(gentle music) (soft music) - Hi, thanks for watching.

I'm Brian Ewig.

- And I'm Traci Neuman.

We are the producers of the Digital First series, My Wisconsin Backyard and we're excited to bring you this broadcast show.

- That's right over the last few months, we've taken our cameras out to find how people are enjoying this beautiful, warm weather.

And we'll find out how those activities are improving both their mental and physical health.

- Are you on?

- Not really.

- Well, adjust.

- Okay, I think I'm good.

- I'm leaving go.

(soft music) - [Mark] When you're riding on the high wheel bike it's functional art.

You're part of the scenery as the scenery becomes part of you.

My first circus parade was '97.

I did all of 'em, from '97 until the end.

Andy saw me doing it and I told Andy, Maybe he should get a high wheel and he said, okay.

And we went out and he tried it and he liked it.

- We've gone all over the country because of the bikes and met a lot of people because of the bikes.

Actually I was like, what?

12, 13 at the time?

And I said that, that I just wanted to do something with him.

Plus I just thought it was really fascinating.

- [Announcer] Look at the bicycles.

Wheel men preserving the history of the early days of bicycles, isn't that amazing.

- This is called an ordinary or a penny farthing.

The reason why they were called ordinaries were because they were so common that they were just ordinary to see.

And the term penny farthing is actually an English term, referring to the penny and the farthing, the penny being the large wheel and the farthing one fourth of a penny.

So referring to the little wheel.

The little wheel rotates about four times to every one rotation of the big wheel, thus penny farthing.

They started making them because basically this was the first thing from horse and buggy and walking.

And they really didn't have a concept of chains or gears and the chains and gears that they did have were way too big and bulky.

By 1889, 1886, 1887, they already had a concept of these chains, got it down a lot thinner and you could get bicycle like you see today.

A lot of sayings actually come from these bicycles.

For instance, with this one, it's a common practice when going downhill to put your feet over the handlebars for coasting.

And when you would do that, people would... you'd go fast and people would be like, Hey, look at that guy flying by the seat of his pants.

And that's literally where that saying came from.

Also, the kerosene lanterns were really more used for people to see you, not for you to see.

So they had this idea of putting the kerosene lanterns in the hub, right in the center there and would hang right from there.

And what would happen is they would spill, somebody would crash, kerosene would spill out and it would ignite.

And you would literally crash and burn.

Where am I stopping you?

- With Andy around being as big as he is I feel comfortable that he can help me because I used to help him when he was learning how to ride his bike.

He used to help him get on, get off, get on, get off until he could finally do it on his own.

And now, payback.

(scuba tank whooshing) - Menomonee park or Lannon quarry, which is the body of water as locals know it.

This was a Lannon stone quarry, hit its heyday I believe in the mid to late 1800s.

And then somewhere after the turn of the century in the early 1900s, it just wasn't producing enough stone.

It was too expensive to run the pumps, to keep the water out.

So they just kind of shut everything down.

And lo and behold, we're left with this somewhat beautiful body of water to play in.

(water splashes) You obviously have the rock ledges, which is unique.

So obviously most of our normal lakes in the area are more of a kind of a bowl shaped.

Here we have much more structure from the mining days.

There are some, you'll see some remains from the mining days.

You'll see the cables running down.

There is at least one ore cart with its chassis next to it.

There is a collapsed shed as well.

So we don't know whether it was a tool shed or what exactly it was used for.

We've always called the tool shed because several years ago, we started finding some tools around what remains of that shed.

It's kind of like a lumber pile today, but still kind of fun to explore that and just kind of maybe put the puzzle together in our head of what it must have looked like back in the day.

Quarries always have an interest for divers because we have the ability of getting in and we can usually get depth fairly quickly.

One of the drawbacks with some of the inland lakes that we have in Wisconsin is, at least where the public launches are and where we can get access, it is such a long swim to get out to any depth.

So the one nice thing about diving in a quarry is because obviously most of these walls are pretty sheer.

