Sunday, March 15, 2009

SO READY FOR SPRING

I'M READY ... for spring ...

I liken the winter at this stage to an old
person ... getting more feeble ... the snow banks shrinking &
looking not so firm ... not so white & pretty. Winter,
at its prime, is vigorous, pretty, & impressive.



I had forgotten that our road(s) really are black in color ... my road
is about half black ... the latest snowfall morhped into a lot of ice
cover, tho. And, with the temps last nite going below zero again
... we are looking forward to the promised 40 degree temps this
week-end.











There is snowcover, but, remembering that the picnic table was
practically concealed with snow, I can see we're making progress.










Isn't this such a cute deer ... last year's fawn ... I call them my "Fuzzies".





Recently, I drove some friends to Green Bay, Wisconsin for a visit to a
clinic. While waiting, I drove around town a bit ... happened to
go past Packerland Packing Meats ... I had hauled for them a while when
I was a trucker. The place still looks the same.



Hopefully, some good news for the papermill at
Niagara (on the border of Wisconsin/Michigan) that was subject to one
of those old business schemes of "buy up a competitor- so that you can
shut them down-then you can declare a tax break loss" . So sad
for the village of Niagara. A local businessman offered to buy
the mill so that the employees/community could continue to run
it. NO DEAL. The machinery was stripped & shipped
overseas to make sure that the aggressor company would never have to
worry about competition for it's specialty papers.

A RECENT NEWSPAPER ARTICLE IN THE IRON RIVER DAILY NEWS HAS MORE DETAILS ON THE IDEA FOR THE MILL TO NOW PRODUCE A NEW KIND OF BIO-FUEL THAT WILL UTILIZE THE AREA'S WOOD PRODUCTION INDUSTRY. (The logging industry is about all that is left up here & even that has
been torpedoed by the slowing economy.)




"IRON MOUNTAIN - Wisconsin State Representative Jeff Mursau told The Daily News that a Wisconsin company has expressed interest in purchasing at least part of the NewPage Niagara mill to construct a biomass ethanol plant."






"NIAGARA, Wis. - New North Inc. has commissioned a study to determine the feasibility of producing cellulosic ethanol at NewPage's Niagara paper mill facility, New North Executive Director Jerry Murphy announced on Tuesday."









On TELEPHONE TIME ... someone called in to say that the maple sap
season is imminent. With the week-end temps in the 40's .... I
should be ready to rock & roll on this project ... but, I've had so
many crucial projects occurring that I haven't given this much thought.






























2 comments:

Helen said...

I hope somthing productive can be done with the old paper mill. From the looks of that picnic table the snow has melted a lot. Now the work begans with the making on the syrup. Helen

Dr.John said...

If Spring is coming to the UP it must almost be here. It is going up to 60 today. I love your deer pictures.
The next time your going to be in Green Bay give us a call and we might drive up and have lunch with you.