pigs and rivers

We continue to maintain our pig trap even though it seems the feral swine have become wary of it and careful to not go inside. Last night I went to a meeting with the Eureka Springs Parks Commission about developing an area wide strategy on our feral hog crisis. They demonstrated the boarbuster hog trap that can remove as many as fifty hogs at a time, but costs over $6000. I am hoping the city and county buy a few of them and thereby provide help that has not been forthcoming so far.

On a lighter side, but still weighted by unwanted swine, Still on the Hill performed in concert last night and gave away copies of a new CD, Still a River, that celebrates our Buffalo National River with the suggestion that the Hog Farm sate agencies allowed to be built should be removed without further damage to our nation's first national river. The Buffalo River National Park attracts millions of tourists and millions of tourist dollars, and yet because of the way federal agencies tiptoe around states rights, the concerns of the Department of the Interior are ignored.

Conservative Republicans in the state insist that corporations are overly burdened by regulations, and should be set free to do what they want, including polluting a national park. But the primary purpose of incorporation is to allow investors to avoid liability for what the corporation does wrong, and to the people and things it might hurt. When you invest in a corporation, the limit of your liability is the amount of money you put in. No more. So when corporations do really bad things, and are allowed to do really bad things, the costs are paid by either the taxpayer or the environment.

In my wood shop today I'll be making boxes. At school, my high school students will be working on their shaker boxes.

Make, fix, create, and offer others your example and encouragement that they may learn to love learning likewise.