Walk Like a Penguin...No, Really!

It's that wonderful time of year for us northern-tier-staters. Below zero temps, followed immediately by thaws that create roof-annoying/destroying ice dams; snow and ice storms and plenty of shoveling. Pretty consistently throughout the winter though, the ice is the icky stuff - both to drive and walk on. 

This week's public service announcement: walk like a penguin when you are navigating sidewalks and roads that may be icy - I say "may" because snow loves to hide tricksy black ice underneath it. This walking style will save many a fall, bad bruise or broken bone.

Or be like me and just snowshoe!

Dells of the Eau Claire River County Park, Aniwa

Blinding Me with Science

Yep, I am all about science. My screen saver of over ten years is the magnificent Crab Nebula. Imagine my excitement when some of my favorite science bloggers at EarthSky in their post today shared a brief, beautifully realized visualization video of the Crab Nebula. 

As they write: "The visualization was produced by a team at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland; the Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It debuted earlier this month at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii."

Enjoy and be amazed.

Putting a Pin in a Decade

I've noticed individuals doing some looking-back-at-the-decade over the past week. So it got me thinking. What the deuce did happen over the past ten years?

• Bought 2 homes and sold 3 (the third was my in-laws).
• Started practicing yoga and TM
• Moved from WI to MN
• Supported farmers through CSA shares in veggies, fruit and Alaskan fish(!)
• Canoed, hiked, biked, walked and explored like crazy
• Retired from storytelling and put my Ear Ticklin' Tales to bed
• Mourned my mom; lost my sister and my father- and mother-in-law
• Survived a hell of a rare and nasty disease and feel better than ever after a gastrectomy
• Mentored and was mentored
• Re-connected to many grade school and high school classmates 
• Blogged like a maniac at Tiny Tips for Library Fun and Youth Services Shout-out blog
• Stayed in good touch with friends and family (I think)
• Started teaching online and face-to-face grad and CE classes for UW-Madison iSchool  
• Began my final children's librarian job at La Crosse Public Library & retired from it
• Was awarded Wisconsin Librarian of the Year and WI Lucy Beck Storytelling Award
• Served on the boards for the Wisconsin Library Association, ALA's Assoc. for Library Service to Children, La Crosse Storytelling Festival, 
• Stayed active as a consultant and presenter around the country

So, you know, stuff. Still blissfully and hopelessly-in-love with my wonderful and dear husband and partner Lloyd. Traveled a little. Tried to adventure every day - whether that was a hike, meeting a friend, trying something new, exploring. Worked to de-stress. Read a ton. Learned something new everyday.  Really, really, really liked retiring for the final time this year.

So like you, I spent ten years doing the stuff of life.Looking back it seems like alot but, day by day, it seemed like just enough.

Life is a river and I'm glad I swam, canoed and waded it with you all over the past decade!

Celebrating Winter Solstice

THE SHORTEST DAY
By Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen,
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing, behind us — listen!
All the long echoes sing the same delight
This shortest day
As promise wakens in the sleeping land.
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends, and hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year, and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Celebrating Holly-Days

Some of you know we are super Solstice celebrators at our house. We toss off "Happy Holidays" as our most used greeting as soon as Thanksgiving rolls around and never stop. I am forever humming and singing Irving Berlin's "Happy Holidays" and try to avoid getting huffy when people insist on telling me "Jesus is the reason for the season."  OK, no problem for you but I see it more like:

I don't often reply with that, of course; that wouldn't be very holly-day of me.

And really, whose to say what all our friends, neighbors and community members celebrate through late fall and early winter? I'd rather include than exclude.

So (no surprise again) I find all this "war on Christmas" stuff silly. I think the only war is the conflict people have within themselves to simply be kind and accept others' differences and beliefs.

I am fond of this image credited to Dave Lieberman (found on Joey DeVilla's blog a few years ago)

There's alot to be said for this. I'm all in.

Who's on First?

https://native-land.ca/?fbclid=IwAR3tpaWnZd0TXrwMJMdh2D_WIfI5ZENIymaAOxSZZ-AkObpWkxF1lISt7Tw

When Thanksgiving and Columbus Day come along, I strongly reflect on why these holidays aren't what they seem. They reflect a privileged view of the land we walk upon, live in and work on. A view that favors a white majority perspective and dismisses the people who were here first - and, despite centuries-long efforts, are still here.

We all are on the traditional and ancestral land of First Nation and indigenous peoples. Let's acknowledge that not just on holidays like these, but every day. Acknowledge, support and be allies to indigenous communities and support their lives and work now. It's important to educate ourselves on the real history of our country.

We can start by seeing where indigenous people land's were as well as their treaties and languages. Click here to access the crowd-sourced, interactive map seen above as well as explore other great resources from Native Land, a Canadian not-for-profit organization.

If you haven't already, please read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous People's History of the United States. And the 2019 adaptation of this book for youth by Jean Mendoza and Dr. Debbie Reese is an important milestone in making realistic history on indigenous peoples available to youth.

Know better, be better.

"Everything is Art"

If you haven't seen this video of dancer Lil Buck, be amazed. He started doing hip hop as an 11 year old, learned ballet as a 16 year old and here shows how art and dance are one. Thanks to my friend Alia Jones for the link.


Lil Buck with Icons Of Modern Art from NOWNESS on Vimeo.

Are We Mad to Work with Kids? [Hint:Nope]

I spent my career as a youth librarian, educator and consultant on public library youth services. Like many who have worked primarily with kids, I have always been aware of a certain...shall we say... lack of respect within the library profession for those who work with kids.

