Wisconsin Life

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Voiceover

Coming up next on Wisconsin Life. -

Pat

One time I just called us the "Blazing Babes" and the name stuck. -

Jesse

So like any good business, it started in our basement. Some of the stones are in really bad shape and I don't want them to be forgotten. And when I look out over the pasture (goats bleating) it just makes you feel like, "Yeah, this is where I wanna be." (goats bleating) (lively music) -

Voiceover

Funding for Wisconsin Life is provided in part by Alliant Energy, Lowell and Mary Peterson, and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. I'm Pat Witkowski and this is my Wisconsin Life. (car trunk opens) You know sometimes I'm using some hand tools like the pickmatics and some things like that. You know in here I have a different bag for every project I'm going to be doing. -

Voiceover

You could say Pat Witkowski wears her passion for the Ice Age Trail on her sleeve, if it wasn't also on her shirt, her backpack and all over her car. -

Pat

This is the one I usually take when I'm doing trail work. It's just got saws and nippers and all kinds of things that I might need. -

Voiceover

Pat had never heard of the Ice Age Trail before going for a run in a state forest with a friend and passing by a trailhead. She told me that it was the Ice Age Trail but to never take it 'cuz it doesn't come back (laughing). -

Voiceover

Pat took the trail and her friend was right. She didn't come back. -

Pat

I kind of just decided I was going to hike the entire Ice Age Trail so over the next year I section-hiked the entire 1,200 miles of the trail. -

Voiceover

The Ice Age Trail runs through 31 counties as it follows the edge of the last glacier to form Wisconsin's landscape 12,000 years ago. -

Pat

It highlights glacial features because it goes where the glaciers push down to and then melted and retreated. -

Voiceover

Pat became just the 23rd person to complete the entire trail. After experiencing how poor the trail is in places-- -

Pat

Thank you guys for getting the new brushes. -

Voiceover

She found a new passion. -

Pat

I started volunteering almost immediately. Okay, I'll just do clearing. -

Voiceover

It didn't take long for Pat to become the coordinator of trail maintenance for the Waukesha/ Milwaukee County Chapter. -

Pat

Keeping those trails opened up is real important. -

Voiceover

The best way to let people enjoy the trail is to make sure they can find it and stay on it. The Ice Age Trail crosses private, county, state and federal land through downtowns and forests. So trail markers are crucial. It's pretty easy to get lost. At least back at that time it was. -

Voiceover

Four years ago, Pat asked for volunteers to help paint yellow blazes on trees and posts. -

Pat

A small group said they were interested. -

Voiceover

This group of ladies meets once a week to paint and pull buckthorn. If you get them when they're babies, it's a lot easier. -

Pat

They have really set the standard for good signage. We want the signage to be the same throughout the entire 1,000 miles of the trail. One time I just called us the Blazing Babes and the name stuck! -

Voiceover

The Blazing Babes don't discriminate. We don't exclude men. My husband could be a Blazing, he's a babe. (laughs) But it just happens to be all ladies. -

Voiceover

Pat says a lot of the trail work is extremely physical, involving hauling logs or using chainsaws. Blazing allows them to volunteer while they hike the trail. -

Pat

It's slow, quiet work. And it's just a great way to get outside and people who can't do as physical of work, it's just a great way to help with the trail. -

Voiceover

The Blazing Babes do such great work. They get requests from the less-populated areas of the Ice Age Trail. -

Pat

We've been invited to lots of other chapters throughout the state so we take a couple of road trips every summer. When you do have to replace some. -

Voiceover

Pat says many users don't realize volunteers do most of the work on the trail. -

Pat

Often when we're here people think we're DNR employees. They don't realize we're volunteers. You never know. Sometimes a post goes in in a half hour. Sometimes it's a three hour job. -

Voiceover

Pat has put in more than 4,000 hours of volunteer work in the last few years. -

Pat

I probably put 20-25 hours in this week. -

Voiceover

But she gets paid back in a different way, which is an odd thing to say when digging post holes in the summer heat. -

Pat

Just a great way to be outside and then you feel like you're giving back, which is huge. It's really rewarding. -

Voiceover

The other Blazing Babes share Pat's feelings. -

Pat

They're there to work, and they work really hard, and we get a lot accomplished but I think we sure make it fun as well. Look there (laughs). Aww, you guys are the best. The segments are about three or four miles long. And after about a month or so we're usually able to finish a segment. And when they do that I hide a cooler in the woods. We have a wine and cheese party in the woods every time we finish a segment. I think it's staying put now isn't it? -

