It’s spring, that time of year when plants are popping up from their long winter nap. And while we welcome the return of our beautiful spring ephemerals, we also face the return of the garlic mustard, a non-native invader of our woodlands that aggressively outcompetes many of our native wildflowers. 

In my blog “Stardust” from September 12, 2019, we considered the steady rain of small meteorites which enter our atmosphere at high speed, mostly burn up, but produce tiny blebs of stardust that today we can separate and identify from the much greater masses of earthly dust and debris. 

If you or I had the assignment to design an animal well-adapted to the winter rigors of central Canada and north to the Arctic tundra, what would the critter look like? 

Iowa is in a good location regarding the effects of winter on its deer population. Further north, above the Canadian border, winters are sufficiently long and severe to occasionally kill part of the herd.