Day Date in "Fort"

It was probably about a year ago that we decided to retire early in 8 years instead of 3 years, and at first all I kept thinking was "EIGHT more Wisconsin winters? EIGHT more years of WISCONSIN?  I'll go crazy"  After living just over the border for the last 24 years, what else could there be to see and do?  As I was reading other blogger's posts I came to the realization that while we've hit all the "hot spots" we haven't really taken time to appreciate Wisconsin the way we probably could.  I spent the summer trying to acquaint myself with some of the smaller state parks, and now I'm trying to search out hidden treasures in the smaller towns as well.  Will I have enough adventures to fill up the next 7 winters? We'll have to wait and see!

We also have a habit of drifting apart once "camping season" is over. On our days off in the winter Wayne hangs out in the ice shack with the wood burning stove and the neighborhood fellas, while I snuggle in with my Kindle or the television.  As I've been doing some Wisconsin research this past week I decided we needed to start making "date days" and we set off for our first one of the new year yesterday.  Our destination....Fort Atkinson.

Fort Atkinson is only an hour away, and a town we are not completely unfamiliar with.  It is home to The Fireside, dinner theatre in the countryside! Coming soon...Footloose, Annie Get Your Gun and Little Shop of Horrors.  Hmmm....maybe I should look into tickets.

Fort, as it is called by the locals, is also home to the Hoard Historical Museum and the National Dairy Shrine.  I hear you snickering out there! For a small town museum, it was actually very good and best of all photography was allowed and admission was free.  Donations suggested, and after seeing what a gem this place was we were happy to oblige.

The main part of the museum is located in Hoard House, home to the son of former governor William Dempster Hoard. Governor Hoard was widely considered to be the father of the Wisconsin dairy industry and played a prominent role in the early development of the School of Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin- Madison.  It was this factor that prompted The National Dairy Shrine to choose Hoard House and Fort Atkinson for their display about the dairy industry.

Youngest son Frank was the founder of Hoard Dairyman's Magazine and it was his children who offered the home to the city of Fort Atkinson to be used as a museum.  The home was built in 1864 and was large but simple, but we did find one intriguing detail that we haven't seen in homes of this period before...a built-in radiator warming oven.

What ingenuity! I couldn't take my eyes off it...I kept picturing what it must have been like in use on a cold wintry day a hundred years ago.  Well, after that the rest of the home paled in comparison, but upstairs the rooms were devoted to galleries displaying items donated by local collectors, one of which was a collection of about 500 birds collected and stuffed by  Thure Kumlein. Thure was a Swedish born ornithologist, naturalist and taxidermist. He was a contemporary of Thoreau and Audubon and he contributed much to the knowledge of the natural history of Wisconsin and its birds. He collected and shipped specimens to universities and museums throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Also honored at this museum is poet Lorine Niedecker. Link to Poets.org has a sampling of her poetry you can click on in the upper right hand corner.  A Fort Atkinson native she is the only woman associated with the Objectivist poets.  Huh?  Yeah, me neither, so I looked it up:

Zukofsky describes the founding of Objectivism in Prepositions:

"When I was a kid I started the Objectivist movement in poetry. There were a few poets who felt sympathetic towards each other and Harriet Monroe at the time insisted, we'd better have a title for it, call it something. I said, I don't want to. She insisted; so, I said, alright, if I can define it in an essay, and I used two words, sincerity and objectification, and I was sorry immediately. But it's gone down into the history books; they forgot the founder, thank heavens, and kept the terms, and, of course, I said objectivist, and they said objectivism and that makes all the difference. Well, that was pretty bad, so then I spent the next thirty years trying to make it simple."

Niedecker wrote most often about the world around her on Blackhawk Island—her neighbors and family, history, and the local flora and fauna. There was a lovely tribute on display by the local Black Hawk Artists who celebrated their 25th anniversary by incorporating Niedecker's poetry into their works of art.  I was especially drawn to the Mergansers.

Raymond Thomas Lawton, another Fort native, collected Native American artifacts from the region for 40 years and they were beautifully arranged in a series of display cases. The collection of 7 display cases is mostly made up of spear points and arrowheads, but also contained axes, mauls, celts, drills, scrapers, knives, pestles, fish net sinkers, pipes and pipe bowls, as well as tiny glass beads.

 

We also watched a movie about the Native American mound builders of the area, and Increase Lapham's efforts in the mid 1800's to save them. Many are now lost, and at one time there were even 11 intaglios in Wisconsin, which is an excavated effigy instead of raised.  All but one are gone, the Panther Intaglio saved by the Daughters of the American Revolution and city officials in Fort Atkinson. We didn't search it out on this trip, but the link has a good image, so check it out.

In case you want to know which cows are dairy breeds as opposed to beef cows, the Dairy Shrine has the answers.  They also have a painted cow in the lobby who was a winner in my opinion.

Having spent some years in the Walworth County 4-H project and attending a few fairs, I felt I knew enough about dairy cows, but there were a few interesting/disturbing facts on display.
Did you know that the first successful technique for freezing semen was developed in 1950 at Cambridge University in Europe? Or that Kraft Deluxe process cheese slices were introduced the same year as the first packaged, sliced processed cheese? Frosty was the first calf born from frozen semen, right here in nearby Janesville, Wisconsin in 1953. In 1951 Land O' Lakes introduced the first commercial milk replacers for dairy calves....don't get me started on that topic, you'll probably be sorry! By 1988 the American Dairy Farmers became big spenders in advertising, contributing $210 million to more than 80 U.S. dairy promotion organizations. And I know you won't be able to sleep tonight until I tell you that in 2003 sexed semen became commercially available, resulting in 90 percent heifer calves!

That's a lot of information for one post. TMI?  Well, I'll save all the rest of our day date delights for another post.  We found quite a few photo opportunities just driving around town.  I kind of "get it" a little more now, this whole savoring the small town wonder of it all.  It's not the majesty of geysers at Yellowstone or red rock at Moab...but it's not a bad way to pass a windy winter Midwestern day.