Madison Locally Sourced - May-June 2024

Village People

Neal McCoy

Linda Walker, Barbara Wilson administration

Lisa Abler, Olivia Seehafer

contributing writers

Jeanne Engle, Cara Erickson, Chris Gargan, Lori Scarlett, DVM photographer

Eric Tadsen

additional photographs

Vince Aiello, Aldo Leopold Nature Center, Dr. David Geary, Gretchen La Budde, Christine Tanzer, Dominique Taquet, Shelly Torkelson

Watch for the next issue JUL-AUG 2024

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If you ask family and friends to share their wellness rituals, you’ll certainly receive a wide variety of responses. From healthy eating to fitness activities to self-care to annual medical checkups, most have established routines that fit their individual comfort levels.

Something a lot of people, including myself, have incorporated into their efforts to achieve and maintain wellness is a regular chiropractic care regimen. What started for me as something to specifically address an injury expanded into a sustaining practice to feel my best. We talk with Dr. Sarah Nelson, DC, of Quick Fix After Hours Chiropractic, who, in sharing her motivations, includes the importance of getting to know and connect with her patients, encouraging them to better understand and listen to their own bodies in achieving their best health.

Often top of the list for individuals when considering wellness is eating. I first became acquainted with David Pedersen and Bazile Booth and their soup through the annual Soup’s On! event. Their soups are nutritionally focused and vegetarian, sometimes vegan, and the consensus is that they’re delicious. Of course, you can also purchase their soup outside the event, and be sure to visit their Spring Green bakery and retail store, Sky Blue Pink.

cover photograph

Taken by Shelly Torkelson

photographs on page 3 (top left to right):

Taken by Vince Aiello

Provided by Aldo Leopold Nature Center (bottom left to right):

Sugar Free Granola garnished with yogurt and blueberries from Soups I Did It Again/ Sky Blue Pink

taken by Eric Tadsen Sosa at Audrey’s by Dominique Taquet

Last year, we shared field trip opportunities available through Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, and they’re back with more in 2024, including seven foraging excursions taking place May through October in Arena, Cross Plains, Madison, Mount Vernon, and Verona. Take note of their dates, times, and locations at the end of the article. Each will be a unique experience, so go to as many as you can!

To help Aldo Leopold Nature Center celebrate 30 years, you can plan multiple trips to explore their nature trails in Monona. Aldo Leopold Nature Center has 20 acres for you to discover on paths that wind through native Wisconsin prairie, woodland, and wetland habitats.

We also share stories about the Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic building and artist Dominique Taquet, and Dr. Lori Scarlett, DVM, dares to discuss pet owners’ least favorite topic: diarrhea. It had to happen sometime.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy spring!

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Savory Scones – caramelized shallot, fresh herbs, cheese, Meadowlark Mills flour

Soups I Did It Again and Sky Blue Pink 23 Years in the Making

by Kyle Jacobson

Tale as old as time—boy meets girl, nothing happens, boy meets girl again, nothing happens again, a couple of decades go by, boy meets girl yet again, they decide they love each other and open a business together. Sounds more like a will they/won’t they sitcom than a Disney movie, but that’s the Bazile Booth and David Pedersen story, which means it’s the story for Soups I Did It Again, their frozen soup company, and Sky Blue Pink, their bakery and retail store.

So where to start? Maybe in California, where David was a self-proclaimed

“wiry little shit. ... I got hooked into a restaurant where, on Saturday night twice a year, they plop this large man down and set up a couple of buckets and a picnic table right in the middle of the kitchen. This big, well-dressed man would come and flip his tie up and put a napkin on. They just served him off the grill and everything. I was like, ‘Who is this guy in my way?’

“I’m trying to hustle and do my job, and the chef [Judy Rodgers of Zuni Café, San Francisco] was like, ‘That’s James Beard. You probably don’t know who that is, but

keep your mouth shut.’ I was in this very pedigree kitchen, and I had no idea. I just did drugs and worked enthusiastically.”

It was, in fact, David’s connections in California that aided him in becoming the chef he is today, working with Weary Traveler; Roman Candle; Sophia’s; Lazy Jane’s; and L’Etoile, where he met Odessa Piper. “She’d pick me up now and then when she needed a serious workhorse in the kitchen who can get things done.”

Now we fade out of California and into Boulder, Colorado, where Bazile grew

Our Best Loved Dal vegan soup

up on sprout sandwiches and soy milk. She eventually traded in a view of the Rockies for the green hills of southern Wisconsin and was faced with a careerdefining decision. “Before I entered into graduate school for social work, I was really in a quandary,” says Bazile. “Do I go to culinary school, or do I become a social worker? I decided to go with social work, but I’ve always cooked for entertaining, for my own nutrition, and to share food with other people.”

Bazile’s work would set a tone for her and David’s business ventures as well as provide an opportunity to grow familiar with holistic medicine and curative nutrition through her work at Community Pharmacy in Madison.

Which brings us to Madison sometime in the past when David was working at Taqueria Gila Monster. “It was the first place I laid eyes on David,” says Bazile. Wait, wait. Fast forward 18 years. Bazile is occasionally asking David over, but the stars never aligned because that’s not how space works. It is, however, how the perspective of love works.

