First week of spring and a technicolor skunk

So as the big ride continues, we find ourselves tilting into the end of the first week of astrological spring. It's a bit late again this year, with morning temperatures in the single digits on either side of the doughnut. Not helpful for the humans who are about at the breaking point. Warm weather, sunshine, bare ground, dry roads, open water - all sorely needed by those who have endured a historically nasty winter. Perhaps the second week of spring will bring it.

But then there are a few hopeful signs. A fresh raodkilled skunk is a sure harbinger of wonderful things to come. There a lot of trumpeter swans about and the eagles are back in force. The crows are here again and there are some new arrivals at the backyard feeders - goldfinch, housefinch and junco. Another sign of spring is the condition of the snow pack, hard as iron every morning, allowing for snowshoeless free ranging into all kinds of exploration. But then that fluid mantle is soft again by mid afternoon. The dogs are restless to take a big hike.

Access to and from and onto the lakes has improved considerably and a few panfish are coming up the hole.

Reading the news and the blogs about the corporate assault on the remaining little bit of the natural world should be just depressing as hell. And working daily on the other side of that should be a drag, especially at this limbo time of year, but somehow I seem to be finding a little humor amidst the potential catastrophe. The two vexations that currently chap my ass are this one and that one. Both designed to impact headwaters areas, when the spilling occurs.

Haven't heard a good protest song aired on a radio station since about 2002 when John Fogerty and few other brave souls spoke out about Dubbya and the Invasions, but then the Dixie Chicks got crucified over all that and it pretty much ended the idea that you could get any rational argument to be musically broadcast to the masses.
 
So the skunk emerges from beneath the snow, from within the warmth of its hibernation den. Smelling the sweetness of spring in the air, it hits the cruise across the crusted snow, encounters the highway and gets rubbed out by a speeding vehicle - sort of a lateral drone strike of the commuter kind.  Is there a metaphor here?  Wainwright claimed (wink wink) when he wrote it back in 1972 that there wasn't a political message to the song.  And maybe there is nothing political in it's message today. And maybe I just like the song.........