Thursday, November 08, 2007

Fires of November

The fires of November, as viewed in our woodstove here, are often burning too hot for the variable weather conditions or else are smoldering and smoking to add just a bit of heat to the house as the thermometer hovers just above freezing.

The snow sifted down a bit last night as the temperature remains below freezing. The weatherperson claims that the weather will warm and then the snow will melt and autumn will continue...
I hear that up on the Upper Yukon that winter has been holding sway for quite some weeks now. I remember with fondness being out on the snow with dog team by this time every year and safely mushing on the River during Thanksgiving. Somehow the winter that we moved down here in the Keweenaw to is not quite as enjoyable or prolonged enough to suit me.

Heading over to Marquette and up from there to Big Bay for a retreat with Earthkeepers this afternoon. Earthkeepers appears to be morphing into a different organization with the disappearance of one of the real fund gathering organizations from the group.
The northern Shrike has made at least one appearance in the side yard each day. I haven't seen it take a bird or mouse yet in this probably fruitful area of brushy fields and gullies with small streams and mixed woods hunting ground. A large male hairy woodpecker is lording over a female hairy and other downy woodpeckers, trying to keep both suet feeders to himself. This requires him to fly from tree to tree over and over.

In the Nov.5 issue of the New Yorker there is a quite excellent article article by Raffi Khatchadourian entitled "Neptune's Navy", Paul Watson's wild crusade to save the oceans. Paul Watson has been an enigma in the conservation movement with his firebrand mode of operation in trying to save marine mammals from man's predation. Katchadourian answered many of the questions that I have had about Watson and gave me a great deal of background on this highly gifted activist and author.
Sea Shepherd, Watson's organization always rides the far edge of legality on the high seas with their blockade tactics and sometimes out-and-out destroying of opponent's ships violating the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on taking endangered whales. Sea Shepherd's crusade against bottom trawling and man's destruction of the ocean ecosystems is raising awareness though corporate and governmental shills are dead-set against him. Yes, he is a modern day pirate and no he hasn't killed anyone in his crusade. Totally in the tradition of Ed Abbey.






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