“David made his mushroom cactus tamales, and we went to see a performance at the American Players

Theatre,” says Bazile. “And that was it. First date, and then we walked the grounds of Taliesin at night, and a bat hit me in the head. We were like, that seals the deal. We should be together.”

Aside from the date and a visit from the Prince of Darkness, Taliesin played a pivotal role in David’s career. Odessa had started a food artisan program and wanted David to be one of the instructors. David was soon working his dream job, teaching cooking in the Driftless Region. Unfortunately, it would be short lived. The School of Architecture closed in 2019 when COVID tested the collective patience and wisdom of neighbors and strangers.

But it wasn’t all gloomy doomy. Unbeknownst to David, a seed had been planted six years prior by Lindsey Lee of Cargo Coffee, and, as it goes, the storm that was the pandemic provided the imperfect conditions for perfect timing. “Lindsey was building Cargo East, just opening it,” says David. “I came by one day, and he was like, ‘Catch me up on all the gossip,’ as he ate a bowl of soup. ‘I’ve just had my head in this. I have no idea what’s going on in town, and you’re a blabbermouth.’ I was yakking with him, and he said, ‘This soup I’m eating is

Focaccia – caramelized shallot, cherry tomatoes, Kalamata olives, fresh herbs, Meadowlark Mills flour

Frittata – butternut squash, onion, sweet peppers, red chard, Sassy Cow cream, eggs, two cheeses

terrible. Why don’t you make my soup, and I’ll carry it here.’ ... I pulled back on the idea of opening it until I found a good business partner and life partner.” It wasn’t until 2020 that Bazile and David created Soups I Did It Again in Spring Green.

As for the soup itself, thanks to the social and health mindfulness of Bazile and the kitchen acumen of David, the product works on several levels. Every option is vegetarian, and many are vegan friendly. They’re nutritionally dense and can be watered down to stretch the quantity without sacrificing flavor, providing less-

fortunate families a delicious, healthy option that lasts for days. Alternatively, if you like thick soup, they’re ready to go. As Bazile says, “We don’t want to sell you frozen water.”

Soon after Soups I Did It Again was born, a retail space came into the picture. Bazile says, “To be cliché, it grew organically.” The old Brewhaha and Sidney Bakes site in Spring Green was up for grabs, and the two took their shot. David says, “We bought all of Enos’ kitchen equipment, and we’re building it into the new space, so we’ll have a soup factory there within a year. Eventually, we’d like to attract like-minded folks and turn it into a local foods co-op sort of thing.”

The couple dubbed the retail space Sky Blue Pink, where they currently show off some of their baked goods in addition to their soups. You’ll find David’s scones and Bazile’s gluten-free cheese puffs, made with tapioca flour, along with other pastries, baked goods, granola, coffee, frittata, and good conversation.

There’s a lot more to the Bazile and David story, like them both serving as volunteer EMTs and David’s rehab journey, so I encourage you to make the trip to Sky Blue Pink. A conversation with the couple is akin to a conversation with old friends—complete with lighthearted back and forths a la Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . As Bazile says, “We’re not spring chickens, even though we’re in Spring Green. We’re not your typical Britney Spears reference people, but that makes it even more fun.”

Sky Blue Pink/SIDIA

176 S. Washington Street, Spring Green, WI 53588 soupedusoir.com

Soups I Did It Again available at Sky Blue Pink and other Greater Madison venders as well as through Dane Buy Local’s Soup’s On!. We deliver to your home on Mondays (Greater Madison area).

Páo de Queijo – Bazile’s version of traditional Brazilian Cheese Bread, gluten free with tapioca flour and local cheese curds (Cedar Grove)

Photograph by Barbara Wilson

Kyle Jacobson

Kyle Jacobson is a writer who had Britney Spears stickers on the frame of his BMX bike when he was in middle school.

Photographs by Eric Tadsen

Building A Legacy

30 YEARS OF ALDO LEOPOLD NATURE CENTER

by Cara Erickson

If you’ve ever hiked the trails of the Aldo Leopold Nature Center (ALNC), you know that nature abounds, as does the recognition that this land is to be experienced and enjoyed. Tucked behind the hill, with paths winding through native Wisconsin prairie, woodland, and wetland habitats, Monona’s hidden gem gives a sense that the city has faded away. As ALNC celebrates 30 years of children’s environmental education this year, the organization is setting the course for its next 30.

Often overlooked by those outside of Monona, what makes this place so special is that it’s everyone’s to experience. The trails of ALNC are public land thanks to the efforts of concerned Monona residents who came together 30 years ago to petition the City of Monona to purchase the land. It’s thanks to this group and the residents of Monona who voted to save the land from development that the 20 acres where ALNC is located, as well as Woodland Park, the beautiful oak savanna hill on which the Monona water towers sit, were preserved as wild spaces for all to enjoy.

This land, of course, has always been special. The HoChunk, on whose ancestral land Madison and Monona are built, stewarded this land for thousands of years prior to settler colonization. According to early land surveys,

this property and surrounding areas hosted a major Native American trail through at least the mid-19th century. Mounds can also be found in the adjacent green spaces of Woodland Park and Edna Taylor Conservation Park. Following the forced removal of the HoChunk from this land by the expanding United States, others left their legacy on this land, including European immigrant farmers who plowed the land and grew crops where ALNC now sits.