Voiceover

Pat knows these posts will likely be around long after she's gone. -

Pat

That feels pretty good. It's kind of a legacy, I guess, to be able to be lucky enough to get to do this. -

Voiceover

And that makes it worth the work. -

Pat

You're building something that's gonna be there forever. And people and my grandkids can enjoy it. Why wouldn't I want to do that? (Pat chuckles) (lively music) I'm Steve Latham. - And I'm Jesse Darley. And this is our Wisconsin Life. -

Jasper

State quarters. I just like to collect them. -

Voicover

Like most kids, Jasper Darley likes to collect things. One summer, he started picking up all the bottle caps he found at picnics and cookouts. -

Jasper

I just really asked them for their beer caps and they gave them to me. (beer caps clinking together) -

Voiceover

His storage device wasn't very sophisticated. -

Jasper

I just kept them in a plastic bag. Did you have a favorite cap? That one. -

Voiceover

So, Jasper asked his dad, Jesse, for help. -

Jasper

Dad, can I have something to put my beer caps on? -

Jesse

Got it? -

Voiceover

Fortunately for Jasper. -

Jasper

He's like, "Sure." -

Voiceover

Jesse is a mechanical engineer. -

Jesse

We have a laser cutter at work and I just made him a Wisconsin map. (music with cymbals) -

Voiceover

The map got filled up with caps... and went up on the wall in Jasper's bedroom. Then, Jesse's co-worker and friend, Steve, came over. -

Jasper

And he was like, "I need one of these." I came back the next day to work and told Jesse, "We should, we should sell them. "Or, at least, you should cut me a 'Missouri' "so I can take it back home to my wife's family." And then, he just started a business. -

Voiceover

Beer Cap Maps was born. -

Jesse

So like any good business, it started in our basement. -

Voiceover

The premise is really simple. Each map comes with holes for bottle caps. Simply press them in and fill up the map. What makes it work... is the endless number of bottle cap designs. -

Jesse

And bottle caps themselves are just great looking. So, thinking about putting them geographically somewhere. You know, "This is a New Glarus beer. "This is a Capital beer. "This is a Lake Front beer from Milwaukee." Then, once you have it in your hands, it's just a matter of deciding, "Do I want to do it by region? Do I want to do it by color?" -

Voiceover

The maps wouldn't have been so popular just a decade ago, when the number of beer choices was limited, but the craft beer movement has exploded. -

Jesse

We cut our Wisconsin map, and it had about 100 holes in it. And we looked online, and tried to figure out how many breweries there were in Wisconsin. And there were about 95. And then, we just looked again, this is a few months later, and now there's 113. (energetic music) Cheers! - Cheers! Cheers! -

Voiceover

Jesse and Steve say part of the fun is trying new beers or bottled soda with friends and having a way to display that experience. -

Jesse

There's so much passion for the people that are drinking it, the people that are making it. You know, it's fun to be around and fun to learn about those different breweries. -

Steve

It is letting people express their passion. -

Voiceover

Jesse and Steve have found a way to mix the maps into their parties. -

Jesse

As close as you can get to Door County. -

Voiceover

With guests filling the map, as the evening goes on. While Jasper and his bottle cap collection may take credit for the maps. (laughter) He talks about being the founder of the company, sometimes. -

Voiceover

The guys know it's the grown-up kids who will like collecting the most. -

Steve

That whole collecting theme that goes through, you know, kids to adults to everybody just wanting to collect things that they think are cool and show 'em off. The participatory art is really when people get it. It becomes their own thing. It's not like they're consuming. Our maps are really not much without caps in 'em. -

Steve

And, it's out there making somebody happy, and then they're recommending it to a friend that they think will be happy. And that's a ton of fun. -

Jesse

Cool! (guitar music) Hi, my name is I'm Lynne Grasse. I raise Nigerian Dwarf Goats and this is my Wisconsin Life. (cozy music) -

Voiceover

Drive by this quintessential Door County farm and you'll discover goats under the willow tree. Look a little closer and you'll see Lynne Grasse in the middle of her treasured Nigerian Dwarf Goats. -

Lynne

I think when people stop along the road and you see them peacefully grazing. I think they just kind of look like a walking flower garden. -

Voiceover

This garden is also known as Grasse Acres near Ellison Bay. -

Lynne

Okay, these are my little buds. (goats bleating) They'll follow me everywhere I go. -

Voiceover

Lynne traded in her work with kids in the classroom for a different kind of kids in the barnyard. -

