MTH
@megt.bsky.social
SFF author. PhD in mass comm, anthro/archaeo, folklore, environment. Freelance writer/editor. Grantmaking and public policy. Operator at defunct farm. Cheesehead 🧀 Badger alum. Reposts not necessarily an endorsement.
web: https://oaklandhillsfarm.com
web: https://oaklandhillsfarm.com
USGS office in La Crosse (WI) to close as research field eliminated.
The office's main focus is in the Ecosystems Mission area.
The Department of the Interior plans to shutter its entire Ecosystems Mission area by asking for $0 in 2026. It no longer appears on the official organizational chart. 🧪🌎🌿
The office's main focus is in the Ecosystems Mission area.
The Department of the Interior plans to shutter its entire Ecosystems Mission area by asking for $0 in 2026. It no longer appears on the official organizational chart. 🧪🌎🌿
![LA CROSSE [Wisconsin]— The U.S. Department of the Interior has put La Crosse's U.S. Geological Survey office on the chopping block, according to department budget documents.
In the new Department of the Interior budget justification document, USGS officials note the primary area of research conducted in La Crosse will end and the office will close alongside 16 other similar facilities.
According to the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center website, the La Crosse facility employs 86 biologists, geographers and other scientists or specialists.
Officials at the Center did not respond to a request for comment about the closure. It was not immediately clear what would become of the USGS research facility on French Island or whether any La Crosse employees would have the opportunity to relocate and continue their research.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cpbgpplszi6kjfm6cia47vlp/bafkreidaresk4k3k2uhfxdurtliwq3sggdwaep7w63tlgm2j4rp4vijy2e@jpeg)
November 21, 2025 at 8:39 PM
USGS office in La Crosse (WI) to close as research field eliminated.
The office's main focus is in the Ecosystems Mission area.
The Department of the Interior plans to shutter its entire Ecosystems Mission area by asking for $0 in 2026. It no longer appears on the official organizational chart. 🧪🌎🌿
The office's main focus is in the Ecosystems Mission area.
The Department of the Interior plans to shutter its entire Ecosystems Mission area by asking for $0 in 2026. It no longer appears on the official organizational chart. 🧪🌎🌿
In the kitty ER. Why do these things always happen at night? Called five after hours vets over an hour before I could find one who could take him ... 48 miles away.
November 20, 2025 at 5:00 AM
In the kitty ER. Why do these things always happen at night? Called five after hours vets over an hour before I could find one who could take him ... 48 miles away.
It was so warm today I opened the windows after it being closed for a couple of weeks. Oh, the disturbance in the force when it came time to close it again. How *dare* I! #caturday 🐈🐈⬛
November 15, 2025 at 11:18 PM
It was so warm today I opened the windows after it being closed for a couple of weeks. Oh, the disturbance in the force when it came time to close it again. How *dare* I! #caturday 🐈🐈⬛
It's 66F in mid November in Wisconsin, with a drought that started months ago ... such that turtles are crossing the road (one smashed near this one I scooted off) and the ponds that were full of waterfowl all summer are now dry, complete with dead fish and exposed turtles. 🌎🌿
November 15, 2025 at 6:53 PM
It's 66F in mid November in Wisconsin, with a drought that started months ago ... such that turtles are crossing the road (one smashed near this one I scooted off) and the ponds that were full of waterfowl all summer are now dry, complete with dead fish and exposed turtles. 🌎🌿
Still getting tomatoes from my garden mid-November in Wisconsin!
Okay, granted, they were bag-ripened, but still they taste better than that mealy crap in the store ... 🌱
Okay, granted, they were bag-ripened, but still they taste better than that mealy crap in the store ... 🌱
November 14, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Still getting tomatoes from my garden mid-November in Wisconsin!
Okay, granted, they were bag-ripened, but still they taste better than that mealy crap in the store ... 🌱
Okay, granted, they were bag-ripened, but still they taste better than that mealy crap in the store ... 🌱
This is not a chicken.
Filed under things that do not belong in my chicken house. 🐓
Filed under things that do not belong in my chicken house. 🐓
November 12, 2025 at 9:48 PM
This is not a chicken.