In the early 1920s, a Madison doctor named Louis Head purchased the land and opened Morningside Tuberculosis Sanitarium, which served as a healing sanctuary for over 50 years. When the sanitarium closed in the 1970s, the land was preserved through a private foundation, and the L.R. Head Nature Center was created where the sanitarium’s 20-acre manicured gardens and grounds once stood. A predecessor to ALNC, its mission was to provide environmental education for area schools and further the principles of famed 20thcentury Wisconsin conservationist Aldo Leopold. The L.R. Head Nature Center operated for 25 years and hosted 7,500 school children at its peak.

When the L.R. Head Nature Center closed in the early 90s, the land was sold and slated for development to become homes, condominiums, and

The organization has grown from serving 4,000 visitors a year in 1994 to over 80,000 school-aged children, their families, and community members annually. ALNC’s first building.

businesses; however, those who came to love the land and its wild inhabitants knew it must be conserved. That’s when many passionate and forward-thinking Monona residents organized a campaign to save it. After extensive negotiations, the City of Monona purchased the land with the stipulation that a nature center be located on the site.

In 1994, a group of dedicated local supporters, including Leopold’s eldest daughter, Nina Leopold Bradley; Madison business leader and philanthropist Terry Kelly; and a board of directors, incorporated ALNC as a

501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to, in the words of Leopold, “teach the student to see the land, understand what he sees, and enjoy what he understands.” Around this time, ALNC also spearheaded Nature Net, which continues to connect regional environmental education providers and resources with schools and families around Wisconsin.

Since its humble beginnings in a converted greenhouse, countless connections have been sparked over ALNC’s 30 years. The organization has grown from serving 4,000 visitors a year in 1994 to over 80,000 school-aged children, their families, and community members annually. During this time,

By bridging barriers, the organization is changing the narrative about who has access to environmental education.

ALNC’s programs and offerings also evolved as dedicated staff, board, and community stakeholders worked together to expand summer camp and field trip programs and add a wide variety of opportunities for kids, their families, teachers, and community members to connect with the natural world.

Clear evidence of this evolution is the opening of the Aldo Leopold Nature Preschool, in 2019, providing outdoor and indoor environments rich in handson materials, literature, and openended play time, encouraging wonder, discovery, experimentation, invention, creation, and the opportunity to see the results of one’s actions. That same year, the nonprofit remodeled its outdated and partially defunct Climate Science Center into indoor and outdoor classrooms, filling the organization’s need of nature-accessible teaching space for expanding programming.

Today, the work of the ALNC stands at the intersection of environmental education, children’s health, and childcare. The organization knows that early childhood experiences set individuals up for success throughout their lives and believes the benefits of connecting with and learning about the natural world are essential to humanity’s

success, making time spent outdoors vital to our existence.

Unfortunately, in today’s fast-paced world, opportunities to connect with nature are not equally distributed—time, money, language, and transportation can all be barriers to spending time outdoors. Through subsidized school field trips, sliding scale tuition, and annual free programming, ALNC is striving to reduce the financial barriers families face in connecting with ALNC’s programs. And by bringing programs On the Road—such as through a unique partnership with Madison Metropolitan School District’s Play & Learn, providing transportation to kids in after-school programming, and offering materials in multiple languages—ALNC is working hard to eliminate each of these barriers.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of ALNC, and the organization is celebrating its lasting success and planning for future sustainability by cementing access initiatives into its business model. ALNC is not the same nature center it was 30 years ago, nor will it be the same nature center 30 years into the future. By bridging barriers, the organization is changing the narrative about who has access to environmental education, addressing two of the greatest and inextricably linked challenges today: the health of our children and the health of our planet.

ALNC is located at 330 Femrite Drive in Monona. For more information, please visit aldoleopoldnaturecenter.org.

Cara Erickson is the marketing and communications manager at the Aldo Leopold Nature Center.

Photographs provided by the Aldo Leopold Nature Center

Cara Erickson

Quick Fix After Hours CHIROPRACTIC

by Kyle Jacobson

Dr. Sarah Nelson, DC, knew she wanted to help people when she chose to become an HMO doctor. What she wasn’t expecting was how little of her time would be spent connecting with patients and getting to know them. Sure, every job has its downsides, but Sarah wanted to actually touch the lives or her patients— with their permission, of course.

“I was grateful to find my niche early on. In fact, when I went to chiropractic school, I’d only been to a chiropractor a couple of times, but I liked the concept of hands-on healing. It was back when super bugs were first making their come out. I knew I wanted to be a physician, but I didn’t want to do anything that was related to prescribing meds all day.

“At first, I thought I wanted to be an orthodontist. I did a mentoring program, which I recommend everyone do, even if they’re an adult. So I followed this orthodontist around, and about 30 seconds in, I realized this isn’t what I wanted to do because there’s

no interaction with your patient. And I realized that’s something I crave.”

Of all the layers to chiropractic care, I don’t think there’s one that hasn’t sparked some curiosity in Sarah. Just learning about the similarities and differences between every body has provided Sarah a better picture of why treatments work for one person with a particular issue and not another with the same. It’s like having three ’97 Honda Civics that all have similar steering issues, but one is a daily driver, another is used for autocross, and the third has sat around in the corner of someone’s yard for the better part of 27 years. Each car can be fixed, but not in exactly the same way.

