Sprinkled along a twisting one hundred twenty-mile stream from the northern part of Wisconsin, south to the Wisconsin River, is the world in which I grew up — the Kickapoo Valley.
Autumn in the Kickapoo was surely painted by the brush of the Great Artist of the Heavens. The woods glowed with amber, maroon, gold, brown and dark shades of greens. An invigorating, spicy smell from decaying fallen leaves circled the inside of our nostrils. Groups of wild apple trees were visible. Either the red bottom apples had fallen or the animals had eaten them. The big full ones that hung from the top branches glistened in the sunlight.
Monarchs and other colorful butterflies fluttered everywhere. Small horsetails of citrus streamed west of the field, and blackbirds flew in thick flocks preparing for their southern trip in advance of the approaching winter.
The back woods were silent, fresh, peaceful, and pitch black just before dawn, allowing the width of the sky to be illumin ...