Lynne

I did teach kindergarten for 19 years but instead of continuing on in that field I decided to just do this. -

Voiceover

This has become her passion. -

Lynne

I started with this in about 1997 actually with my three sons. So we got a couple of goats and I thought, "Well, that's a good idea." It will help them to learn to be responsible and respect living things. But as time went on, it was very clear that I was the one that had the passion for them. People will say, "Why goats? "Why do you want goats?" They hear old stories and they think of them as being dirty and stinky. But the bucks are what give goats a bad name because they are stinky. But they are just as sweet and loving as the girls are. Usually at the end of the day my hair is all chewed up and gnarled and I got little hoof prints all over my clothes. (laughs) Don, my husband, is wonderful at making sure that they're fed. And he grows most of their feed that they eat and the hay. With him enjoying the growing aspects and with me enjoying the animal aspect of the farm, I think we make a pretty good team. -

Voiceover

And as a team they care for and nurture their dairy herd. -

Lynne

Now we're good. Alright. Let the milk flow. They have a high butter fat content, so their milk is very sweet and rich. -

Voiceover

The goats' milk is used to sustain a more natural, healthy way of life on the farm. -

Lynne

There it is. Time to eat! (goats bleating) -

Voiceover

It's all good and the baby goats get to enjoy it at feeding time. -

Lynne

And a few too many. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Another one too many. Come here, everybody's hungry. Everybody's starving. So this is a ten kid feeding bucket so I can feed ten of the babies at once. When I first started with the kids I had to do individual bottles. It was hours of work. And now I'm done in minutes. That's the way it works. And the babies are happier too because they get to eat faster. It is a feeding frenzy. (laughs) Oh, look at the milk moustache. -

Voiceover

And the Nigerian Dwarf Goats are getting Lynne noticed. She's now breeding the goats and sending them coast to coast. -

Lynne

Kidding season can happen at any time, day or night. One of the things I have installed was a barn camera. There she is. No babies yet. As soon as they're ready, I'm out there catching babies. -

Voiceover

Her biggest batch of babies found a new home just south of the Wisconsin border at the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago. -

Male

First of all we're looking for a really high quality herd that we found up in Wisconsin. And this is the name that kept coming up was Lynne Grasse up in Door County. Here we are with (laughs) 30 kids. And most of them were born in March and April. This was definitely a spring with a purpose. -

Voiceover

It's their gentle nature and curiosity that make these dwarf goats a good addition to the petting zoo. -

Male

She does an outstanding job. She's a very ethical goat herder. You're such a pretty girl, aren't you? Are you such a pretty girl? Yes, you are. They are such a wonderful, peaceful, calming part of my life. They really fulfill something in me. A need to nurture. And when I look out over the pasture and I see them out grazing, it just makes you feel like, "Ya, this is where I want to be." Come on babies. (goats bleating, hands clapping) Come on. -

Voiceover

Still to come on Wisconsin Life, author Patrick Rothfuss explores the hidden power of games. -

Patrick

You learn how to solve problems. Frustration teaches you a lot. (video game bongs) -

Voiceover

Could the game of Life change your life? Find out later on Wisconsin Life. (guitar music) Hi, I'm Frank Germanson and this is my Wisconsin Life. (piano music) -

Voiceover

Their stories told in stone. -

Frank

August 16th, 1906. So she's married, and she's dead in her 20s. (piano music) -

Voiceover

And pledges to remember. -

Frank

A dad and a daughter. The German phrase on the bottom, that's what I was, I don't know how you say that, but that's probably an indication that the parents at least came from Germany. -

Voiceover

Several days each week, for three years now, Frank Germanson has made his way to old cemeteries around Milwaukee. He walks the rows, takes in the quiet, and reads the stories. -

Frank

When I was first getting going, I don't remember the name, but there was a husband and wife, and they had 10 infants' gravestones around them. All their children that died at birth, and that has to be just terrible. I just can't imagine that. And I can feel how they felt, you know, it just sounds really strange, but it's almost like I go in there and look over their shoulder when they're grieving. -

Voiceover

But Frank doesn't come to mourn the dead. He comes to make a record for the living. At each grave, he stops, pulls out a camera, and captures a photo. (camera clicks) It's a practice Frank began three years ago when he started looking for his family's story on a genealogy website. -

Frank

When I retired, I started working on our ancestry tree. And I was working on it, and one time I got a hint on "Ancestry," and it was from "Find-A-Grave." -

Voiceover

Frank had discovered an online database of grave stones, valuable information for an amateur genealogist. -

