RISE FOR CLIMATE

Saturday was a big day with Steppin' Out in Pink in the morning and then afterwards off to join Natureman at Riverside Park to attend the Rise for Climate Tri State Event. 

Our area's Rise for Climate was held in conjunction with thousands of rallies the world over voicing demands about working towards a fossil fuel free world. World leaders were holding a summit being held in San Francisco this week. ( see link:Summit)

It's actually a funny story as I parked at the far end of the park after seeing food trucks and tents. The attendance seemed ok with about a hundred folks walking around visiting the tents. 

There were a lot of  kids in their teens running around with rainbow flags as capes.  I kept thinking every time I looked into a tent that I didn't get the association with the climate issues. One tent had LGBTQ center pamphlets, another was the hospital had info about AIDs and the largest tent had a lot of X rated candles and those rainbow banners and flags to purchase. 

 I just didn't get it until I ran into a friend and commented on the fact this didn't look like a Climate Fest to me. She laughed and said "Well, that's because this is Pridefest." So this societal climate gathering was not the one I was supposed to be attending. Perhaps Natureman was misinformed and the Rise For Climate rally wasn't this weekend after all. Well, it sure wasn't there on the north end so I decided to give it another shot and walked over to the park's south side. 

There in the fountain was a flag indicating I had found the correct Climate gathering and sitting on the grass were some 30 folks listening attentively to the dozen speakers.

Our gathering like other
rallies included speakers on renewable energy and sustainability in addition to candidates/ their representatives who support related legislation and policy.

Speakers included :* Ho-Chunk Nation Member Bill Greendeer who spoke about holding leaders in society responsible for the well-being of existing and next generations (Seven Generations principle) and also the ethical idea of the Rights of Nature
* Yer Xiang of La Crosse's Hmoob/Hmong Community to share Hmoob environmental concepts that apply to climate protection
* UWL Professor Paul Reyerson spoke on the latest global and national climate science and impacts
* Sustainability Institute's Casey Meehan  Midwestern state impacts & some of the many opportunities and benefits of sustainability
* Sustainability leader Glen Jenkins shared the city and county's emissions reductions progress as part of their Sustainability Indicators and related goals
* Coulee Region Sierra Club Vice Chair Kathy Allen shared  candidate endorsements and to share CRSC's Ready for 100 effort (100% renewables by 2050 or sooner)
* La Crosse Democrats spokesperson Avery VanGaard read a climate-related statement from WI Gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers & WI Rep. Jill Billings
* Ken Tschumper, Former Minnesota State Representative talked about MN's clean energy legislation and MN's 2018 Candidates
* Charles (Chuck) Davis, Sr. of Tomah - Oglala Lakota, of the Oceti Sakowin speaker and main musician led singing, dancing and chanting in a circle around the fountain. Ironically, the Waters of Life had a bit more meaning as the fountain had been drained...

Although small in attendance due to publicity, the message was still loud and clear, we need to RISE to protect this planet we call home...

 #ClimateVoter

*One IMPORTANT action that Midwesterners can take immediately today is to call Minnesota's Governor Mark Dayton to continue his important efforts asking his state agencies for diligent caution and more thorough reviews of the PUC's new Certificate of Need and all existing state permit regulations before any new Enbridge Line 3 pipeline is built. A larger, new pipeline would simply allow more tar sands oil to harm our local, state and global environments and climate. Please use this short and informative Telephone Call Script from Power Shift Network: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/call-minnesotas-governor-dayton-to-stop-the-line-3-tar-sands-pipeline. (Governor Dayton has also wisely urged Minnesota's Legislature to increase its important Renewable Energy Standard (RES) to 50% by 2030 which new MN Governor candidate Tim Walz also strongly supports: https://mn.gov/governor/blog/?id=1055-337049. Wisconsin's RES/RPS is still stuck at 10% by 2015: http://ncsolarcen-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Renewable-Portfolio-Standards.pdf 

STEPPIN' OUT IN PINK

Saturday a.m. the southside of La Crosse was transformed  into a sea of deep pink as 6 thousand folks had registered to march to earn monies for local breast cancer research for the Gundersen Medical Foundation and bring Cancer awareness to our community. 

