Blue Mounds News

If there was a cheese-of-the-woods mushroom, this would be it. Bleu Mont Dairy's Bandaged Cheddar Reserve tastes like walking through a damp forest at the peak of fall color.

This past summer the family decided on a quick day trip from our Chicago suburban home to something fun and educational north of the Illinois border.

Smokers have only one more Friday night fish fry to enjoy with their Marlboro Lights at township bars and restaurants in Dane County, with the state's only county-wide smoking ban beginning on Saturday.

In the 70 years since quarry workers blew a gaping hole through this western Dane County hillside, unveiling rock formations of all sizes and shapes, millions of visitors have explored the limestone cavern known as Wisconsin's oldest classroom.

Aug. 4, 1939: A blast of 1,600 pounds of dynamite in a quarry east of Blue Mounds reveals the limestone cavern more than 20 feet high leading to other rooms all containing mineral formations.

A naturalist hike with Al Swain is more than just a walk in the park. It's an education.

The need isn't just in cities like Madison. Rural areas need help fighting hunger too.

Participants in the Horribly Hilly Hundreds bike ride will be traveling through western Dane County on Saturday morning.

Heavy thunderstorms dropped more than two inches of rain on Dane County late Thursday night, but that was only the first wave of storms coming through southern Wisconsin, with more storms hitting around sunrise and other storms expected to blow up later in the day into Friday night.

The danger of traveling with an education writer is that every experience becomes a time for learning.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary Matt Frank today announced the 2009 Citizen-Based Monitoring Partnership Program awards, providing $100,000 to help fund 22 high-priority natural resource monitoring projects conducted by citizen groups across the state.

Described as one of the best openings ever, the first day of the outdoor Dane County Farmers'' Market on Saturday drew as many as 12,000 people, an unexpected surge that had many of the 100 vendors packing up early, their tables empty of produce, plants, baked goods and other homemade and locally grown products.