Attribution: StanCoFair, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, noting, along with the keeper, that if they have not already left town, those hundreds of world class cows in Madison this week for the World Dairy Expo are on their way home, or maybe on to the next show ring. …
Read
Category:Wisconsin
Kickass Watches the Trees Undress
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper deeply immersed in watching the spectacular color changes occurring in the trees that dominate his and Phyllis’s view out across Madison’s Gammon Road. As the trees stood in their staid and steady deep green summer work garb two days ago, it …
Read
Kickass Marks Labor Day
Attribution: Roadside Wildflowers, Droveway Lane by Des Blenkinsopp, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, aware that the keeper and Phyllis descend from the laboring class, will honor them today with extra napping on this Labor Day Monday. He suggests the same for everyone. Since 1894, Labor Day has marked a …
Read
Kickass and the Log-Walk to School
Attribution: Joshua Mayer from Madison, WI, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper coming late to the competition for the toughest walk to school–uphill and into the wind both ways, amends his entry to include the log walk into time. This did not involve just …
Read
Kickass and the Railroad Cougar
Attribution: Photo by Michael Jerrard on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, with a special feeling for cats, passes along to the keeper and Phyllis the news of a cougar found cut in half on the railroad tracks near Friendship in Adams County. The big cat was an adult male wearing a Michigan tracking collar from …
Read
Kickass and Norske Nook Pie
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, agrees with the keeper that there are not many occasions that cannot be improved by a piece of pie, and if it is baked and served at one of the three Norske Nook locations in Wisconsin there is a spiritual quality to the event. …
Read
Kickass and the Ice Age Trail
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, takes his hiking advice from Phyllis who has hiked in every national park in the continental US and has a hiking stick covered with park medals to prove it. She has also hiked portions of Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail, as has the keeper, who …
Read
Kickass and the Wolf River
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, listens to the keeper’s message that in these days of calamitous and contrary events some really good things still happen. One of those good things was last week’s meeting of the DNR board at which the generosity and environmental conscience of the citizenry was …
Read
Downriver
Attribution: Photo by Jonas Jaeken on Unsplash By Geoff Carter When I was about twelve years old, I used to walk home from school past a savings and loan that had a deposit envelope dispensary mounted outside its front door. It was supposed to be used for after-hours deposits. All you had to do was pull out the …
Read
Kickass and the Family at the River
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, stayed on door duty as the keeper and Phyllis joined some of the keeper’s crew to send Rick and Becky from their riverside summer digs back to Colorado and their prairie dog battle. An afternoon rain shower briefly threatened to join the festivities but …
Read
Life Cycles
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “Dedicated to the memory of Alex Pretti” Every year during the last week of July, the Milwaukee Riverwest neighborhood, an eclectic enclave of artists, musicians, families, and working folks, hosts the Riverwest 24, a twenty-four-hour bicycle race that runs along the neighborhood streets. According to the Riverwest 24 website, the …
Read
Kickass and Big Animal Vets
Attribution: USDAgov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, rarely needs to see a veterinarian but is interested in the keeper’s news that the UW Vet School is working on a program to ease the looming big-animal veterinarian shortage across the rural environs. With the inflated economics of the vet school …
Read