You might be used to it.... but I'm thinkin' Denis hasn't been acclimated yet.

I know I would freeze... even if it was a "dry cold" .... no thanks ;)

:D:D

Yea, that minus 40 temp makes one step fast.

Great story Dennis.

I came home one day back when I still commuted. A duck was standing in my driveway just quacking. Not something I had seen before. As I getting the mail I walked over to that area, and I could hear lots of "Cheep Cheep" from the storm drain. Evidently mama duck was walking along and hopped up over the curb, but the ducklings all just dropped down into the storm drain. So I put my mail in the kitchen and started investigating.

About that time a lady in our neighborhood that walks her dogs a lot said she had heard the ducklings and called the city, but they said they don't bother with that. About that time one of the other couples from the neighborhood came over to see what was going on. That was too much for mama duck and she flew off.

I got my pickaxe out of the storage shed, and lifted the man hole off the storm drain. Since we have a koi pond we have a fish net that worked great for netting the ducklings. One of the other men went down armed with my flashlight and net and my 5 gallon bucket. He caught all the babies and handed up the bucket of ducklings. I put the lid back on the storm drain about the time my wife got home.

OK, now what to we do with a bucket of ducklings and no mama duck. I remembered a contact and former client of mine that had gotten out of corporate world, and started a wildlife rescue. One of the other couples from the neighborhood volunteered to keep the ducklings until the next day and then drive them the 35 miles to the wildlife rescue facility. They later said the had almost all the other couples and friends bring over children to see the baby ducks in their bathtub.

They took them to the wildlife rescue facility and they have several adult ducks there and about a 100 baby ducklings from all over central Oklahoma that people had brought it. The adult ducks seem to "adopt" all the ducklings and teach them to be ducks, and eventually they all fly away and go back to nature.

We had several households of people that mostly wave to each other at most come together and rescue some wildlife in need.

https://www.wildcareoklahoma.org/

Awesome story! Thanks for taking the time to tell it to us.

I wanna go up there to fish for walleye and Muskie. Sucks my job keeps getting in the way.

Thanks Dennis. Great stories, coming from someone who came from SoCal, it's a great endorsement of the midwest way of life.

I actually came from 120 miles away from here, I moved to CA. when I was 23. And yes, the winters are brutal but it gets even quieter up here and it’s crazy beautiful. Everyone who lives up here has an RV and goes down to Florida or AZ in the winter anyway. :)

I was thinking about it after posting this thread and reading the replies, it is amazing up here but I have awesome friends in Los Angeles who would give you the shirt off their back as well. I have friends doing all kinds of favors for me back there as we speak. Same w the few NYC friends I have.

Of course the pace of life is different and people can’t always drop everything to help but I try my best. In LA, I’m sort of the “car guy” among my friends and get calls when people are broken down all the time. Sometimes they just need advice on where to send the injured car, sometimes need a jump, etc. People who aren’t good friends and don’t help their friends get figured out pretty fast wherever you are.

I was just relating how tight neighbors are up here. It’s very special. :)

I can't take the heat & humidity like when I was 23... don't even try it! Methinks you'll live dual lives from now on. Why not :)?

Meh, that’s about as common as Coors these days. I like the New Glarus brewing stuff, only sold in WI!

Beer is a generational thing here. Leinies has greater than a hundred year head start on New Glarus and Pabst has even more. Taste barely factors into it.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1596586697.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1596586697.jpg

Had spotted cow for the first time last summer. I was skeptical because of all the hype but its legit. Nothing out of this world but a solid solid brew.

Good peeps are good peeps, and exist everywhere. In urban America you might need a better radar, but yeah, they're there. But places without a safety net are special, everyone learns to help each other out.

Part of it is the “only in WI” novelty factor. Sort of how Yuengling is a special treat for me, but anybody east of the Mississippi thinks it’s nothing special.

I'm also a fan of NG beers, and Spotted Cow is hands-down my favorite inexpensive Basic Beer.

A trip to New Glarus with a stop to visit my friends in Madison for dinner on the way home also makes for a nice day trip in the 911.

Was at the brewery not long after it opened. Beautiful space.
Had a couple of Totally Naked taps. Bottles are good but the draft was excellent.

I remember living in Wisconsin and visiting our Grandparents in Amherst Junction. Driving on the old County Roads, as there were no real state highways then. You knew where you were by the many barns and silos, and of course the barn advertisements; especially Carling's Black Label.

County Road Q was the last highway before Main Street in Amherst Junction (we turned right from Q onto Main Street by the County Yard). There was this really cool dip in Q about a mile from our destination.

Dad would always find the perfect speed to go through that dip and tickle our bellies. We loved it. My sisters and my brother and I would stand up in the back seat and lean against the back of our Mom and Dad. We all giggled like heck that last mile to Grand Ma and Grand Pa's!

Many years later we would visit them from California. The dip in Q was long gone and we came from the West on Highway 10 East out of Steven's Point instead of North on County Road Q. There is a brewery there, Point Brewery. In those days beer in Portage County was Heileman's Old Style or Point Special. The signs above the many village taverns throughout the area would declare as such.

In this one instance, Point Brewery put up what I consider the Greatest Beer Billboard EVER. It was on 10 east, just before you left Steven's Point, just east of the Hill Top Pub. Remember, this was when Schlitz Beer, claimed that "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer!". Well, not to be outdone and in keeping with the sharp wit of Central Wisconsinites, that Point Brewery Billboard Proudly declared, "When You're Out of Point, You're Out of Town".