What she really urges each of her patients do is to learn about their own bodies

so they can better understand what it’s telling them. “There’s a disconnect. I think that’s one of the reasons I like yoga so much. It’s a check-in. Then you’re not letting your body get out of control. I see that in my office all the time where you get back pain, and then you’re not moving as much; when you don’t move as much, you gain weight; when you gain weight, your back hurts more. It’s this positive feedback loop that just spirals downward. ... Listen to your body when it’s speaking to you before it’s screaming at you.”

When a person knows their body, they’re also able to stop seeing each instance of pain as a personal attack. It becomes easier to connect the dots and take accountability for what they’re going through. “Even when I got sick recently, I think, ‘Well, I pulled some all-nighters.

•

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Happy

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I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m eating gluten and doing all these things I don’t normally do. No wonder my body was in a state of being receptive to a virus. There’s accountability there.”

That personal accountability translates strongly to the athletes she sees. With a greater demand of their bodies, athletes typically have a high respect for the work it takes to return and keep their bodies in optimal condition. Sarah points out that a lot of patients misattribute their alleviated pain as an indication they can return to using their body as normal even when she warns them not to, and athletes have a lot to lose if they go into remission. Amusingly, Sarah points out that the size of the athlete is no indication of what techniques will work on their body.

“I see a lot of the UW guys, like linemen. They’re 315, 330, 350, so you’re thinking I’m going to have to throw them around, which for the most part I usually do. But some of them, there are different areas I have to be super gentle on. It’s a better approach for whatever they

have, and you only learn that through communication with the patient.”

Obviously, a grunt, wince, or just being tense in a veil of sweat informs Sarah that what she’s doing is probably making the patient uncomfortable. Not so obvious to every patient is that it’s really important to speak up when something

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hurts or is too rough. It seems we’re trained to believe that the doctor always knows what’s best, so we fight through a procedure if there’s pain, believing we’ll come out the other end better for it. But in the world of biomechanical problems, that’s not usually the case.

Overall health often equates to comfort, both mental and physical. Being able to move confidently and having that confidence validated is something Sarah strives for everyone who sees her to achieve. Having worked with so many other health professionals, including those who utilize her services, means when she can’t help a patient, she can refer them to another professional who can.

The end goal is simple: everyone deserves to enjoy life to the fullest and be present in life’s most spontaneous and endearing moments. Sarah certainly practices what she preaches, and has amassed a broad collection of memories, many involving her late mom, a professional vocalist. For example, when Sarah took up learning the drums on a whim, she actually kept the drum set at her clinic. One of her

more stoic patients, who she’d known forever, saw the drum set and lit up. “He starts playing, and it was warm out. So I opened the door, and all these people start coming in. ... I said, ‘One of these nights, if you want to stop by and be the last patient, I’ll call my mom in, and she can sing with you.” They sat out and played her mom’s favorite songs all night, including Johnny Cash’s “Jackson” and Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Sarah’s beliefs might not jive with everyone, and she’s okay with that. She suggests patients take the time to find a chiropractor whose philosophies best line up with their own. That said, Sarah is always going to do what it takes to make her patients feel welcome. “I might be too hippy for some people, but I can meet them where they need me to be.” So if you see her truck outside, whether you’re a new patient or a regular, pop your head in and say hey. She might be closed, but she’s always ready to make time.

QUICK FIX AFTER HOURS CHIROPRACTIC

5124 Farwell Street

McFarland, WI 53558

(608) 279-7560

quickfixchiro.com

Kyle Jacobson is a writer who puts his pants on just like everyone else—as rarely as possible.

Photographs by Eric Tadsen

Photograph by Barbara Wilson

Kyle Jacobson

See What You Can FIND

by Kyle Jacobson

Have you ever come across an unknown plant or mushroom while hiking and wondered whether or not it’s safe to stick it in your mouth? Well wonder no more. In our July-August 2023 issue, we discussed the various field trips offered through the Natural Resources Foundation (NRF) of Wisconsin, and this year, they have seven hands-on foraging trips where you’ll learn what’s edible, medicinal, and otherwise beneficial.

These field trips, including Introduction to Foraging, are meant to give all levels of foragers tips and tricks when it comes to identifying desirable fungi, plants, nuts, and berries. Trip leader, herbalist, and forager Vince Aiello (fireandforaging .com) says, “There’s hundreds and hundreds of plants you can pick throughout the season. The spring is

clearly the best for greens, berries come in the midsummer, and in the fall are nuts and all kinds of mushrooms.”

Even if you’re all about the mushroom hunt, Vince makes a good case to sign up for a springtime foraging field trip. “I’ve made a salad with basswood leaves, they’re just delicious; violet leaves; winter cress; watercress. You can make a full-on salad with wild lettuce. The wild lettuce you get is the forerunner to the lettuce you get in the grocery store. It looks like looseleaf lettuce; it grows on a tall stem.”

You’ll also learn about the ubiquitous flowers, needles, and berries that make brilliant fresh teas. Vince is quick to point out that whatever you’re eating in nature has roughly three to four times

the nutrient density of the commercially grown food you’ll find in the grocery store. You can save a little money by just foraging in your backyard.

