LOOKING FOR RONALD REAGAN

Tuesday, 8:30 AM.  23 degrees F, wind WSW, calm.  The sky is again completely overcast with low dark clouds, but for one small patch of lighter clouds directly above. The barometric pressure is 29.75, unchanged from yesterday.  I am about to light a bonfire and pound a drum to summon back the fleeing sun.
        The tundra swans continue to stop to rest on the lower Chequemagon Bay at Ashland.  There seems to be a pattern of arriving around noon, at least that’s what we see.  Lately the individual flocks have been small, with perhaps a total of one hundred birds or less scattered about.  I don’t know if they stay for only a short while and then move on towards their migratory destinations, or if, like many resident geese, they fly out to look for food in the early morning and then return later to extend their stay
        Yesterday we saw  very large packs of ice moving about in the channel to the south,  about half way between Bayfield and Washburn.  We didn’t expect to see pack ice yet as there hasn’t been that much really cold weather, but there it was, prognosticating deeper winter.
        It is to be expected that the politicians and much of the media should be calling for stricter gun control in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre.  Unfortunately it will not be a balanced approach but will be driven by anti-Second Amendment forces.  In the words of the Attorney General, spoken at an earlier time; “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” 
        Unfortunately, that attitude became apparent about halfway through the President’s memorial address, when he switched from mourning rhetoric to campaign mode.  Unrealistically, I keep looking for Ronald Reagan, but I keep finding Barack Obama.