#lovethedells

So what is (ursine) love exactly?!

That very question being put to our ursine guests, Hair Bear of the Hair Bear Bunch, and Emmy Lou, that rather gracious Southern gal ursine, on a delightfully crisp fall afternoon beside Artificial Lake Delton's legendary waters.

HAIR BEAR: To put it simply ... our mating season will pretty much be late spring into early summer, but when you're a bear, you want to make the most of it, and feel rather good about it! Ohhhh, just to feel that sensation in the loins as the magic of ejaculation releases itself for the good part of an hour with a rather fascinated female in orgy mode! How else could Nature dictate the significance of the sexual act, and how it should feel exactly? EMMY LOU: Just recognising what the feel of the love season must be like among us bears isn't exactly enough, to begin with ... us bears, when you get right down to it, could never feel more delighted than with a male close to us, releasing his Inner Need inside him and me just helping things along in our own distinctive manner, almost like those Polynesians such as one Peter Potamus likes talking about, who can't help but embrace the fun side of the sexual experience without being so unnerved over it!

(This, mind you, over cheese, crackers and sausage.)

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Talk about a sleepover, and then some!

BY THE WATERS OF ARTIFICIAL LAKE DELTON, WI: A somewhat mildish autumn evening, but not all that chilly. Yet enough to allow the windows to be open to get fresh air inside for the sake of sleep quality.

A guest room in the cabin of Crazy Claws' retreat such as needed a decent dose of Ozium air sanitiser to deal with the musty smell, odoure even.

And a modest-sized futon mattress and futon-type bedframe which would withstand yours truly, Huckleberry Hound and two rather romantic-leaning female bears of cafe au lait colour, more or less, though not quite polar bears--by names, Emmy Lou and Jenny Lee, cousins even!

And believe you me ... such rather fascinatingly lovesick bears after a Southern fashion of sorts couldn't resist some autumnal quality time down Wisconsin way. And when it's a sleepover, just expect anything to happen through the night, stimulated by much storytelling and some hot malted milk. And none of us requireth CPAP assistance for sleep, besides ... just attempt to get some pleasant thoughts into the head, even if those ursine lovebirds can't resist being as much fun-loving as desiring sex, to begin with.

Yet by the time breakfast came along the following morning (Crazy Claws fixing some malted waffles), who could have predicted where Emmy Lou and Jenny Lee had quite the love sessions with Huck and yours truly, which the ursine lovebirds admitted was perhaps some of the most delightful displays of sex they ever experienced outside of their van?

Which doubtless made the breakfast a little more delectable and easier to digest when all was said and done.

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Talk about Touché Turtle setting up a challenge!

Your typically crisp Wisconsin autumnal afternoon. The fall colour is starting to change some, but within due time, things can expect to get a little more noticeable. Not to mention the mornings starting to get cool enough to get the heater on some and soup and chili to be more or less the norm.

Which, at Crazy Claws' retreat beside the legendary waters of Artificial Lake Delton, meant something of an interesting little afternoon trying out the fencing schtick with the help of no less than Touché Turtle and his canine compadre, Dum-Dum. In fact, it was the canine who suggested teaching me a few points about fencing, followed by some light-hearted sparring with the somewhat well-meaning, if screwy, turtle forever ahead of himself, it just seemed.

Even if Touché's foil was bent close to the tip; as he explained it to me once over coffee, he purchased it on the cheap from a Hollywood theatrical prop house.

It may have taken a bit of goading after lunch this particular afternoon, but with Crazy Claws, Yakky and Chopper and Pixie and Dixie looking on in some bewilderment, yours truly received a few well-placed pointers from canine and tortuga explaining some of the basic points of fencing technique. Which, to this lion, turned out being rather different than anything he was aware of (and even though I'm right-handed, for some reason, Dum-Dum was able to find a foil which was balanced equally for both hands; Touché, for his part, can vary his fencing technique to work with either hand, depending on circumstances).

Basically, the techniques Dum-Dum and yours truly practiced were those of the lunge (drawing your foil towards the opponent), the parry (trying to counter the opponent's lunge, hopefully by getting the foil out of his hand) and the parry-riposte (which can easily get to be comically theatrical at turns); at any rate, the aim is to have the foil touch the upper body of your opponent (expect the face, arms or hands).

No El Kabong am I, mind you, but after some practice lunges with Dum-Dum, it was time to put my paces unto Touché himself.

"En garde"--crouching slightly, foil upward, feet flat on the ground, knees bent, weight on the upper leg ...

"Allez!"

Which was pretty crazy, drawing forth my foil in a lunge upon Touché, whereupon, for some reason, Touché's foil slipped from his hand. Perhaps it was the sweat and anxiety on his end that made him sense what was up. Yet Touché "himself" acknowledged I did manage to attempt a good fight, short though it was. Non-professional it may have been, but, as Touché was to explain over grilled-cheese-and-ham sandwiches and tomato soup that evening, "Snagglepuss, I have to admit, couldn't have tried harder with such a teacher as Dum-Dum!"

"And I won't blame you, Touché, for having cold feet in any event."

