Finally, spring has arrived.  A Baltimore oriole is singing in the woods nearby.  Many birds are twittering away on the branches.  Woodpeckers are hammering on the trees, and bigger birds like ducks and geese, add their voices to the chorus.  The clear calls of the chickadees and the little nutty voices of the nuthatches....

I have washed off my lawn chairs and now sit on my outside porch looking around and listening.  The snow is receding every day, temperatures were near 60 degrees yesterday.  If it rains, as predicted later today, the snow will shrink even further.  Big gaps surround the trees, where the darkness of the wood makes for quicker melting.  I've been raking as the snow goes.  There are many branches to pick up, lots of bark from the firewood, and empty shells from the birdseed, not to mention the hazards of dog doodoo that lie in wait for the unsuspecting raker who backs up unwarily. 

I have written my congressman about the urgent need for Wisconsin to sign the Great Lakes Treaty, to protect the waters from exploitation, and he has replied that he will get back to me within a couple of weeks.  That's sort of encouraging...

Now I need to write to someone about introducing legislation to stop the horrible new law that will go into effect already this year, that brings the muskellunge and bass fishing season forward to the beginning of May.  This was tucked into the state budget bill in order to promote tourism and kill discussion.  No concern at all for the fact that these two fish are spawning in May, sitting on their beds, and will attack anything that comes near them.  No concern at all for the resource.  I will find out soon who to contact about this. 

My son tells me that where he lives, two wolf packs are active, one to his right, and one to his left.  He can hear them howling back and forth to each other, probably to maintain their separate territories.  He says they have been feeding on deer.  That's exactly correct.  Our state (and others) have had a huge population increase in deer, to the point that people in town have complained that their shrubberies are decimated, and huge piles of deer doodoo are wrecking their lawns.  So the natural remedy has always been for predators to move in and keep populations in check.  And that's just what has happened, and I, for one, am happy to see the wolf return.  But since my attendance at the Conservation Congress meeting, I also see the need to keep the predator populations in check as well.

And our local paper carried the story yesterday of a cougar shot in Chicago!  It was a young male, apparently not a "pet" or runaway from a zoo, but they felt they had to shoot it, or somebody might have been killed.  The animals are coming back!  And I think it is due to the abundance of deer, who have grown numerous feeding on the slash from the logging of the trees.  Whatever is a disaster for one form of life seems to become a boon for another.