Eclectic travelers

It was 33F Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. when I went out to feed the birds. Tiny bits of white flittered down.  I refused to believe it was snow and continued to trust in the weather report which said we were going to have a day with sunshine and 50 degrees.  As I drove north to Duluth I looked to the east and could see the sun trying to break through the clouds and by the time I reached Thompson Hill it was well on the way to succeeding.  The lake had a silvery sheen and more blue patches of sky were poking through the clouds.  It was going to be a beautiful morning on the Lake. I was headed to the U.S. Corps of Army Engineer pier where the R/V Blue Heron was docked, but first I and a lot of other cars had to wait for a gigantic freighter to pass through the canal and under the Lift Bridge.  From my position it looked as if the ship was as long as the entire Canal. It’s always a thrill to see one of these huge vessels pass so close by. We had met Bob Stern...

GOING NATURE’S WAY By Kate Crowley Just yesterday we were talking with some of our neighbors about ‘the bear’.  We don’t know if it’s the same bear that shows up each spring looking for sustenance or a new one, but the point of the discussion was the maintenance of our bird feeders.  They wanted to know if we were bringing them in each night; a practice which we have resorted to in recent years, after a series of visits by a hungry bear.  Mike said he’s been bringing one of the seed feeders and one suet feeder in, because we thought we’d had a raccoon show up one night, but so far the bear had not come around. Of course, by speaking it, we conjured the bear that same night.  There was a thunderstorm at some point and I picture the bear coming in under cover of the storm to dismantle a new, metal feeder that was attached to a wooden post directly below our bedroom window.  I even had the window open and yet we heard nothing.  I picture the bear st...