There is a tendency among some in the profession to treat youth librarians as if they are children themselves. It is a subtle and maddening prejudice that stands in the way of position promotions, raises, opportunities to lead projects and take a place at the table of leadership. Much like any form of discrimination, it forces children's librarians to prove themselves over and over, to work harder but achieve fewer rewards for it, and to have to listen to asinine people presume they know more - and better - than you despite your professional expertise.

This type of treatment is not just found in the library profession of course. The medical field, teaching; social work...whichever profession it rears its ugly head in, it often means that funds, staffing and services for children are given a lower priority. It's makes us crazy to fight battles over and over again to prove the worth of the choice to serve children.

That's why I was so excited to see the American Library Association's Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) the recent rollout of a great toolkit that really gives some needed resources to all youth librarians to stand up and advocate for the importance of not just youth services but youth services librarians.

The professionally produced resources include a video; powerpoint template to use with presentations to the community (or administration and board)  at the library; graphics to illustrate the work of youth librarianship; and ideas for programs and networking to increase understanding of youth work and more.

Every youth librarian can embrace this and use it to up advocacy for their work and for the children they serve. I applaud ALSC for this. Now let's use it!

How to Listen to Beethoven's Fifth

I recently saw this video (that has been around since 2018). While the little characters are cartoon line riders, they remind me of capped and scarfed sledders hitting the hills. Hilarious!

Snowmageddon (eyeroll) Season is About to Begin

It's Minnesota. It's November. We are on the verge of our yearly winter wonderland.

I LOLed when I ran into this lovely sarcastic and very funny graphic about regional reactions to snow. It gets at the core of all the silly snowmageddon hype that swirls around the weather as we get to winter.

Growing up in Green Bay and living in Wisconsin most of my life, snow is just a thing you live with.

The happiest people live with it well. For the active-love-to-be outside-happy people, there’re snow angels; skiing; snowshoeing; sledding; tobagganing; skating; hockey; and lots of fine shoveling. For less active happy-hygge-hibernaters, there’re tons of reading; writing; thinking; contemplating; stoked up fires; slipping outside for a moment in sub-zero temps to throw boiling water up in the air so it crystallizes as it falls; driving along "snow-peeping" at white-covered hills, trees and structures; ice falls; nestling in to wait out blizzards.

I guess I've been one of the happy ones. I love the cold crisp, allergy-less and bug-less air; dressing in layers (you can always add layers to stay warm; you can never take enough off in hot weather to get cool); snowshoeing on trails broken by deer; stretching my muscles cross country skiing with the requisite post-workout hot cocoa or tea.

Here's to winter - and to you - wherever you are during the next 4 months. May you find happiness in flakes and cold - or warm temps as the case may be. I just feel lucky to take mine cold!

So. Much.Water.

We live in a community nestled right along the Mississippi River, about a mile below Lock and Dam 7 at Dresbach MN. Our location gives us an up front and center seat to the effects of climate change.

In MN, we are experiencing our wettest year on record. The swollen Mississippi reflects that moisture. Even before last spring's snow melt the river was running unusually high and very fast. The barge shipping season was mightily delayed.

After the predicted flood stage happened in late spring and early summer the river has stayed high.  Trees on wetland near the shore and on islands and land spits have had their roots and lower trunks submerged in water for almost all of the past seven months.

The dam's gates have spent more time open than closed. The flooding has deposited alot of sand that the Army Corps of Engineers don't have enough funding to adequately dredge to keep the 9ft channel free.

We often walk down to the lock and dam to see what is happening. As we do, we reflect on all the rest of Mississippi River communities south of us who have also experienced flooding, breached levees, massive erosion and structural losses. What we are experiencing is nothing compared to them.

This is what climate change looks like at our house.

OK Boomer is OK with Me

Generations always seem to break into fragility when dissed. Words like "Unfair!" "Mean!" "Divisive" get tossed around.

I have to say I am a bit blase. People within generations tend to pass through the ages and stages in a way that repeats itself endlessly over the centuries. As we pass through them, each generation finds a way to eyeroll at those generations coming up behind and those generations on ahead. Not only eyeroll but find terms to express their disdain. I mean how is "OK Boomer" any different from the sardonically "Sure Dad" tossed off by lots of young boomers towards the Greatest Generation?

I'd argue no different at all. It's just the circle of life.

Plus I appreciate good humor and perfect on point comebacks. Clearly I rely too much on Comedy Central and memes for my edification.

OK Boomer.

Saying Goodbye to Bucky

Well, not completely....

When I re-retired this fall, I finished my teaching career. It was hard when October 20, 2019 rolled around and my UW Net ID (with access to email and my online content) finally ended after an 8 year run.

I taught at UW-Madison iSchool both as a grad school lecturer and as a CE instructor. Youth Services from a theoretical as well as practical side was my subject area - although I dabbled in leadership and management teaching too. All but one of the courses were taught online over that time.

I loved and appreciated the opportunity to teach for my alma mater and the department from which I earned my MLS.

What was best part? That's hard to say...but it included:

• faculty who welcomed me as a colleague
• being part of someone's learning journey
• staying tuned in and on top of youth services issues 
• creating course content - yes even the dreaded syllabus
• getting to watch students grow in their understanding of youth services
• reading discussion boards and assignments
• learning a ton from the students and staying on my toes because they pushed me to keep thinking

There were challenges for sure but the support I received from UW-Madison colleagues helped me through and made each course a worthwhile effort. When the time came to retire, I was hoping to teach a final semester of the youth services grad course on campus (face-to-face for only my second time). Health problems prevented me in the end. Still and all, it felt like it was the right step to finish up and let go.

I will always treasure the years I got to be an "official" Badger as an adjunct. And I still get to cheer on our great university, its faculty, staff, researchers, students and everyone involved in UW-Madison. So there's that!