“Violet, mitsuba, wood sorrel: these are probably growing in your backyard,” says Vince. “Just go out and grab them to bring your salad to the next level. Dandelions are probably the best plant you can eat. It’s antiviral. It’s really rich in nutrients. You can eat the flowers. You can eat them when they first come out, and they’re like artichokes. You can eat everything on them. You could dig out the roots in the fall and make a coffee out of it.”

All that said, mushrooms really are what get a lot of people excited about foraging in the first place. There’s something alien

Photograph by Vince Aiello

about them that really draws people in, and there’s still so much we have to learn about their uses beyond the culinary. Aside from morels, if it’s mushrooms you’re looking for, fall is your best bet.

“You have hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, and there’s one called shrimp of the woods,” says Vince. “Shrimp of the woods is bizarre. It starts off as one kind of fungus and gets the spores of another one into it and has what they call an abortion—it’s an abortive entoloma. If you battered it up and ate it with cocktail sauce, you’d have a hard time not believing it’s some kind of shrimp. We found pounds of them on other walks I’ve led.

“I don’t just talk about edible plants, but I talk about medicinal as well. There’s one called gravel root. Years ago, I was on a plant walk and this herbalist said it gets gravel out of your body. I thought, ‘What does that even mean?’ Of course, somebody asked, and the herbalist said, ‘Stones. Gall stones. Kidney stones.’ I like to present it that same way and make the walks fun and exciting.”

Alongside the known benefits of plants like yarrow and jewel weed, the former great for healing cuts and the latter for poison ivy, bee stings, and sunburns, Vince believes there’s a good chance the next century of medical breakthroughs

will come from mushrooms. They not only improve gut and brain health, but “there’s this factor in mushrooms called TNF (tumor necrosis factor) which actually starves off tumor cells. The

The more you start digging into the crazier it becomes . mushrooms,

Photograph by Gretchen La Budde

Photograph by Vince Aiello

Photograph by Christine Tanzer

more you start digging into mushrooms, the crazier it becomes.”

With so much around, it might be easy to get carried away, which brings up ethical foraging. Gathering mushrooms and berries? Go nuts...I mean take a meal’s worth. Bushes and mycelia produce what they produce before the fruits and fruiting bodies rot away. When it comes to the green stuff, try to only take around 10 percent so you don’t deplete the area. As Vince says, “Foraging is environmental stewardship at the individual level.” Also, be sure you have permission to forage on private land or in a state natural area.

This article is in no way a substitute for the real thing, and the best way to forage is to get out there and do it. Once you’re a

member of NRF of Wisconsin, it’s easier than ever to find the right field trip for you thanks to the new online tool, which features a clickable map showing where and when field trips take place. You’ll also receive a guidebook in the mail with a passcode on the back, which is used for registration.

Kim Kreitinger, NRF of Wisconsin field trip coordinator, says, “The field trip program is super popular, so a lot of the trips fill up pretty quickly. Having said that, there are always a lot of good trips that have openings, and that’s something we highlight throughout the season. ... We are trying to be more accessible to all people, all abilities, and all income levels.” Now is the right time to find the field trip for you and enjoy so much of what Wisconsin has to offer.

Kyle Jacobson is a writer who can’t see the fungi for the flora.

Forest Bathing & Foraging:

Donald Park in Mount Vernon

Sunday, May 19

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Leaders: Kate Bast & Vince Aiello

Introduction to Foraging at Festge County Park in Cross Plains

Saturday, May 25

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Saturday, June 8

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Saturday, September 7

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Leader: Chris Gavin

Olson Oak Woods Mushroom Foray in Verona

Saturday, June 22

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Leader: Jessica Ross

Foraging for Wild Edible Plants in Arena

Saturday, August 3

9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Leaders: Kelly Kearns & Kate Cooper

Forest Bathing & Foraging: Hoyt Park in Madison

Sunday, October 13

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Leaders: Kate Bast & Vince Aiello

Find out more at wisconservation.org.

Photograph by Barbara Wilson

Kyle Jacobson

Photograph by Vince Aiello

Photograph by Vince Aiello

Painting by Natalie Jo Wright, Instagram

The Thing Pet Owners Dread Most DIARRHEA

by Lori Scarlett, DVM

There’s not much worse than coming home to diarrhea piles all over the house. The smell, the mess, the cleaning, not to mention your dog or cat not feeling well. How do you get it to stop?

There are two broad diarrhea categories, small bowel and large bowel, and there can be overlap between the two. The large bowel, or colon, is responsible for absorbing water from feces and moving it back into the bloodstream. When there’s colon inflammation (also known as colitis), there’s reduced water absorption and decreased ability to store feces. Thus, there’s an urgency to poop more frequently, and the stool is typically cow pie in consistency. Inflammation in the colon leads to mucus formation, and the diarrhea often looks slimy or gelatinous. Bleeding can occur as well, and since it’s in the colon, blood seen in the stool will be bright red. Animals with colitis frequently strain to poop, which some owners mistake for constipation since there may be no more stool coming out.

The small intestines move water from the bloodstream into the intestinal tract to help break down food. They also absorb nutrients and start to resorb some of the water as feces get closer to the colon. Diarrhea due to small intestinal inflammation produces a more watery

stool with no mucus. If there’s blood, it will be dark red or tarry in appearance. Most animals with small bowel diarrhea don’t need to poop more frequently and don’t usually strain to poop.

