The Rhinelander Daily News - Online news and information for the Rhinelander, Wisconsin region

is a steady, ancient rhythm.

It is cedar massaging

manoomin. It is the

gathering of wild rice.

Local pickers Harley Evbs, Bill Koening and Jon Bailey report that wild rice is scarce this year!

Loons departing

The beautiful loons are leaving the Northwoods lakes and waterways headed for warmer waters in the southern coastal waters. My friends on the shores of Boom Lake will miss them and their beautiful calls. This feeling is much expressed in the writing of Grace V. James:

All things must end

God tells us so.

Warmth, life and light must go.

We rest, ‘tis night when winter grips

The world in ice and snow.

So parts the loon, his life goes on

Seeks warmer climes than this.

We stay, but surely must confess

His lonely call we’ll miss.

G.V.J.

In the book, Great Migrations, we read “Migration is a mysterious unseen force which impels millions of living creatures to move through air and land and sea, just as they have moved for hundreds of thousands of years on long and often fatal pilgrimages.”

Full moon

The September moon will be full on Monday night, Sept. 15. Most full moons appear 50 minutes after the sun sets in the west, but the September and October moons rise only 22 minutes after sunset. This extra light was helpful in the past to farmers and hunters (hence the names, harvest and hunter moons).

Stinger notes

The farther from home, the less apt a bumblebee is to sting. Because of low morning temperatures, bees can’t fly until the temperature rises to a critical point. A bumblebee’s stinger is one-eighth of an inch long. The rest is imagination!

The yellowjacket hornets are increasing their activities around the nest, as though they were preparing for winter. Ironically, they all die after the first hard frost, including the old queen.

Thought for the day

Here’s a thought for us seniors! There is nothing you can have when you are old that can replace being young and having nothing.

Report: Safe drinking water provided at a bargain price

Gas may be topping $4 a gallon, but at a cost of three-tenths of one cent per gallon, the water supplied by Wisconsin’s public drinking water systems remains a bargain and among the cleanest in the world, according to “Safe Water on Tap,” the annual drinking water report the Department of Natural Resources submits to the federal government [dnr.wi.gov/org/water/dwg/news.htm].

“From the state’s largest municipalities, to rural schools and restaurants, Wisconsin’s public water systems have done an exemplary job in providing safe drinking water at a bargain price,” says Drinking Water and Groundwater Director Jill Jonas. “More than 96 percent of them fully observed standards set to protect the public’s health and they delivered a full day’s supply to a family of four for less than $1.”

More bear roam the state

(See Journal Wire Services)

Officials say black bear population has doubled to 26,000.

Officials now estimate the state’s black bear population at about 26,000—twice what was previously thought—based on preliminary results of a study coordinated by UW-Madison.

That’s no surprise to residents of northern Wisconsin’s Rusk County, which reported 11 bear-vehicle crashes this year through July, up from eight for all of 2007.

About 90 percent of Michigan’s estimated 15,000 to 19,000 black bears are thought to live in the state’s Upper Peninsula.

Hummer help

The hummers are leaving. Until they go, you may have trouble with hornets and wasps at your sugar-water feeders. Here’s a suggestion for current and next year’s problem:

There is a technique that is regularly used by many and found to be very successful. Always have at least two feeders with different concentrations of homemade nectar. Although the standard recipe is for 4 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar (4:1), make up a 5:1 ratio in one of the feeders (this one is for the hummingbirds). The other feeder should contain a mixture with a 3:1 (or if necessary, 2:1) ratio, and this is for the bees and wasps. The insects have a very strong preference for rich, high sugar mixtures and will quickly determine that they want the second feeder. This leaves the first feeder virtually free for the hummingbirds, who will be satisfied with a 5:1 ratio.

Once the bees and wasps have settled in on the second feeder (which will usually take only a few hours), you can safely move that feeder to another location; the bees and wasps will follow it.

A hummer myth

Some people think that the hummers will catch a ride on the backs of the migrating geese. Tim Dillon, a professor at Cornell University, says, “There is no evidence that this occurs. Most geese migrate on a different time schedule and their destinations don’t even match. So a hitchhiking hummer is also a “wrong-way Coorigan.”

A final note

The conifer trees are dropping their needles—not all of them, but some—enough to make raking needles another autumnal chore. A few weeks ago they dropped their cones, which required another raking. It is good that the conifers don’t drop all of their needles as do the tamaracks.

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