It's a band! It's a product! It's both!

Something else I learned on my summer vacation: The Mighty Deer Lick isn't just the name of a band. It's a product! I didn't know that deer licks had brand names. This city girl just thought you just go over to Ace Hardware or something and pick up two of those giant blocks of salt: one for your water softener, and one to lure the deer out of the garden. And get this: The Mighty Deer Lick comes in a variety of flavors, unlike their competitors.If you go to their site, you will learn that The Mighty Deer Lick is the deer lick of choice for environmentalists and wildlife lovers alike, because (grammatical errors theirs, not mine):
Buyers, beware of companies who are marketing a granular vitamin mineral mixture for wild deer! These products were designed for a quick profit. They are out-dated and nothing more than high/phos dairy mineral that retails for around 20 cents a pound, in 50 lb. bags at your local farm stores. We manufactured and sold this product in the 1970’s and early 80’s. High/phos dairy mineral works well in deer pens when used in mineral feeders. But you would pay like hell to get a wild, mature whitetail to stick his head in one. The problem with dairy mineral is that the salt leaches away when it rains and the product becomes unpalatable to deer. This is why mineral blocks are so popular with large ranchers and farmers. Its really a no brainer!

And besides, as the site points out, "Deer continue to use a Mighty Deer salt licksite, both day and night, and this supplies your area with continuous fresh deer scent." And goodness knows even though I could order Glade "Fresh Deer Scent" Plug-Ins by the gross for my home, there's nothing like real fresh deer scent wafting through the cabin for that "Back to Nature" feeling.
We learned of this line of products a few weeks back when we were at the IGA in Crystal Falls, MI, during our vacation picking up a few racks of ribs and locally cured bacon. Left the camera back at the cabin for this run, which is why I don't have pictures. (note to self: never leave home without it.) Anyway, we almost bought an Sweet Apple flavoured Mighty Deer Lick, just to have, except everybody else we share the cabin with are Illinois folks who know nothing of Dave Reinholdt and his smartass crew of quasirural punks. They wouldn't have gotten it. They would have been, "The Mighty Deer Lick. So what. We don't have a deer problem here." And I would have been humming "Port-O-Let" to myself and going, "Well, there's this band in Milwaukee that, I …. No I don't have any of their stuff on my Ipod …. Well they do these songs that …. Oh fuck it." Then again, I could have pointed out that The Mighty Deer Lick corporation was established not 20 miles away from our cabin, and we should help support the local economy by patronizing this locally-owned business and, further, a fellow alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Bob Jones, the Pioneer of Antler Research, was in on its development and … oh fuck it.

Do I need to tell you where I'll be Saturday night? Of course I'll be at Points East to see The Mighty Deer Lick (uh, the band.)

On the other end of the continuum, its time again for high art, as Gallery Night is this Friday night. The Coalition of Photographic Arts annual juried show is at the Walkers Point Center for the Arts, and the Milwaukee Art Museum is giving this Gallery Night the local angle that's called for by hosting the Third Annual Milwaukee Artist Marketplace on Saturday afternoon. Arts collectives, including the Bay View Arts Guild and the Riverwest Artists Association will be showing their members' works, and these two alone always guarantee an interesting, quality show. I'll probably hover around the Third Ward for Gallery Night with the kids.

I've not had a chance to get out to many of the Milwaukee County (Free) Concerts in the Parks series, but I'm making a point of doing so Thursday. At Boerner Botanical Gardens, The Swing-O-Matics will be playing. They are simply terrific. They suit up in genuine zoot suits, break out the horns and with precision put out wonderful jump swing, big band, and throw in a little Sinatra to keep us happy. For their size, (a little over a half dozen of them), they pull off a sound worthy of the Duke himself. They're frightfully underrated. Saw them first a few years back at Wisconsin Avenue Park in 'Tosa and have been a fan ever since. So, off to the well-maintained gardens of Boerner I go: there appears to be no damage to the beautiful flowers from wildlife eating them, and I bet if I looked hard enough off the manicured trails, I'll find the explanation for such in the form of Sweet Sugar flavoured Mighty Deer Licks.

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