The most common type of diarrhea we see in dogs is large bowel diarrhea. There are a number of different causes, but most are easily treated or self-limiting. For example, stress. Boarding facilities, separation anxiety, and thunderstorm

phobia can all contribute to stress, which can lead to colitis. But the most common reason for colitis is the dog eating something that didn’t agree with them. This could be a new food or treat, something dropped from the table, or something found outside. Generally, for dietary indiscretion, I recommend withholding food for 12 to 24 hours followed by feeding small meals of something easily digested. The best food is a prescription diet made for diarrhea,

as these foods contain water-absorbing fiber to help stop the diarrhea quickly while providing nutrients that are lost in the stool.

In a pinch, you can make something at home. The basic recipe is three parts boiled white rice or boiled white pasta to one part boiled, skinless chicken breast (or boiled then rinsed hamburger). This special diet is fed in several small meals per day for a couple of days until the stool becomes formed, then the normal diet is gradually introduced over another two days. Your vet can provide gastrointestinal food as well as medication that may help stop diarrhea more quickly.

If your pet is still having soft stools, the next step is to take a sample to your vet (they love it when you collect it in a sealed plastic bag then put that into a gift bag, but you only need to bring in a couple of tablespoons!) so they can check it for intestinal parasites and Giardia . If you have a puppy with diarrhea that also has low energy, possibly vomiting, and hasn’t been fully vaccinated, please take your pup to your vet or an emergency vet quickly. The cause may be parvovirus, and puppies can quickly dehydrate and die. There are other causes of large bowel diarrhea, so if your dog isn’t improving and the fecal sample is negative for parasites, your veterinarian will have other tests and therapeutic trials to reach a diagnosis.

Small bowel diarrhea can have many different causes, making it challenging to diagnose and treat. Intestinal parasites can be a cause, so it’s always best to start by bringing a fecal sample to your vet for analysis. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), similar to IBS in humans, is a common cause. It could be due to a food ingredient sensitivity (generally a protein), which can show up at any time. If your vet suspects IBD, they will recommend a therapeutic diet trial, where you feed one specific diet (usually a prescription hydrolyzed protein diet or limited ingredient diet) for 8 to 12 weeks to see if the diarrhea improves. If you’re doing one of these diets, it’s very important that the pet get no other food, treats, or bones, as the offending ingredient could be found in anything.

Small bowel diarrhea that comes and goes could be a sign of Addison’s disease. This might be the cause if your dog tends to have diarrhea after a stressful event: going to the groomer, being left at home, going to the vet, etc. A blood test for resting cortisol (a steroid made in the body) can help rule this out or determine if further testing is required.

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI), where the pancreas isn’t producing normal enzymes that break down food, will also cause small bowel diarrhea.

Dogs with EPI are always thin, as their intestines aren’t absorbing the nutrients from the food they eat, and the diarrhea can be greasy looking and smell really bad (even worse than “normal” diarrhea). EPI is diagnosed with a blood test, and treatment consists of mixing pancreatic enzymes with the dog’s food at each meal.

If your pet has diarrhea, it’s worth trying to figure out what category it falls into. Purina has a Fecal Scoring Chart you can

find online that helps you grade the poop from 1 (small and hard) to 7 (watery with no texture) and lists the characteristics of large and small bowel diarrhea. If you think the diarrhea is mostly large bowel, then a few days of home care may be all that is needed. But if the diarrhea doesn’t improve or you think it could be small bowel diarrhea, then make an appointment with your vet. And don’t forget the gift bag!

Lori Scarlett, DVM, is the owner and veterinarian at Four Lakes Veterinary Clinic. For more information, visit fourlakesvet.com.

Dr. Lori Scarlett

Body and Architecture

GONSTEAD CLINIC OF CHIROPRACTIC

by Jeanne Engle

The story of how a clinic in the small village of Mount Horeb rivaled the Mayo Clinic in the world of chiropractic is the story of Dr. Clarence S. Gonstead, a farm boy who grew up in rural Dane County. Clarence was born in 1898 in South Dakota. His family moved to Dane County some 10 miles from Mount Horeb, where his father took up dairy farming. The farm gave Clarence opportunities to study mechanics by repairing tractors and early automobiles.

As a young adult, Clarence contracted rheumatoid arthritis and was left unable to walk. After treatment by medical doctors and showing no signs of improvement, his aunt took Clarence to her chiropractor, who had been trained at the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. The school had been founded by D. D. Palmer, who is credited with originating the practice of chiropractic. Clarence’s life was changed by the chiropractor—he could walk again and was motivated to pursue a chiropractic career. After graduating

from the Palmer School, he opened the Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic in Mount Horeb in 1924. He practiced until his death, in 1978.

According to Dr. Thomas Potisk, a chiropractor trained in Clarence’s methods and the clinic’s unofficial historian, what Clarence learned mechanically while working on the farm, he applied to chiropractic. Clarence advocated a hands-on approach and invented equipment to help his patients. His Nervo-Scope® is still used to measure minute heat differences in the tissues along the spine to establish where pressure is on nerves. Clarence put forward that the discs between vertebrae were the primary culprit of nerve pressure. Later, his ideas would become recognized as a model for understanding back pain.

