On Canada Day this year, we were in Wisconsin. If we’d been in Canada, our Jasper Johns moment probably wouldn’t have happened.

Back up for a little context.

I looked him up, and remarkably, Jasper Johns is still alive at 93, and doing art as of only a few years ago.

We saw the patched 48-star flag on a clothesline of a re-created farm yard at Old World Wisconsin, our main destination during our early July southern Wisconsin dash (a one-day out, one-day back trip, according to my idiosyncratic definition).

Old World is a large open-air museum near Eagle, Wisconsin and Kettle Moraine State Forest. I’ve known about the place for years, probably since camping at Kettle Moraine in the late ’80s, but had never gotten around to a visit, not even with small children in tow. My Wisconsin completist impulses kicked in during the dash, so Yuriko and I went to Old World.

A unit of the Wisconsin Historical Society, the place is large: about 480 acres, with about 60 antique buildings from across the state, and a new brewpub, which I suppose counts as a welcome revenue stream for the nonprofit. Some are town buildings, others farm structures. Many immigrant styles are represented: Danish, Finnish, German, Norwegian, and Polish, and well as in-nation New England and African-American settlers in Wisconsin.

Among the town buildings is St. Peter’s (1839), the first Catholic church building in Milwaukee.

That wouldn’t be the last prominently placed stove we’d see. These were pre-HVAC buildings, after all. Makes me glad for the luxury of central heating, as much as I complain about winter.

More town structures.

The red one is an 1880s wagon shop from Whitewater, Wisconsin.

An 1880s blacksmith shop, with a smithy re-enactor.

And the band played on.

Among the farm structures, you can find this Norwegian schoolhouse.

With a spelling bee ongoing when we dropped in. 

Antidisestablishmentarianism wasn’t a word in the bee, though it really isn’t that hard, come to think of it. Scherenschnitte: now there’s a tough one. Unless you’re German.

More farm structures.

More all-important stoves for those long winters. And cooking.

There were a few farm inhabitants, such as chickens and cows. We were able to sample some wonderful ice cream made from fresh milk. Also, we encountered an animal I called Future Bacon.

Yuriko chided me for that, but I’ve seen her eat bacon.