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Nothing like a bonfire autumnal

It was a dark and slightly damp night at Crazy Claws' retreat for fellow Funtastics in Lake Delton ... and for some reason, Crazy Claws thought it might be worthwhile to set up an autumnal-type bonfire just for the sake of relaxation and maybe swapping the odd story or two over spiced apple cider. (And I mean the real sort of apple cider, not that God-awful Alpine Instant Spiced Cider. Thankfully, by way of some Wisconsin apple orchards.)

And while the night may have been chill, not to mention (as noted earlier) damp-feeling, what better night for an autumnal bonfire could there have been, come to think of it? Decently-seasoned logs and leaves adding their own aromatic distinction to proceedings which our entire party--even the likes of Touché Turtle and Pixie and Dixie couldn't resist the feeling inherent.

Crazy Claws had me and Huckleberry preparing the apple cider in the former's kitchen, making sure the whole was decently warm and richly spiced in its own distinct way ... and just be thankful Crazy Claws keeps a stock of insulated mugs to keep the whole warm in the circumstances, and as this little bonfire gathering demonstrated, such need not be for coffee exclusively. Tea, even....

And what an enthused sort of gathering there must have been, the sort somehow eschewing the ghost stories of the Scooby-Doo sort as would otherwise be endemic to the season in favour of more interesting stuff. Like "shooting the bull" in a rather lighthearted, animated sort of way you might say.

Like, for example, Pixie and Dixie just imagining the scenes of dazed and confused cats somehow attracted to the genetically-modified catnip they planted to give Jinksie a difficult time and maybe get him to stop chasing "them meeces" all that much. Somehow, catnip can't help but get to be an addicting distraction.

And even Dum-Dum, Touché's Boon Compadre, sharing anecdotes of summers with Bristlehound on a houseboat along the Mississippi River as much "chilling out" as seeking out Friday-night fish fry of the small-town tavern sort. The kind with overly generous, all-you-can-eat portions, and just hope the French fries aren't too greasy and indigestible enough to seek out some Tums afterwards. One place in Minnesota which Dum-Dum recalled took something of great pride in hand-cutting their French fries instead of using frozen such. "Somehow," Dum-Dum remarked, "they turned out especially crispy."

Still, though, with Huck and yours truly, much of our discussion was about fantasies of just wearing wetsuits in the early morning shallows of some lake and just meditating between ourselves, as if plans for the winter dive holiday with Peter Potamus' crew of divers were still simmering like a pot of Grace Cock Flavoured Soup Mix (and I assume you've seen the memes associated with the double-entendre that the name implies, notwithstanding a prominent illustration of a chicken on the front of the packet).

"To be candid with you all," Crazy Claws remarked, "curiosity took hold of this cat and he was able to purchase a few packets of this Grace Cock Flavoured Soup online a winter or two ago, attracted by that rather coy meme playing on the suggestive-sounding name. And mind you, the soup, though a little on the spicy side, turned out to be decent. Even when you had Lipton's and Wyler's instant chicken soups to compare against."

Which certainly warmed our cockles on a misty Wisconsin fall evening sitting by the fireside. Cattanooga Cats, eat your heart out.

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The appeal of Witch's Gulch in autumn

It's not just on the Upper Dells boat tour that one can access the legendary Witch's Gulch. It turns out that there's a modest little trail off River Road to the north of Wisconsin Dells as leads to the snack bar and gift shop at same, access into said gulch requiring a separate admission for such not otherwise on the boat tour.

I, for one, mention this inasmuch as our party at the Crazy Claws retreat decided to partake of a lazy midweek afterlunch the other day at Witch's Gulch, ahead of the modest influx bound to ensue with state teachers' convention weekends in Wisconsin and Minnesota translating into an extended autumn long weekend for many in the Dells region. And bound to see some added fall-colour-related business off the boats.

Things, at any rate, must have seemed slow with the crew on what turned out to be a rather bright autumnal afterlunch, somewhat on the mild sort of things but not enoigh to dictate a sweater or wrap at the expense of a T-shirt. But most of us characters dress naturally, so we have no issues for the most part. Or would there be?

Anyhow, with the Upper Dells boats pretty much down to only three daily runs as their season winds down, and it was more or less in between port calls, we had Witch's Gulch more or less to ourselves ... and such a clean coolness to be inherent, interspersed with the sound of rushing waters in the stream below and the fall colours in their last hurrah (more or less) on the cliff tops. Oh yes, and Crazy Claws putting in the inevitable cracks about Winsome Witch taking her Saturday-night bath in the Witch's Bathtub, "where else?"

And what better place to relate pieces of ghostly tales than Spooky Lane, let alone imagining a certain Scooby-Doo and crew taking such repose from exposing "spooks" in the first place? Which certainly had Yakky Doodle making much about Fibber Fox and Alfy Gator trying to devour him without Chopper's trusty presence.