When his practice outgrew his office space, Clarence built a new ultra-modern chiropractic office in 1939 to serve patients from all over the Midwest who

learned of his methods through word of mouth. He worked six and a half days a week to accommodate all who came to him. Clarence “was up with the milkman and stayed until midnight and beyond, if needed,” says Dr. David Geary, Gonstead-trained chiropractor and current president of the C. S. Gonstead Chiropractic Foundation, which currently owns the building as well as the practice. “He would make house calls to see patients who were unable come to the clinic. His wife, Elvira, drove while he slept.” Soon, Clarence’s successes with his patients attracted the attention of other chiropractors. In the mid-1950s, Clarence began seminars and traveled across the country to teach his methods. To this day, seminars are offered around the world through two main Gonstad organizations: the nonprofit Gonstead Methodology Institute (GMI) and Gonstead Seminars.

As he was called to treat patients farther and farther away from Mount Horeb, Clarence learned how to fly an airplane and built himself an airstrip near his home in the mid-1950s. Some of his patients even flew themselves in for treatment.

Yet again, he needed to expand his facility. In 1964, the new Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic was built just outside the village boundary at 1505 Springdale Street, which is inside the village limits today. John W. Steinmann

from Monticello was the architect. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places last year.

The brick- and glass-clad Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic building “has a Y-plan that, from above, reveals itself to be an abstract representation of the human spinal column, with the widest portion forming the head and shoulders and the narrowest portion, the spine,” as described in the Register nomination. The main reception area, offices, and adjusting rooms are in the widest section, the head and shoulders, while the spine contains more offices, adjusting rooms, dressing rooms, and specialized clinical spaces.

The spacious reception area was able to accommodate 100 patients when the clinic was its busiest. That was before more chiropractors were trained in the Gonstead method, so patients didn’t have to travel to Mount Horeb for treatment.

According to the Register nomination, the clinic is a “very fine example of contemporary style design that contains elements of the Wrightian style.” While the clinic was not designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as Clarence would’ve wanted, according to Thomas, Clarence’s home was designed by a Wright apprentice, Herb Fritz.

The Register nomination notes “the building’s most distinctive feature is its complex multigable roof, which created seven shallow-pitched gable ends on each of its two side elevations and three larger shallow-pitched gable ends across the side of its main façade.” A basement in the building includes the Gonstead Hall of History. Educational facilities are also located on the lower level. Seminars offered through GMI are taught there four times a year.

David appreciates the layout of the building and the beauty of its architectural

design. Thirty years ago, the building was in need of major repairs when it was taken over by the Foundation. A fundraising campaign was undertaken. Two major benefactors, along with Gonstead practitioners, donated the money needed for the restoration.

But the restoration is not finished. Currently, bathroom renovation is underway—six bathrooms, upstairs and downstairs. The goal is to stay true to the mid-century modern look. The challenge is to ensure the tile in the bathrooms, while not exactly a match to what was installed 60 years ago, has the same look and feel of the 1960s.

One other project David would like to see completed is the renovation of the Karakahl Inn. Originally Karakahl Motor Hotel, the inn was built by Clarence in 1965 for patients and those accompanying them to have a place to stay when they came to Mount Horeb. Part of the inn was torn down and replaced by a Walgreens. The Inn suffered a fire in April 2023 and was deemed uninhabitable.

The Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic is open to the public for self-guided tours of the building’s architecture. Visitors are encouraged to call (608) 437-5585 before coming to Mount Horeb.

Jeanne Engle is a freelance writer.

Photographs provided by Dr. David Geary.

One other building designed by John Steinmann is the Wisconsin Pavilion, exhibited at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. The pavilion is a modernistic style rotunda shaped like a teepee and on the National Register of Historic Places. It was dismantled following the fair and reconstructed at 1201 E. Division Street in Neillsville. The structure is currently owned by Central Wisconsin Broadcasting Inc. Open seven days a week, visitors can see souvenirs from the World’s Fair and Steinmann’s original model as well as purchase cheese, wine, and gifts and enjoy an ice cream cone while there.

Jeanne Engle

Photograph by MOD Media Productions

Madison’s LGBTQ magazine since 2007

Taquet Dominique

by Chris Gargan

“Wherever crowds gather and wherever men are kindled into brotherhood, there the soul of man is lifted and his spirit rejuvenated.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Art historians use the term genre painting to describe depictions of everyday life as distinct from work celebrating mythology, a historical event, ceremony, or persons of high social standing. Peter Bruegel, a Dutch artist of the 16th century, delighted in recording peasant revelries, often with a disguised moral intention. In the first third of the 20th century, a school of American artists engaged in the social realism movement. George Bellows documented historic battles in the boxing ring; John Sloan was fascinated by the lives of working women, often

caught in a state of exhaustion at the end of the day gazing out of tenement windows or seeking relief from stifling heat on urban rooftops in the evening. One of the champions of this movement was Reginald Marsh, who found his inspiration in the passing parade of urban street life, seedy bars, and side shows. A more decorous version of his vision was offered by Isabel Bishop, who often concentrated on the lives of young urban women office workers.