We can get in the water, get some depth relatively quickly and actually be underwater exploring the deeper parts of the quarry.

Yeah, I can't even think of all the stories I've heard over the years.

So as a kid growing up, I would come here and hang out, go fishing, go to the beach.

And then you hear all these stories but then as a diver, when I finally got certified, I actually did my initial training here.

I was so excited to explore the quarry, to see what was really down here.

Well, it's a little deflating because the stories weren't true.

All that's really left, like we talked about, is that tool shed, is that ore cart, some cables.

Oh, it's fantastic.

I mean, it's, it makes history much more vivid, more real.

I mean, you can read about it in a book.

You can even maybe get lucky enough to see a black and white picture, but to be able to go underwater and see it in color and see what was left behind from back in the day when they were mining here.

Ten hours a day, six days a week, it was not an easy life, but it was, there was so much Lannon stone in this area and it was a great industry for this area that this is where they came to work because there were jobs available.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) - I hate to see anything that has a potential instead go across the ocean and be turned back into raw material sheet, bar, whatever, and then shipped back over here and start over in the process.

I'd rather short circuit it and keep it here.

I started out with farm machinery from the barns that I take down, which is one of my other compulsive obsessive behaviors and got into industrial scrap.

Sometimes I pick up a piece or the piece is just screaming, what it wants to be.

And I tell people that I need to get my brain out of the way and just let my hands do what they need to do.

(gentle music) And it's gone Gonzo, kind of out of control now.

I love incorporating rocks, which is my symbol for nature.

I like to have the kinetic pieces with people or birds balanced by a rock.

So the idea being that I'm trying to transmit this, that everything we do affects nature and everything nature does affects us.

I like the stainless pieces because to me, the stainless pieces, not only do they reflect the sunlight, the Moonlight, dew or frost, there's just a different energy than the rusty pieces, which to me are more, more natural.

They blend in.

(soft piano music) - There's been lighthouses in Wisconsin since 1836, we have over 50 lighthouses.

They were very important to have for the navigation for ships finding the way to ports, such as Milwaukee, which is the largest port on the Great Lakes.

So they use a ships needed to find the way in, both for bringing in not only commerce, but also for bringing in passengers.

There are a lot of rivers and bays here along Lake Michigan, not only along this side of the lake, but also in Door County.

So it was very important for ships coming from the ocean all the way down to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes to navigate their way all the way down to Milwaukee.

The light beam in a lighthouse has to be seen from at least 20 miles out into the lake.

20 miles is where your horizon line is, your curvature of the Earth.

All individual lighthouses that go down the coast they all overlap, so you never lose sight of a lighthouse as you come down the lake.

A lighthouse keepers job was really a 24 hour job.

I mean, you had to, at night, you'd have to keep the light lit.

You'd have to make sure that the clockwork mechanism worked to rotate the light.

Now the reason that lights rotated was if you were out in the lake and you saw a lighthouse, you would know where you were.

So each lighthouse has what's called a characteristic or a flash time.

North Point lighthouse flashed every 30 seconds.

The mariners knew that on their charts, they would time it.

That's how they knew where they were.

The lights in the lighthouse is a Fresnel lens and it was originally lit with whale oil, then converted to mineral oil, coal gas, and finally electricity.

Back in the day, the keepers would have to illuminate the light around dusk and keep the light lit all night long until dawn.

Lives of mariners and passengers and sailors depended on the lighthouse being illuminated.

Lighthouses were starting to get turned over and close because of GPS, which probably started in the eighties and the nineties.

There was no need for lighthouses so they turned them off.

They're beautiful reminders of history.

You know, I think they're, they're monuments to an extent, to the brave people that sailed the Great Lakes and a lot of the ships that brought immigrants here, especially to Milwaukee.

It was a way of saying you've reached your destination.

You're home now.

You're safe.

(drumming) - [Narrator] To see more of our short stories, please visit our website at Milwaukeepbs.org, or check out or other social media platforms.

- When I come home from work, Donner needs a way to exercise.

So I get out and take the long boards to try to keep up with him.

