Pastoral Beauty and a Strange Encounter

We are at the Bristol Faire, as we have been these last few weeks, enjoying a break from the schedule.  Bristol is at the extreme southeast corner of Wisconsin, just north of Chicago and just south of Milwaukee (a surprisingly fun & happening town, I'll post about it some time). Last week an unexpected heat wave had us sweating out 90+ temperatures without AC, and when it relented a few days ago in favor of clear blue skies and cool breezeswe were giddy with relief.  Gregg and I gathered Strider, and in the epic gorgeosity of the afternoon, went for a walk in a field adjacent to the Faire.

I had discovered several fields in search of quiet, off-site places to walk our dog, places where we could run around together and bark & laugh without worrying about neighbors or property or imminent disturbance of such.  I couldn't have asked for a better place if I'd invented it.  The field is large, green and recently cut, buzzing with patches of clover and yellow flowers.  It technically leads all the way up to Stateline road, but a broad swath of marshgrass and cattails cuts across the field halfway up, a wet area Strider avoids.  Strolling back the other way,  smelling fresh cut grass and the herby thicket surrounding the field, a broad cutthrough crosses a shady rain ditch and opens into another field: smaller, but with a rolling slope that's a pleasure to climb.

If you know where you're going you can cross over the second field, past another spinney of marshgrass, towards another, longer cutthrough, the width of a tractor, carpeted with long, crushed grass, that bends around and leads to a third, and larger, field. Here we explored the edges, Strider romping merrily, investigating everything he coud reach.  We discovered a broad footpath leading away into the trees at one corner, but chose to explore this beautiful field, sparkling with sunlight.  Tall trees rimmed the edges, and it was mostly mown, but again with large swaths left to grow, cattails and long grass bespeaking the marshy ground beneath.  It was a truly beautiful walk, and one that made me understand where Bristol's legendary evening mosquito population comes from.

As we walked the edges of these areas I started to see piles of mud, glooped up in a way that was strangely familiar.  You know how, after a rain, you'll pass a patch of sparsely grown ground and see these tiny piles of dirt all around like dirt sculputres of a pile of string?   Worms, having run to the surface to escape the water, dig back into the ground after it stops, pushing out these little globs in their wake.  The piles I was looking at were like that, but  many times larger, double-handful sized.  I saw a hole next to one of them over an inch wide.

What could possilbly be burrowing here, making these holes? Are there giant worms around here the size of snakes?  Mudskippers? No, they only live in the tropics.  Some kind of catfish? Fast-working roots of some kind? As ususal I'm wishing my Lovecraftian friends are around to apprecite the weird images of my hyperactive imagination.  

Gregg suddenly notices Strider stop to investigate something in the grass-  and leap up about a foot before suddenly finding something much more interesting in another direction. We step closer. The grass in the area seems to move like the cilia of a paramecium.  We peer into the grass, and under the waving blades,  identify a pair of small, lobster-like claws, waving angrily.

A freshwater crab?

No.

It's a crayfish.

A  crayfish?

A mudbug????  As in, 'squeeze the tail, suck the head..?' Last time I saw these little critters they were the guests of honor at a genune Louisiana crawfish boil.  It was, as I recall, a memorable acquaintance. 

Gregg and I left the angry little critter, and whatever tiny part of Strider's nose he still waved, and carried on our beautiful walk. The sun illuminated the tall grasses to our right, the breeze keeping off the mosquitos.  We were actually on a kind of plateau, walking the edge of a large swath of cattails raised  above the surrounding green.

"Remind me not to walk around here barefooted." I said.

Did anyone else know there were mudbugs living right here?  How do they *do* it?  This place has to be a solid block of ice in the winter!  Still, with all this clear fresh water I shouldn't be surprised.  The land of ten thousand lakes is a perfect place for these little guys, and speaks well of how unpolluted they keep the water.  

There are many frogs here too. But they're not as surprising.