3/09/09 YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A WEATHERMAN, TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND IS BLOWING

Monday, 9:00 AM. 20 degrees, wind W, calm. The sky is mostly clear, and the barometer predicts sunny skies. The weather forecasters are predicting a big storm for Wisconsin, and heavy rain south. We shall see.
This will be the last post for a while, as we (myself, Joan and Lucky) are off on a little excursion starting tomorrow. I have an Urban Forestry Council meeting at the capitol in Madison on Wednesday, and we will drive down tomorrow. Bad weather is predicted so it will probably take the better part of the day. One of my purposes in going to the capitol is to do some lobbying for trees and related projects. I am not enthralled with the whole stimulus thing, but regardless, one has to do the best for one’s own community, and I have proposed a $187,000 tree project for the City through the Forest Service; it was all “get the proposal in ASAP” and now it is the typical “hurry up and wait” government syndrome, and of course I am a person of little patience. In any case I will talk to our state senator and representative about that and some other environmental projects and concerns I have.
From Madison we drive south, probably dodging storms, to visit our son, daughter-in-law and year-old granddaughter in Weatherford, Texas. We will also bum about the Texas Hill Country for several days and then on to Denver for a week’s sojourn with daughter, son-in-law and grandson and granddaughter, and then on home by April 1 or so. Along the way we hope to see Texas bluebonnets (although it may be too dry for a good bloom this year), maybe get to Ladybird Johnson’s Wildflower Center again, maybe get into the Rockies for a day or two in Colorado, and stop along the Platte River n Nebraska to watch migrating Sand Hill Cranes on the way home. By the time we return the ice road will be closed I am sure, but there will still be plenty of time for maple sugarin’. If I have the opportunity to enter a few posts along the way I will do so, but that may be beyond my technological capability. The native pussy willows along the Sioux River beach are just starting to bloom, a certain sign that winter is on the wane.The thieving little red squirrel will find the bird feeder empty and will have to fend for himself.