Frank

I signed up to be a volunteer photographer. So, if someone from out-of-state wanted a picture somewhere around here, I would take it and put it online for them. Didn't last long, because I couldn't see any point of just looking for one in all these treasures. So what I have done since is I go and I take entire sections. -

Voiceover

Since then, he's spent a few days each week working his way through old cemeteries, photographing one section at a time. Those photos are adding up. Last count, I just rounded 17,000. And that's in three years. I've taken over 21,000 pictures. (mouse clicks) When he gets home, Frank uploads his latest photos to the "Find-A-Grave" database, where researchers and families around the world can find them, and the information they display. -

Frank

Their birth date. Their death date. Places. I had two sisters from Switzerland send me an email. And I posted a picture from Woodlawn Cemetery, and it just so happened that was their great-grandmother's sister that moved to Wisconsin at the end of the last century, 1800s, and they lost contact. So they thanked me profusely. -

Voiceover

As useful as Frank's work is, it's also becoming more urgent. The ethnic groups that built many of these cemeteries have long moved on. And nature is slowly wearing away the monuments themselves. -

Frank

Some of the stones are in really bad shape and my goal is to get them before they can't give any information. -

Voiceover

And while Frank gathers that information for the living, he's doing something else for those whose names are on these markers. It's something simple but rare. He remembers. -

Frank

Well, when you think of the United States and all the people that made it great, and these are just some little pebbles in the mosaic, and I don't want them to be forgotten. (piano and string music) (lively music) Hello, my name is Patrick Rothfuss and this is my Wisconsin Life. -

Voiceover

I think most of us grow up doing board games with the family. (shaking dice) You know, Candyland. Monopoly. (dice rolling on board) Those games are mostly an excuse to hang out with people that you love. Ask for Candyland. It's fun. -

Patrick

But like as games that teach you any sort of skill, Candyland, it's not a game. You don't make choices in Candyland. What it's good for is it gives you something to do with your child other than watch TV. (zapping sounds) -

Voiceover

And it teaches your child how to operate within a framework of rules. But will this teach him problem solving? Off you go on a thrilling trip. Up over the gumdrop mountains. -

Patrick

No, no it won't. All through high school I played, they were called text adventures. And those were fantasy games. "Zork." (foreboding music) And it was like living in a novel 'cuz it was all text. You would read the description of the world. And then you would try to solve the puzzles by typing in instructions. (chip music) And they taught huge problem solving. I literally worked for years on these games. You'd try something. You're like, "What am I not seeing?" (scream) And then I would go to school and I talk to my friend Chad. And we would talk about this. It's like, "No, I tried that with the dragon. "It doesn't work. "No, I tried that and then I died." "How did you die? "Maybe that will give us a clue, you know?" I played so many of those. And I have still not seen them equaled in terms of the problem solving you needed to engage in. And that frustration I experienced. I lament the fact that my child will never be able to experience that level of frustration playing a game, because these days if you get stuck, you Google it up, and then you just move on. Frustration teaches you a lot. (bing) I'm really looking forward to my son getting old enough to play some of these games, because you learn how to solve problems. Systems manipulation. That's what I tend to think of it as. And that means you have to learn the rules and figure out your optimal strategy. Tell me that isn't going to be useful your whole life every day. (sad note sliding down) Dealing with failure. Dealing with disappointment. That's really important to learn. That you can lose and you play again and you win. And losing wasn't the end of the world. I mean, I know some adults who haven't learned that. And it paralyzes them with fear. They're so afraid to try anything for fear that it might not work. Not realizing that if you don't play at all, you've lost right at the start. Honestly, the world would be a better place if more people played games. (affirmative computer sound) -

Voiceover

Curious to know more about the people featured in this week's stories? Go to

WisconsinLife.org

to learn more about Pat Witkowski, Steve Latham and Jesse Darley, Lynne Grasse, Frank Germanson and Patrick Rothfuss.

We want to know

what's your Wisconsin Life? This week, we'd like to share some of the entries from our Wisconsin Life summer photo contest. You can see the winning entries by going to

WisconsinLife.org

We want to know

. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone who entered our contest and shared their moments of Wisconsin Life. (relaxed music) Go to

WisconsinLife.org

We want to know

to find out how you can have a chance to see your Wisconsin Life moments featured in an upcoming program. (relaxed music) -

Voiceover

We want to know

Funding for Wisconsin Life is provided in part by Alliant Energy, Lowell and Mary Peterson, and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.