![[Lake scene drawing]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/lake_scene.gif)
Even if it looks like winter outside, you can count on maple trees to know otherwise.
In late February, their sap starts to run, and that's "the sweet good-bye of winter,'' writes naturalist John Burroughs.
In the awkward time between winter and spring, the promise of maple syrup also gives people a good reason to get outdoors and
into the woods.
One spring, I hit the nature-lover's jackpot, almost without trying.
Exploring a septet of Minnesota's scientific and natural areas, or SNAs, I found more pasqueflowers in bloom than I'd ever expected to see in a lifetime. I saw a panorama of the Mississippi as the Dakota would have seen it 200 years ago. I walked under the budding canopies of old-growth forests and listened to choruses of courting frogs.
Wow! An SNA, it turns out, is a fantastic place to see spring at full throttle.
In May, the woods are full of people on the hunt.
Some are stalking morel mushrooms. Others are trying to bag a turkey or spot a rare warbler.
The rest of us are content to chase wildflowers. For one thing, we’re guaranteed success.
Goldthread and gaywings. Bogbean and trailing arbutus. In Wisconsin's Door County, it's enough to make a naturalist hyperventilate.
Cherry blossoms and daffodils are the showiest spring flowers on this tourist playground between Lake Michigan and Green Bay. But it's the wildflowers, many of them rare, that provide the most joyous proof that spring has arrived.
On sandy ridges, the first flower spotted often is the once-common trailing arbutus, whose waxy white blossoms emerge in April.
Deep down, every morel hunter believes in divine providence.
There's nothing so providential as baskets overflowing with morels, and the taste is so divine hunters dream about it all winter. In spring, they offer a fervent prayer to the mushroom gods: May the fungus be among us.
Morels do taste heavenly. But it's the hunt that's so addictive, not the mushroom itself. For one thing, it's fun to find something for free that's so expensive in stores and restaurants, and it's fun to beat the odds by finding something so notoriously elusive.
In its marshes and woods, John Muir first discovered the joys of wilderness. On its sandy plains, Aldo Leopold became a pioneer of land stewardship. On its meadows, two young ornithologists created a haven for cranes.
The natural world found some of its greatest allies on a swath of rolling, glaciated land in south-central Wisconsin. Muir went on to found the Sierra Club and is known as a father of America’s national parks. Leopold inspired legions with such books as “A Sand County Almanac.’’ George Archibald and Ron Sauey founded the International Crane Foundation.
Wisconsin often is called the cradle of conservation. It was the first state to ban the use of DDT, before it was banned nationally in 1972, largely thanks to Lorrie Otto of suburban Milwaukee, who put native plants in her front yard in the 1950s and became known as the godmother of natural landscaping. Earth Day was founded in 1970 by yet another Wisconsinite, former Sen. Gaylord Nelson.
It's a beautiful spring day. The trees are budding, the birds are chirping. What do you do?
Road trip! Somehow, the call of the highway is especially strong in spring. We want to feel the wind on our face and see something new and unusual. Here are 10 of the best places to do it.
Exploring Wisconsin's Rustic Roads: Whenever I'm in Wisconsin, I check out whatever Rustic Road is nearby. They're scenic, lightly traveled roads, many of which preserve remnants of the past — lighthouses, one-room schoolhouses, country churches.
When the snow is gone, the fun begins.
Most of us would be happy to see something, anything, that’s green. But there’s no reason to wait for that before going outdoors.
This is the best time to hunt for agates on Great Lakes beaches, where winter storms have tossed up a new batch of rocks. If you wait until July, when most tourists arrive, they’ll be picked over.
Nothing is more exhilarating than the first days of spring, when the air practically vibrates with the pent-up vigor of growing things.
Warm sunlight filters down through budding forests, and the rich smell of humus wafts up from their floors. Then, amid the decaying leaves and grasses, we find the first spring ephemerals.
They gladden our hearts, those brave little blooms. But they come, and then they go.
