Well folks, it's finally happened, that dread malady that haunts us all, I'll call it Codgeritis. Oh, if you've got it you'll recognize the symptoms: The pops and crackles when you stand up after sitting for a while (If it's accompanied by an involuntary groan, you're in the advanced stages). Your idea of a good time is staying awake until the evening news is over. You catch yourself using corny expressions like, "Groovy" or "Far out" or some other such nonsense. The symptom that really brought the affliction home to me was the sound of my own voice saying "When I was your age" or "When I was a kid" (If there's at least some one in the room with you that's a good sign). Well, that got me off on a train of thought (These very often get derailed lately, I think that's a sign too, but I'm not sure.) We've all heard Comedian Jeff Foxworthy's routine, "You might be a red-neck if…". Well, I've concocted my own variation of this schtick (See what I mean? I've never said schtick before in my life!) Any way, my version is: "You might be a codger if…" Now please feel free to play along, but no cheating. You might be a codger if:

This tiny instrument has the capacity to overwhelm one. Every day for the spring and summer he made it to the top of our evergreen tree - the very smallest branch. One wonders how a tiny bird, namely Indigo Bunting, could be so precise. Oh, the wonders! He came every morning and sang his wonderful tune. How could anything so small produce such merriment? He arrived every morning at 4:30 A.M. and sang for half an hour.

I'm glad this spruce tree is located near my bedroom winter. I planted it there many years ago. My window is open and the opera begins. I gladly wake up to hear his ingenious tune. Keeping these notes in my mind will sustain me until next spring.

The tiny bird is about the size of a canary only a bit more streamlined. The iridescent green of the tree is an accent he is fortunate to have.

Keep planting trees. We need them to sustain our beautiful areas and protect our feathered friends. No more music by this little bunting after August 10. Where did he go? South somewhere, of course. Come on spring! I'm waiting for my beautiful musician to arrive.

The one hundred and first Christmas Bird Count was held on Saturday, December 29th, with 15 people counting.

The day was sunny with temperatures from 4 to 20. Because of the warm winter with no snow, different species were seen. A hermit thrush was sited along with 17 robins. On the bay and river, lesser scaups, mergansers, and may gulls were seen.

Absent from the count were shrikes, waxwings, grosbeaks, redpolls, and siskins. Fifteen people in five parties drove or walked a total of 334.75 miles. Counters were Rich & Joan Campbell and grandsons Jake & Fritz; Mary Moss; Mary Omernik; George, Betty & Barb Bereza; Bill & Denise Taylor and sons Chase & Martin; Howard Lorenz; Mike Blohm.

American Bird Conservancy and Wild Bird Centers of America announce a nationwide contest to determine the official poster of National Keep Your Cat Indoors Day 2002.

Every year hundreds of millions of birds and small mammals are killed by domestic cats, allowed by their owners to roam outdoors. These same cats are exposed to hazards such as cars, attacks by other animals, diseases, poisons, extreme weather, and natural disasters. National Keep Your Cat Indoors Day, May 11, 2002, held in conjunction with International Migratory Bird Day, aims to educate cat owners that both cats and wildlife benefit when cats are kept indoors.

The second national poster competition was held last year and attracted 350 entries from 23 states plus Canada, with winners featured in local press. The entries for this year's contest will yield winners in three age categories, one of which will be determined the overall winner and the official poster of National Keep Your Cat Indoors Day 2002. Prizes will be provided by Wild Bird Centers of America, Inc. and include a $200 gift certificate for the overall winner, with an additional $150 gift certificate for the school, nature center, scout group, or other institution with which the child is associated. Winners in the other age categories will each receive $100 gift certificates. The gift certificates can be redeemed at any local Wild Bird Centers of America franchise store or at wildbirdcenters.com

Competition Rules (also posted to website: )

Mike Kettu has been an elementary teacher in Menominee since 1973. During that time he has been involved with a number of community arts projects including Artworks (1980-1983), Menominee Concerts in the Park (1984-2001), and Wild Rice Concerts (1983-2002).

In addition to his community involvement, he has traveled throughout the US as well as Mexico (1976), Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico (1993), France (1994, 2001), and China (2000, 2001).

His most recent travel was to work with a film crew to photograph Buddhist cave paintings in the Gobi Desert in western China. The project uses high-resolution digital photography to make detailed 3-dimensional archival records of the cave art.

