When The Buckthorn Man retired early from the Quiet Company back in February 2012, he made a deal with his mate that he would help her with her business.  Pati always dreamed about taking her work as a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® and Anat Baniel Method™ for Children practitioner on the road, and she recently accepted an invitation to work with special needs children in South Africa. I’m going to put my chainsaw down for the month of May and help Pati on her big adventure.  We’ll be staying at the beautiful Umtamvuna River Lodge, just upstream from the Indian Ocean on the eastern side of South Africa.  We plan on doing a week of touring after 3 weeks of Pati’s intensive work with the children.   I can’t wait!

Is it just a coincidence that I was listening to Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs when Pati first heard about the opportunity in South Africa and decided to pursue it?  And was it just a coincidence that I listened to Mark Twain’s classic time travel novel, A Connecticut Yankee In King Aurthur’s Court, just prior to embarking on my own trip through time?   Think twice before you pick out your next book!

Well, I’m going to get my licks in on the buckthorn that is crowding the hillside on the east shore of Ottawa Lake before I go.  Anne Korman, Assistant Superintendent of the Kettle Moraine State Forest–Southern Unit, asked us to focus on the area below the handicap accessible cabin at the Ottawa Lake campground.

I’m trying to learn how to use my Canon G15 camera and accidentally left it on a weird setting, so all of my “before” shots are hopelessly blurry.  But, Dick Jenks can back me up when I say there was a lot of nasty buckthorn there.

It was a gorgeous day; perfect for cutting buckthorn!  Ben Johnson and I are planning on returning this Saturday with a brush cutter to clear the little stuff and do some piling.  The “after” pictures below are of the area around and below the cabin panning from north to south.

I was glad to have Dick Jenks and his dog Zeus there to help!

I had scheduled a week camping at My Shangri-La in April and May, but with the trip to South Africa, I’ll have to wait until August for my next reservation.  I’m looking forward to seeing the stars, skies, sunrises and sunsets from the perspective of the southern hemisphere; I’ve never been south of the equator.

From Ottawa Lake I headed over to The Springs to rake out ash rings from all the brush piles we burned.  DNR trail boss, Don Dane, is going to give us some seed to sow on the barren soil.  He also has seed for the sand prairie that we will be sowing.  Is there anything more fun than sowing seed?

I took a nice, meditative, walk after my labors were done.

See you at The Springs!