With the snack bar our rendezvous, it could just stand to reason how the Hair Bear Bunch could manage to clean out the roller grill of hot dogs (both regular and jumbo sizes), smother them in chili and cheese sauce, and wash all down with a shared half-gallon cup of soda, the snack bar staff unaccustomed to such demand to begin with and with less than an hour besides before the next tour boat makes its call requiring such a hasty preparation of the roller grill just for readiness' sake? (By contrast, Huck and yours truly were content just to sip some cappuccino.)

With that in mind ... heading back, it was thought best to maybe have as a late supper just some cheese, sausage and crackers back at the retreat. Itself quite autumnal, no?

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Homemade Breakfast Sandwiches galore!

And what more could be expected when Crazy Claws got out a microwave breakfast sandwich maker purchased at a supermarket in Wisconsin Dells some while back, some liquid egg, some pre-cooked sausage, ham, Canadian bacon even ... and some English muffins, even? (Apologies there for getting a little too giddy on the "even.")

Or, for that matter, getting into the irresistable sort of breakfast idea as was much better than the same cereals? Not to mention a decent little toaster oven to toast said English muffins quickly and effortlessly in the bargain, with just that sort of crispiness making a breakfast sandwich based on English muffins all the more so?

And let's not forget about the coffee ... or even the light touch of misty fog on Lake Delton, with that obvious smell of the fall turnover of lake waters, where the colder such closer to the bottom rise up to the surface and send the warmer waters nearer the bottom ... even the tint of autumnal brightness on the trees surrounding.

"You know, Snagglepuss," Huckleberry Hound was quick to remark over a ham and sausage breakfast sandwich, "these sandwiches are certainly an interesting change of breakfast pacing."

"How right thou art!" replied I. "And what could make it more interesting if you had some SPAM as part of the sandwich?"

To which Huck remarked, "I never thought of that prospect."

(The coffee, I have to admit, turned out rather decent ... especially coming from Cattanooga Klatsche as it did.)

Pixie and Dixie, trying not to be a problem

Considering such size as mice happen to be, it can be a little chancey trying to stay one step ahead of our mice guests, otherwise known as Pixie and Dixie, so as not to step on them unwittingly.

Which can also call to mind a certain Mr. Jinks, who forever insists that "those meeces" are pests and need to be deciated regardless of the cost or techniques used.

And especially so in a milieu such as the retreat of Crazy Claws on the legendary shores of Artificial Lake Delton near Wisconsin Dells, especially with such company as we have at the moment for the autumnal side of things. Including this mountain lion and your genial host being a bobcat ... as well as three dogs, a chivalrous-minded turtle, a baby duck and some rather crazy bears just recovering from the throes of mating season.

As if you thought The Great Grape Ape was a rather substantial problem himself because of his size, not to mention purple table grapes being his weakness....

At any rate, to avoid possible problems with Pixie and Dixie, one or two of us will volunteer to host "those meeces" by having them on their bodies crawling around and being playful in their own way, even if it means having to brush crumbs of cheese and crackers from their fur every so often, meaning "those meeces" were on the proverbial shoulders of giants (for the sake of size) ... and which Pixie and Dixie couldn't resist.

Somehow, it may not be all that easy being "those meeces"--or is it?

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What a way for summer to segue unto autumn!

Such, dear and gentle reader, is the sentiment Crazy Claws hath in explaining the, shall we say, rationale behind the Wo-Zha-Wa festival in Wisconsin Dells over the weekend just concluded.

As if our Character Convocation coincident with Wo-Zha-Wa pre-pandemic wasn't interesting and facinating enow (replete with the Cattanooga Cats pulling off a concert in the face of a light rain shower and yours truly being interviewed by Honey and Sis vis shortwave worldcast), I can't help but wait out the fall interlude into the winter ahead here at Crazy Claws' Lake Delton retreat.

Which, this year, also finds my new travelling compadre, Huckleberry Hound, as well as Yakky Doodle, Chopper, Pixie and Dixie and even Touché Turtle and Dum-Dum--oh yes, and the Hair Bear Bunch--killing some otherwise wasted late-summer/early autumn time at the Dells region's autumnal confab. And for some reason, our appearance tends to be one of mixing it up with visitors as much along The Broadway as at the arts and crafts fair at Bowman Park.

For the madcap ursine trio of Hair, Square and Bubi, for some reason "meet-and-greets" seem to be more the fashion with them. Many of you must be amused with their parade appearances in walkabout, posing for photos or selfies and requesting autographs--bear hugs, even!--which can certainly make them crowd favourites. And even if it was over some burgers at the legendary Monk's Bar, the crowds couldn't certainly resist their presence as much as mine.

Or even on Sunday morning at Mr. Pancake; who could find their pancakes and waffles all the more irresistable, washed down with some rather decent coffee, tea even, prior to the parade?! Or even before the parade downtown, when Touché and Dum-Dum pulled off a few sparring matches with the fencing foils to the amusement of spectators?

Yet one rather interesting thing was to ensue out of the Sunday: getting some soup done up in the slow cooker for the sundown dinner, replete with some crusty-like ciabattas to dunk in the soup. How else to kill time on a somewhat autumnal-type Sunday in Wisconsin?

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