Adventures in Social Distancing 2

We're still on lock-down, and while I don't want to downplay the economic devastation this is wreaking, some people like to throw around totalitarian state metaphors. Please, talk to someone who lived under the Soviet regime or other dictatorial states and then tell us how this is like that.

Anyway, we are free to enjoy the outdoors.

Given that this is spring, much emerges: plant life, insects and amphibians, and the call of reproduction.
Frogs and toads call (when the weather isn't too cold) and birds defend territories and put on displays of virility.

This group of photos is from 3 April 2020 at Sterling State Park, which is Michigan's only state park on Lake Erie.

Get outside before you miss the sounds, the smells of spring. And the ephemerals...don't miss their show.

Sterling State Park is part of a delta for Lake Erie so there are plenty of waterfowl, like the scaups above.

Last year's investment

The American robin is so common I don't think I've ever snapped a photo of one. I remedied that.

Where's there is a sizable wetland, there are probably muskrats. It was still Lent when I spotted this critter, and given that it was a Friday, it counted as seafood, believe it or not. Sometime in the 18th or 19th century, Catholic bishops classified this mammal as seafood. Probably because they were plentiful and aquatic.

How much wood can a wood duck duck if a wood duck could duck wood?

Male and female mergansers

Comments

Mystery Meat indeed!

During my grocery shopping today I was asked to pick up some hot dogs for some meal or other. Now I am not an aficianado of the 'ot dog, but will usually have a corn dog or BBQed version of one or two during the summer. If my children like them, so be it. The trouble came when trying to find a package that didn't arrive from a chemistry lab. Nitrates and nitrites, sugars (including HFCS), the preservative sodium benzoate, and other fun substances littered every package I picked up. Even Hebrew National which "Answers to a Higher Standard" was doped. Apparently Kosher doesn't mean it can't be injected with a chemical cocktail. So-called "Natural Casings" were prominently displayed to catch my eye. As if sheep or pig intestine somehow offsets Agricorps tinkering. I ended up buying the brand "sold at Tiger Stadium" not because it was chemical-free, Hell no! It was merely the brand with the least additives. Why does a hot dog need su...

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.

Shutting Down the Shop

It's been a good run, sort of. I don't see much traffic here these days, partly because I only post occasionally. But I think in some ways, blogs as they are, have become quasi-obsolete. I'm not, however, giving up writing. I'm moving. To a Substack. This one : Pilgrim of the Sweetwater Seas. So, if you're inclined. Check it out. Subscribe--it's free until I get a certain number of subscribers (and I'm not even close to that number yet). Anyway, thanks Blogspot for the opportunity way back in the Oughts to do this. Maybe I'll see you, reader, over at the Pilgrim site?

I Am Not Hamlet

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