 Among the walkers were a group dear to my heart, some of our local Jazzercisers with their own special pink t-shirts. Below is part of our group which eventually joined up with our stroller brigade.

I was told I was the only walker seen that day donning a pink nose. My pink nose was a gift from my buddy Sue who has started her own pink nose brigade of cancer awareness and kindness to live each day to its fullest.  

Some 4 million dollars have been raised in the last 12 years to aid those who can't afford mammograms/ treatment expenses in addition to funding a PhD cancer researcher for the Norman L. Gillette Jr. Cancer Research Fellowship.

 Participants have the choice between a 2.5 or 4.5 mile walk for all ages.  The over 6,000 folks registered included folks from some 30 states with over 450 breast cancer survivors also participating. 
Many friends, families and various group walk together like our group from the Jazzercise classes.  It was a gorgeous day for a walk even with our late state since some of us came from class. 















We stopped on West Avenue by Badger Corrugating Co. for a photo op in front of doors donated by construction contractors displaying messages supporting breast cancer survivors and honoring victims. In our group are 5 family members related to Kopp construction!( second door from the right) 

Besides  the variety of music groups who gave of their time and talent entertaining the participants along the routes, 

there was water and food stations and also placards of cancer facts. One important fact that stuck with me was that in 1960 one in twenty women developed breast cancer. Today that number is one in seven. WOW. A very special stop was a memorial station to decorate stones for loved one for the stone garden. 

All of us have been touched in some way by this terrible disease and the walk serves to remember those who have passed, the survivors, those who are still battling cancer with hopes that  continued research will one day eradicate Breast Cancer. 

LO AND BEHOLD... WELCOME HOME.

Lo and behold look what arrived all muddy in the back of my neighbor's truck bed this past weekend. What a surprise!

Unbelievable! Neighbor Patrick had been visiting with another neighbor at the bridge near the scene of the crime when he spotted not too terribly far away something that looked like a black box. Upon closer investigation it turned out to be our second mailbox  torn off from its home next to his with the second flood.  This beats any of our previous return records for flood mailboxes. 

Yeah, it's not the 50+ yr old box but the 11 yr old replacement one who had served the past 11 years as a plant holder until she was called back into mail duty. This time she was only on her new post for two days before being swept away by the hundred year storm second flash flood in a week. Even our mailboxes have adventures here in the End of the Rainbow Valley.

Her only contents was mud. After a quick spray down, we're happy to return her recently bought replacement but are secretly hoping our  500 yr flood victim, the Unsinkable Molly Brown, alias the rusty 50+ year old mailbox, will still be found and returned. 

In the meanwhile it's nice to have our lawn ornament mailbox back at work as a mailbox. Digger's Hotline is expected Wednesday before her post can be dug into her new locale around the bend.

Thanks Patrick for your keen eye and hunting ability to find one of the flood victims!

FOTO FRIDAY: FIREWORKS

 FOTO FRIDAY this week brings with it jubilation, not only of a belated birthday tradition but also that of freedom. The township got to us in the End of the Rainbow Valley as soon as they could to reattach us and our neighbors down the road to the outside world. It's won't be a perma- nent fix but a passable one, one where we can reach the county highway. Whew! Many other township residents when cut off due to missing bridge approaches could escape heading up to the ridge. We don't have that same luxury. 

So 3 days after our second flash flood storm, I was able to join one of my favorite people, Sue in the outside world to enjoy Famous Dave's Bar-b-que with our burnt end sandwiches accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes and the best ever bread pudding birthday dessert, all the sweeter with the celebratory fireworks .

Sue, I just want to make it clear, we don't need a flood to celebrate birthdays next time, OK?

Have any celebratory photos to share? You know the scoop. Send 'em my way and I'll include them.

If you missed it last week's FOTO FRIDAY was combined with TBT in :PTSD OF '07

TBT: MISSING ...

TBT: Yearning for the ole days of a peaceful walk down our mile road with the ever companionable Romeo when the road was not scarred with flood signs and one could concentrate on the beginnings of Fall. 

The sounds, the smell and the feel of Fall will return. The landscape will take time but this is our first Fall without Romeo...

OUT OF THE MOUTH OF ...

