tracking projects against bold and measurable targets for treatment and prevention, and leverages U.S. investments with other donor funds." (from results.org)

2) UNICEF: “Thirty one attacks against schools, mainly torching schools and explosions were reported in all parts of Afghanistan during 2007 up to June. Deliberate attacks on girl students and women teachers resulted in at least 4 deaths and 6 injuries. Only in the four southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul, out of a total of 740 schools, it is estimated that 262 (unconfirmed) of them are no longer providing education services to students. UNICEF urgently requires US$ 7 million to respond to the urgent needs of children and women.” (see also us-arc.org)

3) Heifer International is "dedicated to our goal:
$800 million by the year 2010 to lift 5 million families to self-reliance. With 800 million chronically hungry people in the world, 1 billion living on less than $1 a day and 30 million chronically hungry in the U.S. Heifer has a real challenge in ending hunger and poverty. Heifer's simple but sustainable model incorporates a community-building approach to ending hunger so families and entire communities work holistically to gain self-reliance."

4) Money for the rebuilding of Iraq: get rid of no-bid contracts, practice some actual oversight of the projects, impose regular safety (structural and environmental) standards. People need basic infrastructure before they can even think about getting a good education, jobs, and a regular life. They need clean water, a reliable source of electricity, decent food and roofs over their heads. When they have these things, they will then need a solid education, for both boys and girls, and the promise of a living-wage job. An even just basically educated and employed population will be much, much less inclined to join up with an insurgent or “terrorist” organization, both because they’ll have a better way to make ends meet and likely will be less dissatisfied with the environment in which they live. But we need to make sure that the money for these efforts goes to companies and organizations that will be held accountable for their actions and their spending habits.

5) I have a sneaking suspicion that, even after all of that, we’d still have a sizable chunk of the $100 billion left over. Why not use that to fund a system of universal health care here at home? People smarter than I have come up with good, realistic plans that could be self-sustaining and save/improve countless lives. Once we’ve got a handle on our (currently horribly broken) health care system, then we too can focus on things like bettering the education and job training systems in this country.

It seems like obvious, non-pie-in-the-sky thinking. Businesses of all sizes would benefit tremendously from universal health care, taking the burden of paying for their employee’s skyrocketing health care costs off their shoulders. Businesses would also benefit from a more educated and happy (see: leads to better productivity) workforce. Everyone would benefit from greater security (less impoverished, oppressed people all over the world usually means fewer recruits for violent extremist groups), better health care, better education, etc.

Instead, we’ll continue to miraculously find billions of dollars to fund aggressive and failing wars, but falter when it comes to finding a few million for proper reconstruction efforts in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and, in our own backyard, New Orleans. Imagine that.

(P.S. Added this blog to Technorati, because why not: Technorati Profile)

An Autumn of Bikes and Cheese

James T. Spartz over at The Daily Page wrote a great article/plug for the Bike the Barns event I mentioned in a previous post. I'm glad to see it getting some coverage (even though I can't go, as I'll be on a private retreat to a cabin in the middle of glorious nowhere that weekend).

I took an extremely truncated ride around part of Lake Monona yesterday afternoon. It felt a little strange to be donning the long-sleeved jersey and full-fingered gloves so soon after I'd been sweating it out in 80 degree weather for our Labor Day ride (a reunion of Team Takin' It Easy from the ACT Ride). While the cool air was invigorating, it made me wistful about summer's passing. I'm sure we'll have a few warm days yet before the frost really gets kicking, and I do love autumn, but there were so many rides I wanted to get in before the weather changed that I just haven't been able to do. Though with the ACT Ride under my belt, I suppose I don't feel too lazy.

On a side note, unrelated to biking but definitely relating to my love of all things cheese, I was excited to read about a new, artisan cheese and goodies shop opening downtown. Fromagination, despite its wacky name, promises to bring locally made, very delicious cheeses and associated snacks to our appreciative Wisconsin pallets. Not only that, but they're offering cheese classes, too! Yours truly will be attempting to attend at least one, all in the name of journalism, mind you, on behalf of dane101. We like to offer our support to local stores offering local fare. It's certainly a far better trend than all of the chains that have gone up downtown in recent years (Gap, Cozi, Starbucks--I'm lookin' at you).

