AH, SPRINGTIME IN BAYFIELD!

ALL ABOARD FOR LAPOINTE

ENOUGH!

Saturday, 8:30 AM.  28 degrees F, wind WNW, calm at present.  The sky is overcast and the Island only a distant shadow on the horizon.  The barometer stands at 29.82 in., and the humidity is 93%, and it is snowing hard again.  We got another several inches of snow last night, bringing the total snowfall of the present storm to over a foot of slushy stuff.  Another storm of similar proportions is predicted for tomorrow, this one coming from the SW.  Ah, springtime in Bayfield!
   Yesterday we heard the intermittent and very loud roar of an engine all morning long, and couldn't figure out what it was, so I finally drove around town listening and came to the conclusion it must be the Coast Guard wind boat either on a mission or training (most likely).  I stopped the local squad car and the officer confirmed my suspicions.  There are now huge stretches of open water on the channel so we hope the fishermen and snowmobilers keep off the ice.  Three deaths in a winter out there are way too many.
   The current gun control debate in Congress is, I think, obscuring a related event which has begun to occur.  Stagg Arms, a smaller gun manufacturer, has announced it is leaving Connecticut, with most or many of its four-hundred skilled employees.  It will probably relocate to Texas.  The Connecticut River Valley has been the center of American small arms production since before the Revolution. Colt, Smith and Wesson and many other famous names have been there for a century and more.  They now feel unwelcome and over regulated in Connecticut.  Texas will be glad to have them and their thousands of employees.  And probably buy most of what they produce.