These caves, in Dunhuang, China, were created during the 3rd through 10th centuries by artists and Buddhist monks. The cave paintings and sculptures were commissioned by merchants whose goods passed through the area on the Silk Road.

His program will include personal photos from the area surrounding the caves, commercial (purchased) slides of the cave art, and pictures of selected sites in Beijing

Our backyards are our sanctuaries - small patches of nature that remind us of what our planet looked like before it was paved.

More and more, though, backyards are also becoming precious havens for birds and other wildlife - an "average" yard is regularly visited by at least 15 to 20 different bird species. As suburbs grow and forests shrink, how we manage our backyard sanctuaries will have an increasingly profound effect on whether birds can find safe nesting spots, clean water, and food that isn't laced with pesticides.

The National Audubon magazine has "Backyard" columns posted on their website at http://magazine.audubon.org. These columns discuss everything from what to plant to attract butterflies to how to put in a water garden or build the perfect bluebird house.

What will the State of Wisconsin budget cuts mean for our state's environment? The 1.3 billion dollar deficit is going to mean drastic cuts in all parts of state government. All ready the Department of Natural resources has been told to cut their budget and additional cuts are yet to come. Particularly hard hit already has been the water and parks division. What will this mean for Marinette County's new State Park?

Keep a watch out for budget cuts which you feel will negatively impact our state's environment. If there is something you feel strongly about let your state representatives know about it.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will be going through some changes in the near future. To follow is a portion of a letter sent to Darrell Bazzell from the Upper Green Bay Basin Partnership team. Currently Chappee Rapids members Wendel Johnson and Trygve Rhude serve on this committee.

The 1995 reorganization created the basin concept with a land and water team leader along with a partnership team as the way to bring about integrated management of the natural resources of that basin. Any fine-tuning of this structure should maintain the cooperation and teamwork which has taken place between the land and water teams.

The West Shore Restoration Areas Project in our basin is a good example of what an integrated management team can accomplish. Department staffs form Forestry, Wildlife Management, Fisheries Management, Water Regulation and Zoning, Facilities and Lands, and Basin Management have all worked together to begin the process of protecting this valuable state resource. Cooperation across division and program lines has made this project a reality. Our partnership team will soon begin the process of writing a feasibility study for this Department acquisition project. Without the cooperation of these divisions and the partnership team the West Shore project would not be a reality. All the models developed for reorganization of regional staff take personnel out of the field. Getting additional people in the field was a major goal of the 1995 reorganization. A land and water team leader with fewer line staff should continue to exist as a way to integrate all natural resource issues within the basin.

A structure as close as possible to the status quo should be maintained. Since the 1995 reorganization many good things have been accomplished in the DNR. Allowing the current system some additional time to find its path is appropriate at this time.

OF THE 139 streams analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey in 30 states - including Maryland and Virginia - about 80 percent contained trace amounts of contaminants that are routinely discharged into the water in human and livestock waste and chemical plant refuse

Seven or more chemical compounds were found in half the streams sampled and 10 or more compounds were found in a third of the streams; a single water sample contained as many as 38 chemicals. The USGS study, which will be published in today's issue of the journal Environmental Science and Technology, stresses that in many cases the measured concentration of contaminants such as painkillers, insect repellent, caffeine and fire retardants was low - less than 1 part per billion - and rarely exceeded federal standards for drinking water. But many of the chemical compounds detected are not covered by drinking-water standards or government health advisories, and little is known about how the interaction of those chemicals can affect humans, animals and the environment.

"Protecting the integrity of our water resources is one of the most essential environmental issues of the 21st Century," the report states. "Little is known about the potential interactive effects . . . that may occur from complex mixtures of [waste contaminants] in the environment." In many ways, water quality mirrors societal behavior and medical practices: Antibiotics and other prescription and nonprescription drugs and personal care products used widely by Americans inevitably turn up in wastewater; manufacturers and chemical plants legally dump thousands of tons of compounds into streams and rivers, and the waste of livestock treated with veterinary pharmaceuticals flows into streams.

The study, conducted in 1999 and 2000, surveyed the occurrence of 95 pharmaceuticals, hormones and other organic waste in streams across the country. The authors said the compounds were selected because they enter the environment through common wastewater pathways in large quantities and may have human or environmental health implications.