Every era of art offers examples of artists fascinated by and compelled to record the daily progress of the human circus: people engaged in labors, diversions, competitions, romances, and musings. Artist Dominique Taquet offers us a glimpse of life here in the Madison area and abroad, sometimes celebrated and sometimes unnoticed until he fixes their activities with his intense and often humorous gaze.

Dominique came to Madison from France in 1998. His family originates in Les Andelys, a commune in Normandy near the city of Rouen, the site of Joan

Madison XI Les Oiseause de mon atelier

of Arc’s martyrdom and the birthplace of French classicist Nicolas Poussin. He studied drawing there at the École des Beaux-Arts before learning printmaking in Paris at Atelier Montparnasse. Dominique found his ideal medium of expression in the field of intaglio, a form of printmaking encompassing drypoint, etching, engraving, and mezzotint. He traveled to Nice, in southern France, living rough while developing his craft, drawing in the streets of this seaside city. While there, he met his future wife, Vicki, an American working her way around the world. They both moved to Japan for two years, where Dominique found work on a farm, leaving his afternoons for drawing and studying Sumi-e, a form of ink painting on paper, in Nagano.

The family found their way to Madison, where Dominique is now the resident oenophile for Steve’s Liquor. When not selecting wines for discerning connoisseurs, he’s working on his phenomenally ambitious prints in his basement studio. The range of his artistic interests is virtually encyclopedic. His work covers a panoply of subjects: from landscapes to interiors, from contemplative felines to stormy skies. But the true measure of his breadth of achievement are the crowded street scenes and bird’s-eye views of festivals and neighborhoods. They recall the chaos of Hieronymus Bosch’s fevered

Saturday

Willy Street Parade

medieval imagination and the frenzied celebrations and debauchery of Hogarth.

In one of his most compelling large pieces, Willy Street Parade, a large 18by 24-inch engraving, scores of closely observed and delightfully imagined figures wend their serpentine way across and through a festival of dance and music, magical vehicles, acrobatic displays, enormous puppets, and cheering spectators. Tucked into a corner is a Pulcinella figure, a stock character from the commedia dell’arte of Italian theatre. Harlequins, clowns above the crowd on precarious stilts, bicycle riders, dancers, and babies in strollers add to the revelry and excitement. The celebration is viewed from an elevated height and bracketed by the familiar wood-framed houses of Madison’s near-east side. To

Madison State Street

add authenticity and specificity to the locale, the crowd surges around a local landmark, Mother Fools Coffeehouse.

A possible key to unlocking Dominique’s unique vision can be found in another unusually large etching, Bear Mound , located at the intersection of Vilas Avenue and Campbell Street, one block north from the zoo. This effigy mound, created sometime between 700 and 1200 CE, is surrounded by houses facing in toward the mound. Dominique has chosen to collapse the actual space between the houses and pack them tightly in a concentric arrangement recapitulated by the trees around them and echoing the placement of the trees at the center. What he’s exploiting in this arrangement is one of the fundamental principles of pictorial design: championing rhythm and harmony over literal depiction. He’s bending reality to exploit the inherent resonance of active life and natural displacement. By insisting on formal

design consideration at the expense of objective reality, he draws the viewer spiraling through into the dark mysterious center holding the enigma of this ancient structure, made more elusive by being shrouded in arboreal shelter. Again Dominique has the viewer hovering above the scene, emphasized by the arc of the bird sharply silhouetted in the lower foreground. It’s a bold aesthetic decision made increasingly difficult by his need to rely on imaginative viewing, as this view is unachievable without mechanical assistance. It’s a view often chosen in early Renaissance art called omniscient viewpoint; it’s the view that God would claim from the heavens.

A majority of Dominique’s work is done in black and white using one of many intaglio processes, in which the marks that result in the image are incised either by force, as with engraving and drypoint, or chemically, in the case of etching and aquatint. The surface of the plate upon which the art is made remains clean, and the ink resides in lines and marks below that surface, only being released when the plate and paper are run through a press at intense pressure. Dominique claims that his more aesthetically aware collectors are appreciative of these monochrome pieces, but recently, he has begun to add elements of color, either hand-applied with watercolor or gouache or added with relief printing done as color woodcuts.

Dominque’s work can proudly stand with the best of social realism seasoned with sentimental

Bear Mound

education and mystery. It can be found on Facebook under his name and at various venues around Madison. His most recent exhibition was at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics. It will also be on display during the Mount Horeb Spring Art Tour, May 17 through 19.

Chris Gargan is a landscape artist and freelance writer working from his farm southwest of Verona. You can find his work at Abel Contemporary Gallery in Stoughton. He’s seen here with his dog Tycho Brahe.

Just minutes from Madison. Find us in Stoughton, WI and online.

Chris Gargan

Photograph by Larassa Kabel

Photographs by Dominique Taquet.

Image: Rain Harris

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Enter by submitting your answer to the above question online at madisonlocallysourced.com or by email or mail. With your answer, include your name, mailing address, phone number, and email to mls@madisonlocallysourced.com or Madison Locally Sourced c/o ASJ Publishing LLC PO Box 559 McFarland, WI 53558

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“Which business currently resides at the former Ella’s Deli location?” is Muriel’s Place. A Pancake Cafe Stoughton gift card was sent to our winner, Margie Burris of Madison, WI.