Cabin Fever

THERE ARE DIVERSIONS
Protect Your Waters
Protect Your Mind
internet to the rescue

.. Staring at dead bird parts, bits of tinsel, scraps of thread, and shreds of fur is beginning to push us to the mental realm. The flies are piling up and the wind is howling and ice fishing doesn't appeal to this household. There are, however, other diversions.

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.. Our government servants at Protect Your Waters alert us that invasive species don't take the winter off to tie flies. Rock snot is being reported on its way toward the famed Restigouche River between New Brunswick and Quebec. The invasion could take place from the Matapedia River and impact the salmon fishing. The story is in yesterday's CBC News. For a description of the characteristics of this single-celled diatom the Southwest Invasive Species web site has the details.

MONEY QUOTE:

A single celled alga (diatom) that is microscopic individually, but forms dense colonies that cover aquatic substrata. These colonies ooze a mucus like substance called mucilage that has earned them the name "Rock Snot"

.. Also via Protect Your Waters we learn that the Zebra Mussel has jumped 1000 miles to Lake Mead. The note at the 100th Meridian Initiative site details the problems with this amazing traveling species.

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.. A search of the Internet provides all manner of results for cabin fever. Three of the most appealing are:
---> Schflay Beer 'Cabin Fever Winter Beer Festival' Try some Barleywine, or Winter ESB, or Spice Porter, or Dopplebock, or Schwartzbler, or whatever. The only problem is that you have to be in St. Louis to do this, and the Bozeman Airport is closed because of the storm. Dog Sled?
---> Cabin Fever, by B.M. Bower; an online novel that is a surprisingly good and rapid read. Brought to us by the World Wide School. It rings true this time of year. Don't start this book . . .

MONEY QUOTE
Bud Moore, ex-cow-puncher and now owner of an auto stage that did not run in the winter, was touched with cabin fever and did not know what ailed him. His stage line ran from San Jose up through Los Gatos and over the Bear Creek road across . . .

---> Trout Shangri-La: Remaking The Fishing In Yellowstone Park. A 2002 article by John Byorth about the place of stocked-trout in Yellowstone's history.

MONEY QUOTE
Early Yellowstone fish stories came from easterners who "discovered" not only a wondrous place in the park but the kind of fishing paradise that prevents grown men from returning to their loved ones on time.