He's a big dog and he can run pretty fast.

In every aspect of life, Donner has more fun.

He is an extremely excitable puppy, and it is hard to take him anywhere without having him make a friend.

So it's surprising that he can maintain focus while longboarding, but I get to go along for the ride and I get to go use a lot less energy than what I would have so it's a win-win.

(rock music) - I'm Billy Poulos and this is Beaux and we're two best friends living in the city of Milwaukee.

This is our first summer together.

So we're trying to take advantage of it, doing a little bit of everything here and there.

Me and Beaux just longboard right here, down Oak leaf trail, up and down.

And he does all the work, so, I mean, I get to do my favorite activity and then he gets to just run and go crazy.

It's exciting just to see him pick up something brand new.

We started about two weeks ago, three weeks ago.

And since the first day it's been like second nature to him.

He's just a, he's a mushing dog.

We're kind of getting it down to a T. I can kind of guide him with the harness where we go.

With having a longer rope when I want to be pulled, I just kind of take the slack in and make it a little tighter and he knows to pull me.

Then when we moved to like sidewalks and things like that, I can make it a little more loose or control when he's pulling and whatnot.

Kind of when we do hit the trail and I give him a kind of, let's go, Beaux, let's go, and we can pick up speed and have some fun with it.

- [Luke] It's a good way to get outside and really see a lot of the city.

You can take longboards pretty much anywhere.

You can choose your own path and get good mileage under the belt while still giving the dog a good exercise.

- We can go across streets together and you know, sidewalks and things like that, which dogs, I think kind of naturally picked that up just to follow the path.

He does well in the city and on the trails, everything like that.

Him being a yellow lab, kind of comes easy, so, but I think any kind of big dog will just naturally pick up the guidance of it all.

- You have to have a pretty good sense of balance, have a understanding of how the board's going to move and how the dog is really going to move.

You have to know and kind of anticipate his actions when he might cut in front of you.

So you have to brake in anticipation or you have to be able to go with the flow of things.

There's a lot of unexpected things that pop up and just got to take them in stride, or on wheels.

(surf music) Learn to longboard without a dog first, but definitely don't be afraid of it.

If you have snowboarded or wakeboarded or really any other board sport like it, it's a great way to get your dog to get a good run in and good way to get outside and enjoy the weather.

Hopefully it can, it can eventually get more popular.

I mean, this has always been a pretty popular thing and why not put two and two together, maybe we'll get a race up and running.

If we get it big enough, we'll start a dog race.

(surf music) (water flowing) - Flowing water is the lifeblood of a cave.

You're at Cherney Maribel Caves County Park in Northern Manitowoc County.

Maribel New Hope Cave is one of only five show caves in Wisconsin.

We've been to the highest mountain on earth, Mount Everest, over 29,000 feet.

We've been six or seven miles down in the Mariana trench off from Southeast Asia.

We've had 14 people go up to the moon.

Yet there's areas of this cave, Maribel New Hope Cave, that have had more people on the moon then seen that part of the cave.

This is the last frontier.

- This is Maribel New Hope Cave.

This is the largest cave that we have here in the park.

What you see is a big voided area, which was not a voided area when they first started excavating in the cave here, we actually hand dug this whole cave out.

And in with the restoration work we're doing, we're not actually creating a cave.

We are restoring it.

So this is what it looked like before the glaciers filled it in.

This is a type of limestone.

That was really technical term is dolomite for Wisconsin, has a little bit more magnesium in the rock.

So it's a little bit tougher.

Now you see the big caves that they have down in Kentucky and stuff.

That's more limestone and it's easy, more easily dissolved in carbonic acid, which forms the cave.

And so that's why they have bigger caves.

So this is really unique for Wisconsin, that we actually have this big of a cave and typically is called dolomite.

Now we've had different geologists in the cave here that have over time have told us that there were two glaciers that filled up this cave.

Lower half of the cave was about, the glacier came through about 24,000 years ago.

The upper level was about 12,000 years ago as far as filling the material.

