SOME NONSENSE IS GOOD, SOME NOT SO GOOD

REPORTING ON THE FUN ROADSIDE ART  JUST EAST OF BRULE, WISCONSIN...

THE FISH IS NOW BACK ON THE LINE, AND A BOBBER HAS BEEN ADDED

A FLOCK OF FLAMINGOS IN A MARSH JUST EAST OF MAPLE, WISCONSIN

Wednesday, 7:30 AM.  56 degrees F at the ferry dock, 50 on the back porch.  Wind variable and calm, humidity 82%.  The sky is very clear, the barometer is beginning to fall gently, now standing at 30.14".  Highs will be in the sixties and low seventies, with mostly clear or partly cloudy skies for the next ten days, with a chance of a thunderstorm on Saturday.  It looks like we can expect some nice weather, if a bit on the cool side.
   Joan had an eye doctor appointment in Duluth yesterday, which presents an opportunity to report on what's happening along US Hwy. 2 between Ashland, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota.  Things are seasonally green in general, but many of the poplar trees are just now leafing out; it has been a really late spring.
   I can report that the monumental and fun fishing sculpture east of Brule that had lost its fish has been repaired and enhanced, the fish back on the line and a bobber added. 
   In a marsh just east of Maple, Wisconsin we spotted a flock of flamingos, very rare in these parts,  and graphic evidence of Global Warming.
                                                                OFF THE CUFF
   Not being a Minnesotan it is probably no business of mine, other than that I am a federal tax payer, but while in the doctor's office I read in the Duluth paper that Miller Creek, which runs a few miles from the airport to the harbor and is in the environs of the huge Miller Hill Mall, car dealerships, six lane roads and such, is being improved so it can support a reproducing population of brook trout.
   Brook trout can thrive and reproduce only in water that has temperatures below 66 degrees F, so the stream is being reconfigured to make it more meandering, and trees planted to shade it, and marshes made to impound and cool the water.  This will cost $800,000 in state and federal tax dollars, in addition to the sums already spent on what has evidently been a long and costly project.
   I am sure there are some die-hard trout fishermen who  would ply this stream in its urban wilderness, but it would seem more practical and effective to plant a few thousand trout for opening day fun for kids, or accept that the slightly warmer water would probably be an ideal environment for small mouth bass.  But what the heck, it's only someone else's money, and there's still plenty of that left for esoteric environmental projects such as this.
   Some nonsense is good, some not so good.