First Signs of Decay

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker survived his recall election, though his Radical-Republican party lost its majority in the legislature, I understand. He seems to have suddenly gotten some sense knocked into his head, calling a "brat summit" and inviting all the legislators over to eat and drink. Maybe something will come of it.

Meanwhile, I noticed on my brief visit to the state this week that the first effects of his strategy of giving to the rich and taking from the poor are becoming visible: a shocking number of animal carcasses along the highway, many of them obviously there long enough to decay. Maybe he should get his Girondin backers to put some of their billions into the state highway department's budget, so they can go scrape up the dead deer and dogs and raccoons that are rotting on the sides of the freeways.

Yard Art Gone Wild

Enchanted Highway
Regent-Gladstone Road, from Regent, North Dakota to Interstate 94, exit 72

What happens when somebody who knows how to weld runs out of room in his own yard? How about gigantic sculptures stretched out across 32 miles of high prairie?

Read more about it on the Roadside America web site.

My own pictures of the sculptures don't really do them justice, especially in representing the sheer scale of these things; but here they are:

Geese in Flight

The approach-road to Geese In Flight

Deer Crossing

Locusts in the Grass

Fisherman's Dream

the central fish is 70 feet tall

Pheasants on the Prairie

Teddy Rides Again

The Tin Family

Gary Greff, who has put all this up over the past 22 years, has four more sculptures planned. The next will be The Spider and the Fly, giving me a reason to come back.