we drove back from madison and just missed what looked like an impressive hailstorm about 10 miles from home. “phew!” we thought, only to discover we arrived just before quarter sized hail was to start falling in viroqua.
and fall it did! it’s hard to tell because it’s dark out but i think damage was minimal to cars on the street, but i’m glad we got the car in the garage!
it never not creeps me out and all the more so when there’s a bunch of mounted heads looking back at me.
when i first moved here i remember thinking it was strange that the local hardware store kept a trophy display of fresh kills ( not that i’m against hunting ) but now it just seems mostly normal.
a beautiful sunset as the viroqua trounced wisconsin dells, 10-2 in the american legion state tournament and secured a spot in the central plains national tournament in pratt, kansas.
tonight, viroqua plays arch rival westby!
odin and i were moving stuff out of my temporary post-fire work digs at odin’s school and it really took everything in me to not follow the fire alarm test instructions to see what would happen.
Odin and are moving my work stuff out of post fire squatting space at his school (@ Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School) http://t.co/RJqncu2AjJ
— Eric C. Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) July 15, 2013
fear of being sent to the principle’s office is still a powerful behavior modifier.
while we’re Beginning of The Neverending Hockey Season in the big city of onalaska, wisconsin, our community ice arena is closing down for the season in our little town of viroqua which means The Last Open Skate of The Season is upon us.
what will we do from 6-8pm on saturdays and sundays?!
i thought it’d be fun to see if i can still shoot clumsy video and skate at the same time while attempting to avoid the rink rats. is it just me or does odin appear to take out a kid on the ice as he races around the rink? whoops!
after skating around for an hour with his poppi ( yes, he still tolerates me skating with him for awhile before ditching me for his buddies ), it’s time for The Races!
and yes, he won again. but next year he’ll migrate to the next age group and have to skate against the 9 and 10 year olds. so this might be his last win for awhile. but maybe not, he’s pretty fast.
want to know what motivates a eight year old to win every race? the prize is rink concession food that he most certainly mostly doesn’t get at home 🙂
and so The Last Open Skate of The Season ends, with The Prized Nacho with Weird Cheese Food in hand and maybe just a bit of an attitude about his poppi taking his picture.
i was out on a evening run and i happened up a training for the viroqua fire department on the 200 block of north center avenue across the street from nelson’s agricenter.
at first i didn’t know it was a training fire and couldn’t figure out why there weren’t any sirens on and everyone seemed so calm.
it started out slowly…
but even though they were putting plenty of water on the fire, it got roaring pretty quickly which makes it all the more frightening to think about how fast it would have gone had they not been there.
nelson’s has a warehouse filled with lumber right across the alley so they were making sure it didn’t get to hot on the north side ( on the right ) of the fire.
the second story of the building starts to collapse…
the building, which i believe had been boarded up and abandoned for awhile, collapsing with a spray of sparks and flying embers. a fairly spectacular event to watch up close.
now there’s something, thankfully, you don’t see every day. i’m getting a brief glimpse of the adrenalin rush firefighters must get when putting out a blaze.
they started really dumping the water on it after it collapsed and i got a good dose of vapor from the evaporating water mixed with flaming soot and decided it was time to move along!
i hope everyone stayed safe while keeping it under control!