Filed under things that do not belong in my chicken house. 🐓
Filed under things that do not belong in my chicken house. 🐓
Love that my local clinic's new parking facility is taking full advantage of a sunny day in November in the north wish all new construction (and updates) would do this 🌎
November 5, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Love that my local clinic's new parking facility is taking full advantage of a sunny day in November in the north wish all new construction (and updates) would do this 🌎
This morning's peaceful and bracing moment... 📷🌿
November 1, 2025 at 9:40 PM
This morning's peaceful and bracing moment... 📷🌿
TIL while stink bugs don't bite, they will give you a nickle-to-quarter-sized chemical burn if you roll over on them in the night. And the stench has a way of burrowing into your sinuses. The worst is I have to mostly "sit" on the burn. 🙄 🐛🌿(photo via Wikipedia)
October 25, 2025 at 3:47 PM
TIL while stink bugs don't bite, they will give you a nickle-to-quarter-sized chemical burn if you roll over on them in the night. And the stench has a way of burrowing into your sinuses. The worst is I have to mostly "sit" on the burn. 🙄 🐛🌿(photo via Wikipedia)
The cold has finally come and brought a blush to the sugar maple. 📷🌿 And with the freeze warning I plucked a 5-gallon bucket of green tomatoes now hanging out in a paper sack in hopes some will ripen. 🌱
October 23, 2025 at 11:15 PM
The cold has finally come and brought a blush to the sugar maple. 📷🌿 And with the freeze warning I plucked a 5-gallon bucket of green tomatoes now hanging out in a paper sack in hopes some will ripen. 🌱
Sometimes the simplest lunch makes yum ... especially when there's cheese, pepper jam and hummus. Trying to use up some of those garden sweet peppers as the frost approaches 🍽 🍜 🌱
October 22, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Sometimes the simplest lunch makes yum ... especially when there's cheese, pepper jam and hummus. Trying to use up some of those garden sweet peppers as the frost approaches 🍽 🍜 🌱
Love the garden season ... can't think of what you want to make for dinner? What needs to be harvested before the frost? Puttanesca-style sauce and pasta. My garden tomatoes, zukes, peppers, arugula and basil 🌱 🍜 🍽
October 20, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Love the garden season ... can't think of what you want to make for dinner? What needs to be harvested before the frost? Puttanesca-style sauce and pasta. My garden tomatoes, zukes, peppers, arugula and basil 🌱 🍜 🍽
July white tail doe and fawn. Vilas County, Wisconsin via Snapshot Wisconsin (DNR cam). Stake is for a research project to measure snow depth.🌿
October 20, 2025 at 2:33 AM
July white tail doe and fawn. Vilas County, Wisconsin via Snapshot Wisconsin (DNR cam). Stake is for a research project to measure snow depth.🌿
Mid-October in Wisconsin ... still producing and there are more out there. Arugula, zucchini, tomatoes, sweet and jalapeno peppers. 🌱
October 17, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Mid-October in Wisconsin ... still producing and there are more out there. Arugula, zucchini, tomatoes, sweet and jalapeno peppers. 🌱
Pumpkin & Pookie: meow, meow, meow! (transl.: open window!)
Me: it's 40F out. Don't be ridiculous.
Cats, in unison: meow, meow, meow! (Translation: we have the hooman's attention! Open it! OPEN IT!)
Me, opening the damned window
Cats: um, it's cold out there, no thanks.
Happy #Caturday!
Me: it's 40F out. Don't be ridiculous.
Cats, in unison: meow, meow, meow! (Translation: we have the hooman's attention! Open it! OPEN IT!)
Me, opening the damned window
Cats: um, it's cold out there, no thanks.
Happy #Caturday!
October 11, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Pumpkin & Pookie: meow, meow, meow! (transl.: open window!)
Me: it's 40F out. Don't be ridiculous.
Cats, in unison: meow, meow, meow! (Translation: we have the hooman's attention! Open it! OPEN IT!)
Me, opening the damned window
Cats: um, it's cold out there, no thanks.
Happy #Caturday!
Me: it's 40F out. Don't be ridiculous.
Cats, in unison: meow, meow, meow! (Translation: we have the hooman's attention! Open it! OPEN IT!)
Me, opening the damned window
Cats: um, it's cold out there, no thanks.
Happy #Caturday!