- I like to say we're restoring it to its natural beauty.

It's been a lot, a lot, a lot of work.

A lot of yards of sediment have come out of that cave seeing that it was filled almost completely to the top with sediment.

- Well, we know there are at least 400 caves that are documented in Wisconsin and never hear about them cause all our caves are filled in with material from the glaciers.

Certain areas, of course, in Wisconsin, you know, the Southwestern part of Wisconsin is the Driftless area.

There's more caves down there just because they weren't covered up or destroyed by the, by the glaciers.

But we know that there are 400 documented in Wisconsin and they estimate that has only about 10% of the actual caves that are in within the state.

Big draw, as far as excavating in the caves.

You know, we don't know where these passages goes.

You could be actually break into a big cave opening void area.

We just don't know what we're going to find.

If you just go just another couple inches, you know, we're going to break into something new.

(record scratch) - I just like staying active and doing outdoor activities, including tennis.

It's like a mind sport and you need to be intelligent to play, not just athletic, but it's hard to find people that like to play.

So I'm starting to get my cousin into it as well, Sean.

He's been playing for a few a few months now.

It's nice to have a consistent partner again.

- It's really fun.

I love being competitive in this sport.

It's really good for building reflexes and cardio.

I mean, it's just a fun overall way to just be active with friends and family.

We kind of went through the motions of going through our own careers.

We've finished schools.

We've been kind of working on ourselves for the last five or so years, and then now it's great.

We have an activity we can kind of rekindle some time together.

- I think a lot of people think that tennis like traditionally, it was like a, like a richer person's sport, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.

There are plenty of public tennis courts all over.

I feel like there is a big learning curve in the beginning for tennis.

A lot of people maybe kind of give up early because they think it's too hard but I think it's very rewarding.

- Kevin's been great.

He's been really helpful with everything kind of helped me get better.

You know, every day we play.

Not close yet, but I'm trying, I'm trying to get there.

I think it's going to be a little bit more of a long-term thing to catch up to Kevin but I'm just enjoying it.

(funky music) Being in Wisconsin, you know, we have the winter.

So the summer weather you really do, do appreciate being outside and outdoors and I think just finding good activities to do makes it all better.

- I mean, we're both adults now.

We both have full-time jobs.

We both have our own responsibilities.

So it's nice to have this to kind of facilitate time for both of us to get together and bond and connect.

(uptempo music) - With this kind of wind and this kind of sun, this is proof positive that you can garden just about anywhere.

We're 28 floors up overlooking Lake Michigan.

- As a physician I think that being out in nature and getting out exercising, it's very helpful to just boost your energy and to be in nature is helpful because it gives you connection to the Earth.

With having a garden, I like the color, I like the variation.

Nature is full of so many varieties of everything.

- The best thing is to choose plants that will work in your micro climate.

This is actually south off of this way, east is over that way.

Later on, we're going to be looking at a balcony on the other side, which is facing west and that's a whole different micro climate.

So what I was thinking is we just utilize the bench, the storage bench, and maybe put some pads on there and create a seating unit out of that, and then pull her table and chairs out of there.

Set that up.

We'll put a rug down so that we've got a nicer surface to work on and then we'll bring some plants in.

- So we got to buy all this stuff.

Let's go.

- Yeah.

Okay.

(upbeat music) - [Mike] That's going to be cleanable.

50 inches.

29 99 And 23, let's try that.

Might be a little bit too big because we don't have a lot of space.

So something like that.

(uptempo music) - This was a really cost efficient way for her to add square footage to her condo unit that she didn't have before that's very usable.

- The plants just bring warmth and you want to come out here and you're just, you're out in nature.

You wouldn't otherwise be out in the sun.

- And truth be told, that was my balcony.

I really am enjoying my new backyard.

- Yeah, well it looked really, really nice.

And if we're going to be honest, this actually is my backyard too.

And these are my mulberries.

So snag one.

- Wherever your backyard is, whether it's a city or the country, we hope you're enjoying it too.

(drumming)