Monarch butterflies have been put on the endangered list. Folks, plant that milkweed!
Jug Rock and Hindostan Falls
After my visit to the Geode Grotto, I stopped by two other southern Indiana landmarks: Jug Rock and Hindostan Falls. First, Jug Rock. This is a sandstone formation just outside the small town of Shoals. I’ve seen it many times from the road but this was the first time I actually walked down the short path to it. When I actually stood next to it, I was surprised by how tall it was.
The Geode Grotto in Jasper, Indiana
In need of a distraction from work stress this past week, I googled “religious shrines in Indiana.” (Haven’t we all been there?) I like a beautiful religious temple, but what I really love are weird little shrines, bits of devout folk art that often fall outside religious officialdom. And there it was: the geode grotto in Jasper, Indiana. My Saturday morning was set. Like many others, I’m a lifelong Hoosier who never heard of the geode grotto.
I got a great bit of mail from @aa recently! The color of the leather coaster is beautiful. Check out his products here. He even has a snail mail list. Thank you, Aaron!
A few more plants have been added to the pond in Green Man’s Grotto. Tadpoles — both those we put in ourselves and the “wild” ones — seem to be doing well.
Last night’s concert, the good and the bad
Last night we went to Red Bicycle Hall in Madison to see John Moreland. Not the best experience. The sound mix for John Moreland never seemed right: too loud, even roaring sometimes. Unpleasant listening. And I suspect it actually was the mix because Moreland’s music is usually pretty chill. Also, several people were acting like idiots, talking loudly, moving around. Even the staff was being distracting! It felt more like “a bar that happened to have live music” than an actual concert.
Waiting for John Moreland
Speaking of Green Lung, I’m too much of a boring middle-aged CPA dad sort of human to have what the kids call an aesthetic. If I did, though, it would be “PNW hiker watching folk horror and listening to 70s psychedelic rock.”
Now spinning — though with headphones since my wife and daughter don’t exactly like psychedelic, occult, doom (what do I call them?) rock. Also, cool liner notes.
If you build it, they will come.
When we built our pond, we put in six bullfrog tadpoles and several aquatic plants from a pond supply store. Today, however, we have found at least a dozen much smaller – tiny, in fact – tadpoles in the pond. We know that a frog has been hanging out there but we don’t know if he has anything to do with this new development or if these hitched a ride on the plants from the store.