Connecting some dots

While driving South near Lino Lakes this morning, we saw three swans in flight. Absent seeing angels, those swans may be the most graceful creatures we're ever likely to see in the air. Maybe one of thee days we'll get lucky enough to capture one or two decent pictures of swans in flight. Later, while accompanying the dogs on a mid-day constitutional, we watched two bald eagles fly through the neighborhood. We're not sure if they were a mated pair or not. They were separated by about a 1/4 mile or more in the air. One was flying, the other climbing a thermal in an upward spiral. We would thoroughly enjoy experiencing more days with visions such as today's. We believe that both the eagles and the swans are returning migrants from wintering in more Southerly locales.

bald eagle, Spring sky

Photo by J. Harrington

Perhaps our karma is improving together with the weather. While poking about damp corners of the internet this morning, we discovered a web site of delight to those of us who love water, rivers and fly fishing. We also became reacquainted with a word that had dropped from our vocabulary. Syzygy Fly Fishing had escaped our notice until this morning. We found their wonderful web site through our discovery on Twitter of @PatagoniaFlyFsh ‏. (In non-astronomical use, syzygy is "A pair of connected or corresponding things.") As Spring continues to encroach on Winter and the days get longer, warmer, and brighter, we'll save further explorations of the SFF site for evenings and really rainy days.

The fly fishing web site matches nicely with several other water related web sites we've uncovered recently.

• We Are Water has a web site hosted by the Minnesota Humanities Center. If you scroll down to the Resources section, you'll find several Educator guides.


• The Minnesota Department of Agriculture hosts a Minnesota Water Research Digital Library
• The Environmental Quality Board has A Summary of the Literature Related to the Effects ofAnimal Agriculture on Water Resources


• The Metropolitan Council now hosts a Key water information catalogue

swans, graceful on water, more so in the air

Photo by J. Harrington

We mention these because, despite spending more than 40 years, off and on, working on Minnesota's water quality issues, each f the resources above is new to us. The growing abundance of information about the state's waters does raise the question of how an average citizen can be expected to be informed and intentional about what Minnesota should do regarding a growing list of water quantity, quality and competing uses issues. We've touched here on such questions from time to time. It seems to us Minnesota needs to spend more quality time connecting the dots. Fish once were contaminated by DDT flowing off of agricultural lands. Eagles eat fish. Eagles got contaminated by eating fish full of DDT. How many of our waters have "fish consumption advisories?" Trumpeter swans were almost extirpated from Minnesota due to development and over hunting. Reintroduction and recovery do not assure us swans will be here in the future. Do you want your children limited to catch and release fishing? Is it important to you that they see the beauty of swans in flight? Why?

                     A Hundred Bolts of Satin

By Kay Ryan

All you

have to lose

is one

connection

and the mind   

uncouples

all the way back.   

It seems

to have been

a train.

There seems

to have been

a track.

The things

that you

unpack

from the

abandoned cars   

cannot sustain   

life: a crate of   

tractor axles,   

for example,

a dozen dozen   

clasp knives,   

a hundred   

bolts of satin—

perhaps you   

specialized   

more than   

you imagined.

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