Pure bologna

The Detroit Free Press is clamoring for more "Pure Michigan" ads. These are the pretty billboards and the Tim Allen-narrated radio commercials that air a lot in Chicago. They were ubiquitous last summer and fall, and now Michigan has trimmed its PR budget. Right now, I can't even picture myself standing on the first tee with my eyes watering (as the Michigan ads suggest a golf course there will make you do).

When I moved to Chicago, I took a good look at a Rand McNally road atlas to figure out where to go on vacation. One thing I noticed is that Michigan is about an hour-and-a-half away. Wisconsin is about an hour away. Indiana, even closer. Not to mention Illinois. So these were all options.

I looked closer and saw that there were many parks, beaches and other points of interest. There was no shortage of places to visit, and I still feel that way now. My point is that I don't need the host of "Tool Time" to read frothy prose to get me to go somewhere. Michigan has many wonders, and I know it's not too far away. So the advice from this potential visitor: save your money, Michigan.

Gill talk

Two pieces of asian carp news today. First, the U.S. Supreme Court won't hear the suit brought by Michigan and other states against Illinois. The court thinks it's up to the Army Corps of Engineers to open and close Lake Michigan locks. So this is a victory for the shipping interests that want the locks open.

Then startling news came across that the Army Corps has found asian carp DNA in Lake Michigan. That would mean the carp already is in Lake Michigan. The fish kill from a few weeks back took place miles away, in the Sanitary and Ship Canal. How does one find DNA in the water, by the way? I'm guessing it's not with a magnifying glass and a kitchen sieve.

Bag dad

They’re the windsocks in the willows. The pennants in the pines. The streamers in the sycamores. It’s around this time of year that plastic bags in trees seem to be everywhere in Chicago. As I write this, I can see three plastic bags billowing beautifully in the breeze. After a long winter (or two or three) of being battered in the trees by cold and snow and ice and rain, the bags are often in tatters, shredded plastic clinging to a few small limbs. It’s a tribute to the brute force of Chicago winds that the bags ever do disappear from the trees.

Tonight, though, I did something barbaric—and incredibly satisfying. There was a plastic bag in our neighbors’ elm, in plain view of our bay window. I went to the basement and got our tree trimmer, an extendable pole with a serrated blade and a snipper on the end. I got most of the bag off with a few lashes of the blade. The rest of the bag—a little stub made up of the handles—was knotted around a branch. I cut the whole branch, tugging on the cord that operates the spring-loaded snipper. I reeled in the branch and the bag remnants like Babe Winkelman reels in fish. The remains are photographed above.

Executive branch

The asian carp now is part of national conversation. President Obama is siding with Illinois in the carp conflict, and Ohio, Michigan and other states are not pleased about it. Closing the locks on the Illinois canal system would block commerce on the waterways--lots of the road salt in the Chicago area comes in on barges from the Mississippi River Valley. The U.S. Supreme Court may take up the carp case as soon as Friday.

Coastal storm

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There's a low pressure system spinning in the Atlantic today. It's sending a light, fine snow into coastal Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. There was a stiff wind in our face--and stinging snowflakes--when we walked toward the mouth of the Merrimack River at Newburyport, Mass, this morning. The Atlantic was stirred up, and visibility was low. The wide expanse of grasses, sand and driftwood was empty except for a couple other hearty walkers.

We drove inland toward the marshy Joppa Flats refuge, where about three dozen mallards were huddled on the ice. We continued to a lookout point along the south side of the river closer to the center of Newburyport. About a dozen buffleheads dove between ice floes as they moved east on the river. Then a common loon surfaced nearby before swimming and diving in the direction of the ocean. Other birds seen included a northern harrier and great black-backed gull. Lots more snow expected today in bucolic New England!

Fish fight

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The Buckeyes and Wolverines have hated each other for a while. I just finished reading a book called "The Toledo War" that chronicles the border dispute between the states in the mid-1830s. The dispute was mostly resolved when Ohio was given Toledo--and the pivotal Maumee River port and basin--and Michigan was given the consolation prize of most of the Upper Peninsula. Michigan and Ohio also squabbled over the Lost Peninsula, which extends north from Ohio into Lake Erie. Michigan wound up with part of the peninsula, even though it's only accessible by driving through Ohio.

Now, Midwestern states are fighting again. Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio have sued Illinois, reviving the century-old dispute over the reversal of the Chicago River. The other states want the Land of Lincoln to close the locks to Lake Michigan and take steps to mitigate flooding of the Des Plaines River and the Sanitary and Ship Canal. Why? Because of the Asian carp's inexorable flow north from the Mississippi River Valley. Still, it's interesting that the Land of 10,000 Lakes is involved. The carp already resides in the state's Mississippi River waters. And some reports suggest the carp can't survive in the cold of Lake Superior, Minnie's only Great Lakes shoreline.

Mind bender

Hellbender. Uttering the name conjures images of Mad Max or that pin-headed movie character. Actually, a hellbender is a type of giant salamander that inhabits remotes streams of the Appalachians. Someone pulled a similar creature out of Lake Michigan near Navy Pier not so long ago. At first, it was called a hellbender. It was later corrected--it's actually a mudpuppy or water dog. They reside on the bottom of lakes and streams throughout the Midwest.