I haven't moved for a long, long time. In my youth I lived across the Mississippi on an apple orchard in La Crescent, Minnesota and when my owners moved, they moved me with them. I really don't even know how old I am.  

One week ago my life may have changed forever. You see I had hung around on this same lane for over 40 years with views of a pond where loons, turtles, ducks, muskrat, beaver and many others have visited/lived.  In fact, we usually have a couple of sand hill cranes hanging around nearby. The pond, fed by a spring in the adjacent hillside, has been plugged up by some aggressive beaver so it remains pretty stagnant. Next to me sits a small bridge over Coon Creek known for its good trout fishing. Many a fisherman have thrown a line in enjoying shade from trees lining its banks. It is Coon Creek who is really the main character in this story as I'm just the narrator. 

My job has always just been to hold my owner's mail. I am now dented, rusty with a fading rainbow on my side, a large old country mailbox whose life's usually pretty serene.

I have had a couple of float trips before last week as Coon Creek to my east across the lane jumped her banks and has removed me twice before. In 2007 after 14 inches of rain my owners thought I was gone for good and replaced me with a smaller shiny black version. (You know they don't make them like they used to)... only to put me back on a new perch after the neighbor discovered me down stream. 



The new mailbox became a planter. 


Then nine months later, a 100 yr flood and Coon Creek moved me again. Once again I was returned to my owners and sat on another perch until a week ago a flash flood ripped me up with such fury, I'm not sure if I will be found this time. The water came higher and faster than it ever has before stretching all the way from one hillside to the opposite. I've heard tell that other mailbox who replaced me was herself yanked out this past Monday. I may have even seen her floating by with the neighbor's mailbox this time, that two timer. 

The neighborhood just doesn't look the same after two flash floods in a week. AND they say there is no such thing as climate change. Coon Creek doesn't even recognize herself being a half mile wide with a crazy crash diet shrinking back to her original size in 24 hours. 

This time my poor owners are stuck thanks to Coon Creek coming up higher with almost 2 feet of rushing water over the end of their driveway. Here's a visual so you can see where it normally hits the black top. Yep, this time she left a gaping 3 ft hole that no vehicle can circumvent. Her current was stronger than ever before.

Look at the biggest indentation where I used to reside at its disappeared edge. You can tell how far over the road went from the foreground of the pavement.

Home, sweet home

This is south of the bridge. Yep, somehow even after 2 flash floods in a week, the bridge is still there.  Compromised, I'm sure.

Here's a view of the north side of the bridge even late afternoon yesterday, the water was still running over part of it. The water had covered the bridge's railings again the night before. Who knows what Coon Creek'll look like in 24 hours?

I don't think I will be returning to my old life. But only time will tell. Water is almighty and Coon Creek and the Coulee have had their fill of it. Last night another storm ravaged through dumping another 2 inches according my owner's gauge. If I'm not found, I can say I have lived a good life and Coon Creek will live on ... 

FOTO FRIDAY: PTSD OF FLOOD OF '07

FOTO FRIDAY: I don't live with a pessimist nor alarmist but when Natureman  navigated his way home Monday evening from a meeting in La Crosse during the terrible storm and commented on the road, he uttered the words, "It's really bad, I mean really bad," The flood of ' 07, a 1000 year flood came to mind. It was not a pretty picture to say the least

Here are some pics of our one mile road in '07 after 8 mudslides and a 100 trees down, we had no road.

That was bad, really bad. So who knew what we would awake to on Tuesday am.

It wasn't this bad on our road now in 2018. Yes, we have damage but not to this extent.  What was worse was Coon Creek. Its waters were so was much higher than '07 and caused much more destruction to everyone.

2018: Here's a neighbor's pic from Hwy 162 looking at our bridge on Tuesday of Coon Creek. We couldn't take it from our side as
our lower road was under water.

Photo by Becky L.

Water damage brings a myriad of issues. The waters receded back under the bridge in hours as this emptied on so many above and below us. Our township had rock down by early evening and this bridge was made passable. Unreal.

Do you have some flood photos to add? Send them my way and I'll be glad to include them. 

Last week's FOTO FRIDAY was quite different:MORNING GLORY