Seminary Woods

As most of you know we live pretty much right next to the St. Francis Seminary though there's a bit of forest between our house and the seminary grounds proper. Well on the other side of the seminary grounds there is more forest that we had neglected to explore until last night. Now we're regretting waiting so long.

The sign reads: "Seminary Woods Wildlife preserve endorsed by Milwaukee Audubon Society protected by state and federal laws" which is good. Hopefully that means it's unlikely to get turned into condos.

We wandered through the woods on a whim, at first our path led us mostly along the fencing at the back of St. Thomas More High School and the elementary school next to it. After walking a while we started to move further into the woods themselves and came across a creek of sort. Initially it was coming out of a sewer pipe; one of our neighbors who works for MMSD once told us that there are a number of streams and creeks in the area that have been moved underground or routed through sewer ways. As we continued to wander the path grew wider and more maintained, we went across a bridge over the small creek and then we came upon a clearing which held a cemetery.

Apparently the Seminary has a small graveyard out in the woods where it buries it's nuns and priests. Most of the graves were dated in the 19th century. Many of them were very simple markers, though, as you can see, there were a few very ornate stones as well as a big metal crucifix.

Unfortunately we didn't get to linger long in the graveyard, the mosquitoes were running rampant in there, while they had been pretty much non-existent in the forest. We left on a different path than we had entered so as to continue to explore the lovely woods. Just inside the woods from the cemetery clearing was a little grotto with a sitting area and a spot to have a fire, at first I thought it was some sort of Catholic shrine or something but it was just a big fireplace.

The woods were so huge and beautiful and peaceful, it was hard to believe that we were surrounded by city and only a 10 minute drive from downtown Milwaukee. We continued our stroll through the woods and eventually came out onto the Seminary grounds between the convent building and the main building. There were a few fruit trees growing here, some apples and some plums hanging from the branches; not yet ripe. We headed home having thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and with plans to return very soon.

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