The sampling technique focused on streams most susceptible to contamination, downstream from large urban areas - including New York, Boston, Chicago and Denver - or industrial plants or livestock yards. In the Washington, D.C., region, scientists sampled water from the Pocomoke River and Nassawango Creek near Snow Hill, both on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and Christians Creek near Jolivue, Va. "We're not talking about rampant dumping," said a U.S. Geological Survey official. "We're looking at the effect of normal existing usage for these different chemicals."

The study was not designed to compare the water quality of different streams, but to create a baseline for future study by scientists of the persistence and migration patterns of the compounds and their potential impact on humans and the environment, according to USGS officials.

Environmentalists say that while water quality has vastly improved since passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, the government fell far short of the congressional goal of creating "fishable and swimmable" waters nationwide by 1983. Moreover, they said, there are scores of potentially harmful chemical compounds in the water that can accumulate in humans and animals, compounds that are not governed by the law, which was last reauthorized in 1987.

"On the one hand, we have eliminated the smelly, rotting sewage floating in the Potomac River and other streams that [former first lady] Lady Bird Johnson talked about," said Rick Hind, the legislative director of Greenpeace USA's toxics campaign. "But the poisons unseen continue to fester in the water, animal life and sediments of all of our rivers and lakes."

So, if winter never came would we still long for spring? Seems we get to find the answer to that question this year! As I write it is a bright, clear day with the promise of temps above freezing. This should feel like spring bursting about all over but is really just the norm so far this season. I am quite thankful for the snow a week or so ago, it really encouraged the resident birds to come into the feeders for a snack. Yes, they are still there- no they did not leave back in October as many folks had thought!

News in avian observations this year are centered around late migrants that never really left. The CBC shows numerous robins as well as other thrushes. Juncoes are in good numbers throughout the area, often accompanied by American tree sparrows. Goldfinches are about average. Blue jays, chickadees and crows are doing well. John Helfert relayed the interesting observation that blue jays visit bird feeders primarily in the early morning and are usually absent after nine o'clock. Nuthatches, white and red-breasted seem a little down. I had a red-bellied woodpecker stop in February 2nd, a marsh hawk February 4th and a kestrel on January 28th. Red tails are almost as numerous as rough legs south of Stephenson. On January 2nd, Carol Smith of M-35 Menominee called to report a varied thrush had been at her feeder for nearly a week! Last but not least, Joan Campbell reported a snowy owl at the mouth of the Menominee in early January.. and I wondered if they would even come this far south this year. As the weather outlook remains benign, we should be on the watch for early returnees this month. Horned larks may already be at the airports and in large fields, killdeer will come with open ground. Song sparrows, grackles, red-wings maybe? I figure on bluebirds about the 20th of March, sandhill cranes can come as early as the first week of March- some things to look for as warm fronts move across the state. Horned owls should already be calling, this may be a good year to watch for screech owls in Marinette county. The ice on the bay is thin and shifting daily, this should be a warning to hopeful fishermen and ladies, but also may signal the earliest break-up I have ever seen and waterfowl will be present to take advantage of this.

The mild winter should herald a large insect population this coming spring and summer, some we like and some we don't. With some luck to our interests, these creatures should in turn feed healthy populations of birds, reptiles and amphibians- providing we don't experience extreme drought! This year, as spring approaches I am drawn back to our first winter here on our farm. We viewed the land in November and moved out here in January. I had no clue what the woods and fields would look like in the coming year. We were very fortunate to have the best of neighbors who also grew to be some of our dearest friends. On our very first meeting Otto Lamack told me of the stream that crossed the road running from our place onto his land, of how beautiful the cowslips and violets would be, and how deafening the frogs were and that these were his favorite things in spring. For the next eighteen years I sometimes met him at that juncture on our walks, but more often I saw his footprints as he paused to admire the scene. I love that view also, "my" side of the road and looking into "his" side of the road.

Otto has since left his earthly journey and we were fortunate enough this fall to purchase this piece of land. Knowing that Otto was able to care for this land for much of his ninety years, both earning a living and maintaining its beauty and natural productivity greatly adds to my commitment to its stewardship. It is my hope that everyone gets to share this responsibility towards a part of our natural home at some time in their life, be it for a single tree or butterfly, a family farm or a vast wilderness. Enjoy winter's gentle ride!