Milwaukee and family history

With my parents as guides I traveled through Milwaukee and the distant suburb of Mukwanago, birthplace of my father. Last time I'd been there it was still a hamlet with more livestock than people. Now it is a thriving (or sprawling) suburb with dozens of McMansions, foreign made SUVs, and organic food stores. My ancestorial farm, with farmhouse built by my grandfather, is still there, but my uncle who is in charge of the land wants to sell, seeing as nobody in our family is a farmer.
Behind my grandparent's house is a cool junk yard with farm equipment that dates back to the 1920s. I love huge ancient machines, looking at them is one of my favorite hobbies. It's only in old farm junk yards that you can see the really sweet stuff like steam powered tractors with giant boilers and rusty threshers whose spinning blades are completely exposed to the arms and legs of unweary farmers.
Milwaukee is a cool city. It used to be a major manufacturing hub but a lot of companies are outsourcing over seas. Nonetheless a lot of really manly factories, like the Harley-Davidson and the Craftsman Tools plants, still provide the kind of steady blue-collar work that inspires Bruce Springstein lyrics. I toured the HD museum with my parents and aunt. We saw a lot of motorcycles and my mom bought and official Harley-Davidson lense cleaner for her glasses.
On my wanderings through Milwaukee I saw both the spot where my parents met -on the beach, my dad showed my mom some rocks that make sparks when hit together- and the first house they bought together in what was then the hippie district, and is now the hipster district.
Rent is fairly inexpensive in Milwaukee because the city is on a bit of a decline, and the culture, especially the bars, is as happening as Chicago (on a Thursday night at 10pm the streets were shaking under the collective stumblings of young drunks), so I think I'll try to move there if I can find work.

Sheep and Wool Festival.

My mom is a knitting aficionado. She has had pieces in magazines and has had public showings across the midwest. On this occasion she was asked to judge the the skein competition (a skein is a pile of yarn, judged on how fluffy it is, I guess). I came with her to the show in Jefferson, WI because, what the Hell, it's not like I have a job or anything.
The show consisted of 4 areas: the merch barns where people sold smocks and stuff, the stage where they did fashion shows and sold food, the field where Border Collie trials were held, and the creature cages where the show sheep chilled. Sheep are dumb; I like sheep, but they're very dumb. The first dude I came across, a scottish flatface-fuzzkush or something, didn't like his neighbor, so he'd ram his head against the cage whenever the other sheep got close. The other sheep didn't notice and continued eating straw throughout. Later, I walked up to a ram and two lambs in a cage, intending to take a picture. As soon as they saw me, all three sheep turned around and ran into the other side of the cage, forgetting it was there I guess. Then, realizing they were trapped, ducked their heads into the straw, exposing their meaty hind quarters to me, the assumed predator. Apparently the ram forgot that his horns were on his head. With such a pathetic defense strategy, it's surprising that sheep have made it this far.
The Border Collie trials were the best part of the festival. Essentially, they released a dog and its master on to one end of a field, on the other end three sheep were positioned. The dog then herded the sheep through an obstacle course using the master's instructions, conveyed via a high pitch whistle. Border Collies are bred for intelligence, and they're trained to move close to the ground while stalking, staying in the sheep's blind spot. When commanded to "lie down" they sink into the grass so that only their ears can be seen. They run like cats, low to the ground, using their tails for balance. They're very fast; I estimated a Border Collie can run as fast as an olympic sprinter, but can keep it up for an entire day of sheparding. Border Collies are impressive animals.
Half way through the festival I got bored and went to Jefferson's downtown with my dad. We ended up at what my dad said was a typical Wisconsin bar: no windows, wood panelling, Badger football game on TV, pictures of dear and hunters in orange everywhere. We drank Guinness and came back to the fastival on woozy legs, ready to feel us some felt and watch us some hand-spinning technique demos.
We ended up spending about 8 hours at the festival total, including brunch (lamb and cheese sandwhich, kinda rubbery) and lunch (lamb hotdog, looked and tasted like a beef stick that somebody had been sitting on). I didn't find any promising job prospects, but it was a good learning experience.