I want to introduce myself to you in a bioregional way, because as a Wiccan, the land that I live on and relate to and love constitutes a large part of my life. This is the “eco” part of my ecofeminism. Tomorrow or the next day, I’ll introduce the feminist part.

Last Monday was a “mink day.” When my husband Mark went out in the morning, he told me he’d seen a weasel of some sort in the garden. So as I ate breakfast, I checked our field guide to North American mammals and kept my eyes peeled to catch a glimpse of it.

Sure enough, about ten minutes later, I saw a large weasel-like animal crawling through the foliage at the edge of the lake. It was carrying something in its mouth, and at first I thought it might have caught “my chipmunk,” the one that eats out of my hand. But soon thereafter, the mink – for that’s what it was – returned with another small, furry animal in its mouth, and I realized it must be moving its young to a new den. In all, I saw Mama Mink move at least three of her offspring across our yard and into a nearby park.

What a thrill! I’d never seen a wild mink before, although I knew that in the past they had lived on the shores of Lake Mendota. A neighbor I’ll call Dick, whose family owned the original homestead on this land, told us about them when we first moved to the lake 6 ½ years ago. Part of Dick’s mink story was reported in the Wisconsin State Journal in the 1930s. At that time, his father wooed his mother by giving her a stole from two minks he’d trapped on his own land. In the 1950s Dick followed suit by catching a mink in our neighborhood and then buying a second pelt to have a wrap made for his prospective wife. When I called her to let her know of my mink sighting, she admitted that she’d felt ambivalent about Dick’s earlier gift and promised that he wouldn’t set any traps for the mink I just saw.

It’s a different time. Since the 1950s few of us would even think of trapping a fur-bearing animal. It’s probably not even legal within Madison city limits. We’re all just relieved and happy that there’s still a mink in our environs. And as an ecofeminist practitioner of Wicca, I’m ecstatic to be able to experience such wildness in my front yard. I’m incredibly lucky to live on the lake here in Madison. In the spring and fall I hear loons calling to each other, and see lots of other migratory waterfowl, including tundra swans as the lake begins to freeze over. In the summer, the orioles and hummingbirds visit our feeders, and we’ve spotted a fox that lives in the neighborhood, as well as several coyotes. And every year we wonder if we’ll finally see one of our resident bald eagles catch a coot. I experience the turning of the year as a celebration of the fullness of life, just by looking out my front window.

My front yard lies in Madison, Wisconsin along the banks of Lake Mendota, the largest body of water in the Yahara watershed. In times past this area was a burr oak savannah with some small prairies and marshland surrounding the lake. Much of the wetlands have been developed, and as a result, we have two big problems with our lakes.

First of all, whenever it rains the lake level increases twice as much as the rainfall, i.e. if we get an inch of rain, the lake rises two inches. This results from the run-off from impervious surfaces surrounding the lake (buildings, driveways, parking lots, roads, etc.).

Secondly, the lake is eutrophying fast, i.e. it’s turning into a swamp. Dane County, where Madison is located, has some of the most fertile agricultural land in the state of Wisconsin. And farmers spread manure to keep it that way. Unfortunately, much of that fertilizer (plus sewage from the early years of Madison’s history) has ended up in the lakes over the past 100 years, and we see it fertilizing bluegreen algae (cyanobacteria) at this time of year.

Madison and Dane County have taken steps to address both of these problems. They’ve passed regulations so that no lawn fertilizers can contain phosphates, meaning that at least we urbanites won’t be adding to the algae problem. And work is underway to create a manure digester to literally keep the shit out of the lakes. The Madison Water Utility also has a regulation that taxes every property based on its impervious square footage in order to encourage more environmentally-friendly building practices. But of course, we can do much more.


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