The blogger at the Madison Farmers Market on a cold, rain Saturday. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

I spent this past weekend in Madison, WI. Madison is a cool place. The operative words there are “On Wisconsin.” The operative symbol is the badger. And the operative color is red. Everyone is wear red badgerphrenalia. I once made the mistake of going to a Badgers Football game in my black leather jacket. There were 80,321 people in Camp Randall Stadium that morning. 80,319 were dressed in red. But in true “Fighting Bob LaFollette” progressive fashion my wife and I were not shunned.

I took a lot of photographs in Wisconsin and I’ll be posting some of them over the next week or so. But for beginners I’d like to start with this image of me this past Saturday at the Madison Farmer’s Market. It was very cold and rainy so my red layer is beneath my rain jacket, although it is still clearly visible. So Figure 1 is your intrepid blogger and photographer camera in hand and looking very serious.

Badger, badger, badger! You might wonder where all this badgerosity comes from. Turns out that the nickname refers to the lead miners, of the 1830s. These miners worked at the Galena lead mines, which is actually in Illinois. Go Figure! The Wisconsin miners lived, not in houses, but in temporary caves that they cut into the hillsides. Not altogether the most healthful of places. These caves were described as badger dens and, the miners who lived in them, as badgers.

Oh, and in 1957 the Badger became Wisconsin’s state animal. I have never figured out why every state has to have its own animal, bird, flower, and mineral. But at least it is something for school children to remember and learn. Bucky Badger is everywhere in Madison, and he definitely has determination and attitude. In the meanwhile, I was totally delighted as I explored the galleries of Wisconsin’s State House to discover the wonderful carved badger of Figure 2 glaring down at the workings of the state. Also as it turns out the gilded statue atop the Capitol of Wisconsin by Daniel Chester French, like so many of the Badger afficianados of today sports a badger cap. Actually, in her case it is a helmet. Her arm reaches forward, in homage to the state motto, which after all is just another way of saying, “On Wisconsin!”

Figure 2 – Badger lording over the Wisconsin State House. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Canon T2i EF70-200mm f/4L USM at 70mm. ISO 3200, 1/60th sec at F/4.0 AE Aperture-priority mode no exposure compensation.  Handheld! Woot, woot!