Hot Weekend Action

I'm already making plans. So much to do, so little time!

Courtesy of madpoetry.org:
9/15, Saturday; 5:30–7 pm: Open Mike; musicians, poets, & artists of all ages and influences are welcome. 10 minutes & one free PBR allotted to each performer. RP’s Pasta Company Café, 1133 E. Wilson St.

9/15, Saturday; 7 pm: Urban Spoken Word Slam. Genna's Lounge, 105 W. Main St. on the Capitol Square.

And then, of course, there's the annual jamboree of music, art and hippies that is The Willy St. Fair! Always a good place to score tasty grub, listen to great music and see lots of brightly colored people.

Me? I'll at least be covering Friday and Saturday nights of the World Music Festival at the Memorial Union Terrace, on behalf of Isthmus Daily Page. Looks to be an awesome line-up. I'll be the girl up front, taking lots of pictures.

As a side note, I just discovered the Bombay Bicycle Club of Madison, which holds regular touring bike rides open to anyone. I may have to go check out one of their trips sometime soon, especially as fall foliage starts kicking.

Salute!

This evening, I came home to the delightful reality of a backed up sewage line that was bubbling water and muck up into our basement. At first, because of the large pool of murky water around its base, we thought it might be our washing machine having issues. But then we checked the basement shower, which was filled with a lovely black sludge.

We called the city and, to their immense credit, they had a crew out to check the main sewer line within 30 minutes (a snarky friend made the astute observation that yes, of course they'd act quickly, because "Tax payers remember shit in their basements."). Unfortunately, it's not the main line, so that leaves us to call in Roto-Rooter to unclog the pipes leading out of our house. Until then, no water usage for us. Which bodes for a somewhat smelly day at work for me.

But I'd like to take this time to (sincerely) recognize some of the unsung heroes of the municipal employment world: Vactor operators. The Vactor is that big green truck you see around town, snaking a long tube down into our crap-filled underworld to dislodge and suck up all of our unwanted filth. It's not a fun job, nor a particularly sweet smelling one. My sister did this for a summer some years ago and told many tales of nastiness (and sometimes hilarity).

So to the crew that hurried out to our 'hood at 11:00 at night after just 30 minutes and checked out the situation, I extend my gratitude. I hope your showers are long, hot and luxurious.

Seriously though, thanks.

(side note: when I did a Google image search for "Madison Wisconsin vactor", why did this come up and what the heck is that thing he's holding?)

Sow the Seeds, baby!

I love organic food. I try to buy as much locally produced organics as possible both because they're delicious and because I believe it's important to support local, sustainable agriculture. There are many, many people who believe the same thing, both in and around Wisconsin. We dutifully haul our canvass bags to our favorite co-ops and load up. Some folks use CSAs and have a closer relationship with the farms that provide the food. Regardless, those farms are important to everyone, whether they know it or not.

Unfortunately, many of the organic farms in our area were devastated by the flooding that occurred last month. Quite a few of them didn't have crop insurance, either, and are now facing extremely dire circumstances where tens of thousands of dollars worth of crop have been wiped out. Even more unfortunate, one of the major purchasers of organic produce in the area, Whole Foods, has dropped orders to all farms, even those unaffected by the floods. I understand their need to screen out damaged goods, but they've done nothing to help out these local producers (who they claim to support).

Thankfully, many co-ops and other natural food stores are banding together to raise money for Sow the Seeds, a fund to help local organic farmers recover their losses. You can donate at your local co-op or through the website, and I strongly encourage everyone to do so. These are the people that work hard to provide us with our yummy, healthy local food. Without them, we'd all be in a serious bind.

You can also view a short documentary about the flooding.

Please consider helping out in any way you can. We're lucky that floods like this only come around every hundred years or so, but that shouldn't stop us from pitching in when they do (especially since weather patterns seem to be changing for the worse, but that's a topic for another post).

On a related note, you can check out some of our local farms, eat great food and go on a lovely bike ride by registering for the first ever Bike the Barns tour, as hosted by the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition.