One Tough Bird

We've had a pair of resident sandhill cranes nesting here for as long as we've had our big pond; making it thirty years.  I don't believe it has been the same pair for the duration ; nevertheless, we've been witness to cranes arriving here in the month of March is some remarkably harsh weather conditions.  Including Winter Storm Elsa which ended late Monday.  Our cranes have been here for a couple of weeks already and when I arose yesterday they were easy to spot given all the snow on the ground.

There they were - several hundred yards north of the house - at the edge of the frozen pond, in a couple feet of snow, on a sunny 18F morning.  The sandhill is an incredibly hardy critter always arriving at their northern breeding grounds while there is still snow covering icy wetlands. 

This bird comes factory-equipped with some sophisticated physiological adaptations that allow it to thrive under the harshest of conditions.  One of these is a sophisticated network of blood vessels in their legs called rete tibiotarsale.  Also found in penguins and turkey vultures this allows warmer arterial blood from their heart to transfer heat to the cold venous blood returning from their feet.  This keeps their core temperature warm while allowing their feet to remain at a lower temperature while standing in snow or icy water.  

When airborne cranes typically fly with their long legs trailing behind.  If it is too cold at 10,000 feet of altitude the bird will tuck their legs into their belly feathers to conserve heat.  Speaking of which, the crane's plumage is a dense layer of soft downy feathers beneath an outer layer of contour feathers.  Air trapped by the inner layer provides thermal insulation beneath the outer feathers that repel wind and freezing rain.   

Crane behavior strategies include the use of tail winds to speed their migration from Mexico and southern states, roosting in warmer waters adjacent to power plants and preening their gray feathers with mud to make a rusty-brown camouflage to hide from predators.  Until the arrival of spring green-up, this is a bird capable of digging beneath snow to locate waste grain in agricultural fields and tubers and dormant invertebrates and amphibians in frozen mud. 

Anyway, we're looking forward to observing the ritual mating dance of Wisconsin's tallest bird.  The birds will face each other, bow and jump while flapping their wings and making loud cackling calls.  Yes, this tough bird can dance too.

Stay-tuned for any lucky trail camera photos I might capture this season. 

Patron Saint

Clonmacnoise, Ireland

The Feast Day of Saint Patrick has taken-on more significance for me since we traveled and visited the Old Sod of my ancestors before COVID.  Unless you are oblivious it is obvious that the Republic of Ireland is most assuredly a bastion of the Roman Catholic tradition of the Christian faith.  And I suppose more than a few visitors are left with the impression that Ireland is - in some official capacity - a Catholic country.  While Catholics significantly outnumber all other faith traditions in Ireland, there is no reference to Catholicism in the Irish Constitution.  Ireland is officially a secular state and tolerates all belief systems.  Of course, on my visit not even once did I spy a Lutheran church.  But I digress.

Getting back to the Feast Day the story of Ireland’s Patron Saint persists and you readers are likely wondering if St. Patrick really did chase the snakes out of Ireland.  Or is that tale just a bunch of blarney?        

According to the tale way back in the fifth century the legendary priest raised his staff and banished the reptiles into the seas surrounding the Emerald Isle.  Save for those in captivity it is true that Ireland has no snakes.  But this current condition has less to do with religious tradition and more to do with geologic history and events dating many millennia ago.  Following the retreat of the last glaciers some 15,000 years ago Ireland was devoid of snakes.  Surrounded by icy waters to this very day snakes cannot swim or find their way there and as a consequence Ireland remains snake-free.         

That’s too bad because if my recreational DNA test is to be believed I am becoming more Irish with every passing year.  And I have a particular fondness for snakes. The bigger the better.   

Like this dandy five foot long Western Fox Snake.  I also like a good saint when I see one and St. Patrick wasn’t even Irish.         

Patrick was born of aristocratic blood in Britain probably around the year 390.  The legend says that he was not particularly religious.  At age 16 he was kidnapped into slavery was forced into life as a sheepherder in Ireland.  It is held that it was during this time that he found God and became a believer.         

As the story goes he began hearing voices and the voices instructed him to flee.  Which he did.  Patrick eventually found his way back to Britain and his family.  Alas, the voices returned commanding him to return to Ireland.  He was ordained a priest, went back to Ireland and spent the balance of a rather difficult life converting the pagan Celts to Christianity.  He died on March 17, 461 and was promptly forgotten.      

Nevertheless, over many years faithful conviction and belief in the story of Patrick grew.  And he grew ever larger after his death than he did in real life.  Hundreds of years after the fact he was honored as Ireland’s patron saint.         

So on March 17th we gather to pay homage to this saint who - ostensibly - banished the snakes from Ireland.  It is said that on this one day of the year everyone is Irish.          

Since I have real Irish blood coursing through my veins I intend to raise a glass of Guinness and toast my ancestors and Saint Patrick.  I will ignore the part about the sketchy British and Western European connection.         

Speaking of Guinness - according to the Guinness people somewhere around 5.5 million pints of Guinness stout are consumed world-wide each and every day.  On St. Patrick’s Day this will grow to 13 million pints; lifting a Lenten restriction on alcohol for just one day.     

Drink responsibly people.         

Sláinte!

 

Sockdolager!

Forecast was for a cessation of snowfall by 4 PM. Took these shots before 3:30. The sun is shining and the wind continues to howl out of the north. Gusts up to 60+ MPH are absolutely brutal. 

 

 

Look like we got at about 27-30 inches on the level. Reports suggest Sturgeon Bay got 35+. 

The drifts are amazing.

 

Businesses, schools and churches are closed with many of the town roads impassable. We’re on a county road and will get further attention after the state highways are completed. No power outages for us but half of the statewide total is confined to the peninsula. 

 

Waiting on our plow guy to take a stab at clearing the driveway so I can fetch the blower from the machine shed and finish digging out. 

 

Winter Storm Elsa was a whopper two day nor'easter; a real Sockdolager! 

Guns Versus Butter

I haven't had much to say about the war with Iran.  On one hand it is easy to come down on the side of regime change or, at a minimum, defanging the regime. The Mullahs are a dangerous collection of twisted religious revanchists who would kill me in a heartbeat for simply being American, Christian or both.  Yup, I am the Great Satan.  Nuclear weapons in the hands of these gangsters is taboo.

On the other hand, my preference would have been for a President to take his case before Congress before going to war.  I am unconvinced of the clear and present danger of an immediate threat as much as I am convinced that the president would have gotten the go-ahead from Congress along with buy-in from the public.  What we got instead was more executive unilateralism.

Almost three weeks into Operation Epic Fury - the war on Iran - the President's promise of prosperity and economic growth in his second term is facing a handful of critical risks that heretofore did not exist.  Going into the new year the current economic condition was basically OK.  Notwithstanding a nonsensical tariff regimen my sense was that the president was counting on a second-term economic agenda of deregulation and tax relief to propel the economy forward.  

In the absence of a Congressional resolution supporting the war, shifting rationales for the war itself and no clearly articulated strategy to end the hostilities at this particular point in time and space there are any number of elements that might conspire to trip-up both the domestic and world economies.

The most immediate of which is the disruption to the energy supply chain.  Even an Iranian 'threat' to shipping via the Strait of Hormuz has caused oil prices to spike impacting everything from gasoline, to LNG and diesel. The domino-effect of this is a spike in inflation pressures as a consequence  higher prices for groceries (transportation and farming costs), airfares and utility pricing.

Wars costs a big pile of money; with the first week alone reported to cost us taxpayers $11.3 billion.  Even if the burn rate settles-in at $1 billion a day the implications for expanding the the federal deficit are huge.  The President and Pentagon are going to come back with hat-in-hand to ask for more money; and the resulting borrowing will crowd-out private investment and lead to calls for raising taxes.   

Iranian threats have disrupted maritime security resulting in the rerouting of shipping, higher insurance premiums and increased freight costs impacting virtually every last consumer good traveling the global supply chain. 

Economists have been setting-off alarm bells that a prolonged conflict could damage business confidence leading to a pause in hiring and capital investment.  A combination of persistently higher energy costs and depressed growth could lead to a 1970s style 'stagflation'.  Naturally, the investment market's response to uncertainty is greater volatility.

I do not believe that an air campaign alone can effect regime change much less political change. Consequently, I'm anxious to know how this gets wrapped-up before it morphs into an unintentional 'forever war'. 

Meanwhile, the resulting energy crisis and fiscal drain have very real implications to our economy, and the world economy writ-large.  The risk for shifting from an expected period of domestic growth to one of stagnation and rising living costs is quite real.

I want policy that improves your and my prosperity and general lot in life.  Along with making the world a safer place.  But what it is ain't exactly clear.  We have not been to a Trump rodeo like this before.

About Those Signs Of Spring

Spoke too soon about springtime.

When you live half-way between the equator and the North Pole the month of March can throw you a curve ball from time to time.

Woke-up today to this.

Business has been brisk at the bird feeders all day with the arrival of more of the summertime species in the past week.  So doggo and I went out to top them-off and deployed an additional two suet feeders.

Presently it looks like there is 8 to 10 inches of snow on the level, with another 18 to 20 in the next twenty four hours.  We got a regular nor'easter on our hands with winds coming off the lake gusting to 40 miles per hour.

Snug here with a nonstop fire in the wood burner since last evening.  We even had bacon with breakfast; because, there's a blizzard going on.

No power outages (yet).

Everything is closed except the local watering hole  Come to think about it the only way to get there is by snowmobile.....  

 

Signs of Spring

It is officially spring here in the northern hemisphere meteorologically-speaking.   

Meteorological seasons are conveniently divided into tidy calendar months.  The seasons begin on the first day of the months that include the equinoxes and solstices:  Thusly, spring runs from March 1 to May 31; summer runs from June 1 to August 31; fall (autumn) runs from September 1 to November 30; and winter runs from December 1 to February 28 (February 29 in a leap year).   

The astronomical definition uses the dates of equinoxes and solstices to mark the beginning and end of the seasons:  Spring begins on the spring equinox; summer begins on the summer solstice; fall (autumn) begins on the fall equinox; and winter begins on the winter solstice. The beginning of each season marks the end of the last.   

Because the timings of the equinoxes and solstices change each year, the length of astronomical seasons within a year and between years also varies.       

If you want to keep it simple remember this and this alone:  The arrival of the male redwing blackbirds to stake out their breeding territories is a harbinger of spring and has always been my benchmark for the official start.    On March 7 the first one arrived precisely on-time.  Now there are vast flocks of them.

And If you have a sporting dog in your household this also marks the beginning of mud season.  

Raising a toast to the janitor slop sink and hot and cold running water.... 

The Award For Excellence In Cinematic Achievement For Arrogance, Vanity and Excess Goes To....

The Academy For Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is hosting their 98th annual award ceremony tomorrow.  And a funny thing happened on the way to the Oscars.  The $220,000,000 taxpayer-funded boondoggle overseen by former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem has drawn intense scrutiny not only on account of the cost, but because that single 60-second promotional effort she authorized outspent the production budgets of every 2026 Oscar Best Picture nominee.

The combined production and promotion budget of every single film on the Motion Picture Academy's list of nominees came in lower than Secretary Noem's extravagant high-hat testament to personal conceit.  

The following table compares the $220 million DHS ad campaign budget against the estimated production costs of the top-spending 2026 Academy Award contenders:

Feature Film	Category	Estimated Production Budget	vs. DHS Ad
F1	Sports Drama	$135M – $200M	Up to $85M cheaper
One Battle After Another	Period Drama	$130M – $175M	At least $45M cheaper
Frankenstein	Sci-Fi Horror	$120M	$100M cheaper
Sinners	Supernatural Thriller	$90M	$130M cheaper

Consider this:  Film budgets can include one or more years of labor for hundreds of cast and crew members, whereas the DHS budget was for a 60-second clip and its airtime.  $175 million of the DHS expenditure went to Safe America Media Group, a corporation formed just days before the contract was awarded and with no prior government experience.

Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) labeled the spending a 'fraud' noting that the campaign featured Noem prominently on horseback at Mount Rushmore, serving more as a political branding exercise instead of a legitimate government service.

And, of course, it pissed-off El Jefe (The Boss).  After Noem testified before Congress that President Trump signed-off on the spending, the President publicly stated, I never knew anything about it, noting that he spent less money than that to actually become President. 

Oh boy howdy.  Someone gonna take that girl to the woodshed before too long....