Spring Backward, Wisconsin!

 

This is a dark spring, so far.  Complacency is out the window. Newly elected hard line, Tea Party Governors, in midwestern states are vandalizing the institutions we crafted to protect our  resources:  our people, our land, our water. Just two months in office, and our new Governor, Scott Walker,has threatened most of the citizens of  Wisconsin with teacher lay-offs, loss of the right to collective bargaining, loss of health care, and using our National Guard against us, in case we're unruly and protest.

But, the banks and Wallstreet have already bled this particular turnip dry.  And, they got away with  the pot of gold, too.  The working class has turned its pockets inside out already.  The poor, elderly and disabled are just not that lucrative a source of money, unless you take away their medicaid,  their home health nurses working for $9 / hr.   Our Governor has already handed out $117 million  in tax cuts to corporations and wealthy backers.    His great political miscalculation is to think that the teachers, nurses, lunch ladies, etc, will be the ones to pay for it.  Over 100,000 outraged people turned out daily over 3 weeks  in Madison, and across the state, to protest. They were non-violent protests, that felt more like a 4th of July parade, but they were deadly serious. 

Dark,  maybe, but also Spring, because we are standing up to fight back, and more than that, we are winning.  After all, we are people of the Heartland, and this new legislation is nothing if not  heartless.  When I woke up  one  morning this week to go visit our State Senator, Dan Kapanke, a supporter of the Governor's bill, at our courthouse, it was hard to think what to write on my sign. Riot!  was the only word that came to mind.  No wonder I accidentally cut  through 8 (!) warp threads when I got back to the loom.

Above images:  a soft blizzard at midnight, pink-nosed and pink-toed, possum in the birdfeeder, and weaving linen on the barn loom

A Death and a Chase

First there was a death. This chickadee flew off the feeder, straight into the workshop window.  It fell to the snowbank below, twitched its feet, then gave up the ghost.  Its breast feathers were lemony, and gray.  A color I hadn't been able to see before.  Its small feet, blue.  Poor thing!

 Next thing, a  rabbit came straight down the path to the house, in the middle of the day.  I noticed him, because usually the rabbits stay hid in the brush of the tree row during the day.  And, this one seemed to be in a hurry.

When I was back at the loom again, well, actually at the window near the loom,  trying to get a count of all the cardinals perched in the tree above the bird feeder (16 was the most I counted, but they kept moving. so I'm not sure) here came the same rabbit.  Bounding over the deeply snowed bank on the other side of the creek,  it crossed a rough row of snow covered creek rocks, and then came up the path behind the store.

The rabbit didn't  even glance at the black sunflower seeds scattered on the ground around the feeder, but hurried by in determined haste.  I took another count of the red birds, mainly because they were such a treat to look at in all the snow, plump and red, perched,  like fruits  on the gray branches.

What's this?  Something moving,  gray and slinky at the top of the hill across the creek, just where the rabbit came down through the snow, making its own trail.  It's the weasel!  The same from last summer that wouldn't let me cross the bridge to the house?  Or an associate?  The gray furred  weasel undulated, body surfing through the snow, more than it used its legs, which were not long.  And it was fast, following the rabbit's trail as far as the creek stones, then doubling back. It was back at the top of the bank, in  a moment,  in one gliding,  cursive stroke.

The weasel looked small, only about  2/3 the rabbit's size, but was definitely in pursuit.  Back to the rocks, the weasel streaked across, not getting wet, though weasels are aquatic.  Soon he was up by the bird feeder, hesitating going first to the west, then toward me at the window, then going  around the east side of my building. The rabbit had gone west, but was only a few minutes ahead.  The weasel's gray, fine fur looked so soft and silky, and its face sleek and beautiful. But, oh my, what a mouth full of teeth are in that head!  I thought weasels turned white in winter, but not this one.

I took my camera and sneaked out the front door hoping to see more, but there was just a shadow of
a gray tail (?) sliding under the gas pig in the side yard.  I had disrupted  the chase, but my feeling is that the weasel still had the advantage.  Another unresolved story, with life and death consequences, unfolding outside my window.

What actually came next is I went back to my weaving, wondering how, exactly, a rabbit's expression can appear anxious, and how is a person supposed to get anything done around here, with all this drama?