Is It Spring Yet?

Got an e-mail from my dad recently. It read in part:

"I like going to your site map on your blog once in awhile. There is one location that shows Riga, Michigan. It comes up a lot lately. I wonder who that is; I thought maybe they are snowed in and that gives them something to do. Riga is in the Upper Peninsula."

I had to tell him that Riga was me. Verizon had moved my IP address location again, this time from Richmond, Indiana to Riga, Michigan. I know Michigan winters are bad, particularly in the Upper Peninsula, but snow and cold so bad that people are forced to hang out at my blog here? That's an extreme case of cabin fever.

Everyone's already tired of the winter here. We're starting a new maxim: global warming is your friend. Where is this warming anyway? It's been so cold even the animals are suffering.

The other day I saw the feed in my bird feeder was nearly empty on one of the coldest days thus far. So I thought I would do my part to help my feathered friends too stupid to go south for the winter. As I approached the feeder, one lonely sparrow was huddled on a lower rung.

Surprisingly, he didn't move. Usually, birds at my feeder take flight as soon as they spy me on the way. Not this little fellow. I walked right up behind him. If I'd been a cat, he would have been history.

"Excuse me, I'm going to put more feed in the feeder," I said, now just an arm's length away. He turned round, frost glistening from his feathered brow, tiny eyes glassy, seemingly miserable. After regarding me for a second, he turned back around. And continued to sit there.

What? I knocked on the kitchen window to summon my wife to see. She came and observed the stubborn sparrow too cold to fly away. But then he did finally fly on. He was fine. Just cold.

A co-worker who complained to me last week that he didn't know if he could take another month or two of this cold related a story about a lady at some apartment complex whose car had sat for some time in the same spot. When she did finally move her vehicle, it revealed a dead squirrel underneath, frozen in its tracks. Apparently, he had tried to take refuge from the elements, but in the end there was no retreat from the near zero temperatures.

I read a blog from an overseas visitor who recently visited Washington in the Pacific northwest where temperatures there were ONLY around freezing. "How the hell does anyone live in this frozen wasteland?" she asked.

Coincidentally, Hell Michigan is less than hour's drive from where we live. And, yes, it's frozen over.