Doing 2 readings and a panel on SFF world building at a new free #writer's fest Oct. 11 starting at 1 pm in Fort Atkinson, #Wisconsin. 😍 a small town getting behind the #humanities! It's a collab between the local farm market and chamber. Great idea w/sales spaces in the market #WritingCommunity 📚💙
October 10, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Doing 2 readings and a panel on SFF world building at a new free #writer's fest Oct. 11 starting at 1 pm in Fort Atkinson, #Wisconsin. 😍 a small town getting behind the #humanities! It's a collab between the local farm market and chamber. Great idea w/sales spaces in the market #WritingCommunity 📚💙
Snapshot Wisconsin bobcat ... since I missed caturday. 🐈🌿
October 6, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Snapshot Wisconsin bobcat ... since I missed caturday. 🐈🌿
!["Here's the column I didn't write as a UW professor" 2 long 2 alt w/o editing.
"I am not going to b that professor who posts on social media & is promptly pilloried 4 expressing an opinion.
Like many academics these days, I [want] 2 weigh in on recent crises...[in] the news cycle. [That] hardly seems wise. Scores of profs & teachers have been fired or suspended after making posts laced w/ political content, according 2 the NYTimes. Gls...issued by the AAUP recommend that faculty take precautions “2 protect yourself in the current climate” when posting on sm.
So instead of writing that article & committing 2 any beliefs or view, I will simply explain what [I'd say] were I not writing in America in 2025.
[Here] I would express a political opinion. Next comes the bit where I would trot out my academic credentials, certifying myself as an authority...of a charged topic that is on everyone’s minds.
But I know enough not 2 paint myself into a corner. Here, as a prof. of Amer lit, I would pause 2 make a literary allusion both 2 (a) showcase expert knowledge & (b) hide behind the words of some great but now dead author...I would [then] want 2 spend at least 2 clause-burdened sentences signaling my virtue...
The next paragraph would b devoted 2 trying 2 indoctrinate readers w/ some outlandish ideology. Many of my colleagues have [tried] 2 indoctrinate students 4 decades w/o much success....I am well enough aware of the limits of my own charisma 2 know that I can’t compete with YouTube or Insta. & besides, this semester I am concentrating on indoctrinating my students to...not rely on generative AI.
[Next], readers would be ready for some trademark academic subtlety...
[Then], I would wonder if I was being clever enough. & in the next, I would worry that I was being too clever.
[In] conclusion, [I] would wrap things up w/ an urgent call or a dire warning... [N]ow—& not in some hypothetical never-written essay—I might wonder if I have been a coward.
Russ Castronovo-UW-Madison.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cpbgpplszi6kjfm6cia47vlp/bafkreih3gnarrpf7v3vsiie3vdoo645cz2xj3pu4hvucto6qesysizlzc4@jpeg)
Garden still yielding peppers, tomatoes, arugula and zucchini with more likely to ripen in the next few days as upper Midwest bakes in record-breaking heat wave and, for southern Wis., drought. Feels like August as we flirt with 90F ...in Wis. in Oct. smh 🌱🌎
October 4, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Garden still yielding peppers, tomatoes, arugula and zucchini with more likely to ripen in the next few days as upper Midwest bakes in record-breaking heat wave and, for southern Wis., drought. Feels like August as we flirt with 90F ...in Wis. in Oct. smh 🌱🌎
Patiently waiting for my author event to start and the crowd to hush... hmm. Maybe i should have asked about being schedules against baseball, football, Octoberfest and a harvest festival? At least there's AC (unreasonably hot out) #writingcommunity
October 4, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Patiently waiting for my author event to start and the crowd to hush... hmm. Maybe i should have asked about being schedules against baseball, football, Octoberfest and a harvest festival? At least there's AC (unreasonably hot out) #writingcommunity
Never heard of him. How is this possible?! ... seriously, this is what's wrong with this country. 🙄
September 30, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Never heard of him. How is this possible?! ... seriously, this is what's wrong with this country. 🙄
I was so physically ill after reading through a bit of my following feed tonight that I went in search of diversion classifying wildlife in my volunteer gig at Snapshot Wisconsin (Zooniverse, citizen science). Here's some critters that made me feel less lost. 🌿📷🌎 10/10 hawk
September 30, 2025 at 3:06 AM
I was so physically ill after reading through a bit of my following feed tonight that I went in search of diversion classifying wildlife in my volunteer gig at Snapshot Wisconsin (Zooniverse, citizen science). Here's some critters that made me feel less lost. 🌿📷🌎 10/10 hawk
