by Sue Orsen
With fancy new buildings and busi-nesses in town -- and coming to town -- and tons of new trails, piles of pavers in new streets and sidewalks, not to mention reams of new residents in a number of new neighborhoods, one might think that Victoria has become quite the metropoli-tan city.  Not true.
Victoria remains more countrified than gentrified, more serene than cement, more natural than manmade.  As stated in the editorial this month, Victoria offers us precious peace and privacy.  All we have to do is look out our windows, sit on the porch, or go for a walk to see the proof of it all.
For specific proof we can look in par-ticular at one little corner of Victoria, a corner about one acre in size and located on the front stoop of Carver Park, with Schutz Lake, Stieger Lake, and Lake Zumbra vying for our attention.
Yes, I'm talking about our place, Orsen's Oasis, if you will, since 1971.  Before we built out here, sheep and cows grazed this land, or so we were told.  Wasn't much good for a farmer's crops.  Too many trees.  Too many hills.  So the maple trees grew large and high to the sky, unaffected by loggers, homesteaders, and, later, heavy equipment operators and excavators.
These maple trees gave our neighbor-hood hundreds of gallons of 100% pure maple syrup for years and years, until the novelty finally wore off and our kids were no longer around to help with the ancient hauling procedures in vogue at that time.
I've loved this little corner of the world since we first saw it in the spring of that year, 1971.  How would we ever squeeze in a home among all those trees?  How would we ever build a driveway up that hill?  Would we ever have a real street?  Surely the muddy cow path would dry out during the summer months.
There were only two houses in this old pastureland at the time we purchased our lot for $5,400 from E. B. Plocher, Wilfy and Fred's dad.  It came with no promises for the future - and no utilities except electricity.  Yet we jumped in with both feet -- and oftentimes lost our boots in the mud or snow, carrying babies and groceries.
And just as we suspected, this little spot in Victoria became a haven for our children, for a husband who loves hunting and fishing, and for someone who loves to write and take pictures, although the Victoria Gazette wasn't even a nod or a wink at that time.  Did I ever tell you about the little plastic camera that I purchased through the mail for 500 Popsicle coupons when I was just a child?
I'm sitting by the fire at this very moment, in our home that squeezed in just fine among the trees all those years ago, and snow is softly drifting down through the branches.  Gusts of wind are begin-ning to drive the snow perfectly horizontal at times, however.  The predicted "first real snowstorm of the season" is quickly arriving this morning of Saturday, February 24^th.
As benign turns to blustery, all the wildlife has vanished from our yard but not from my computer.  That means I've got perennial proof that wildlife abounds in this little corner of the world.  Hope you enjoy some of the pictures I've taken here at Orsen's Oasis over the years.  See them also in blazing color and perspective at www.VictoriaGazette.com.  Click on Sue's Album, just for the fun of it.
I haven't captured everything, of course.  I didn't capture the pileated woodpeckers, the red fox, the wild turkeys, the big wooly groundhogs, the colorful wood ducks that peek into our windows from nests on high, the scary black hawks, the hummingbirds at my flowers, the toads and tree frogs, the cottontails, the crickets, and the creepy crawly critters.  Maybe next time.
For a batch of wildlife pictures taken exclusively at Orsen's Oasis, click on Sue's Album at www.VictoriaGazette.com