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What is the first thing every creature does in spring, that's what we're going to talk
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Hi, this is Jill from the North Woods talking about nature right outside your front door.
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Well, I told you, I have spring fever and so we're going to talk a little bit about why
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March feels so different.
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It's not warm yet, it's not going to be safe from snow yet, feels different, energetic.
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We always kind of laugh that when you get to 50 degrees in spring time, it feels like a million
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bucks. Go for a hike. But 50 degrees in fall time, we're freezing, we're running for our hot
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cocoa, that kind of thing. March feels amazing. The light is shifting, we can actually feel the warmth
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of the sun and the air smells. Oh, you know wet humidity returns to the world and you just feel
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that spring energy. Here, you know, we might get like a little bit of a difference every day.
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The snow is still in shady spots, we just had two inches of snow yesterday, after having 50 degrees
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the week before that. And we're waiting, you know, we're waiting for that moment when spring is
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finally going to be here. I'm waiting for biking season, that's what I'm looking forward to this year.
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Every creature, though, has survived the winter, has one thing in common for that first day of spring.
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When they wake up, whether it comes out of their down, or if they were hibernating,
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they have one task. And that task will tell you about what it is that's important to them.
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The the thod critters out there, they're returning to action, they're stirring, and they're ready for
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spring just as bad as much as I am. So if we look at things like the wood frog,
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you don't know this probably, but a lot of times like the wood frogs and some of the frogs that we
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have, they free solid in winter, no heartbeat, no breathing, well, very small heartbeat and very
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small breathing, ice crystals in their body. And they survive because their liver floods their
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system with glucose, which is a natural antifreeze. The organs shrink so that it increases their
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ability to survive. And basically, we get frog sickles. I always love saying frog sickles,
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but that's what happens. And then the temperature starts to rise. The frog sickle flies,
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and the heart starts beating a little bit more, and the breathing goes up. It starts hopping around
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kind of the patches of snow towards what they call a vernal pond. We did a whole episode on
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vernal ponds, but you know, a little pond that just comes up from the melting snow. And this first
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task a lot of times is to, well, first of all, get a snack and then to breed almost immediately.
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The males arrive, begin calling, and they start quacking, you know, calling out in the woods.
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They're trying to to immediately reproduce the next generation of frogs out there. If you ever
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read the book, burned Heinrich's Winter World, there's another one called Summer World. You
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want to read these books. They're just incredible. Then you think about spring peepers. They're
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going to start coming. They're little tiny frogs that have big voices, and they also partially
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freeze over winter. The first thing that they do is they try to find water, and they try to mate
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in 42 degree rainy day. You probably, if you live anywhere like near a wetland or a lake or
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something, you'll hear those spring peepers calling in the woods. They're smaller than your thumb.
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They're little tiny guys. I keep trying to see them, but they're very tiny, but they're announcing
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spring is in the season, and they're looking for, they're looking for a date. If you look towards
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painted turtles, you kind of look towards like I said, the ponds. A lot of the turtles have been
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buried in mud all winter long, barely breathing through its skin. Their respiration kind of slowed
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down enough so they could stay buried in the mud this whole time. Sit still, and then what happens
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when spring comes? They climb up onto the log. They're trying to absorb as much sunlight as they can.
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They cannot even digest food early on. They can't even move efficiently. They need to warm up.
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And so when they warm up, they're just trying to see them. On the logs, they're poking their heads
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up. They need that solar energy because they're reptiles, and reptiles do not produce their own
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heat. Mammals produce their own heat. We're 96 something degrees. They have to get heat first,
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but spring to them is like, let's not take things too fast. The first thing on their on their list
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is to get warm. The next thing is if you see something like bears. We have black bears in the
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north of where I live, and black bears are starting to emerge. They don't sleep through the whole
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winter like we think of them to do. What they did is they have given birth during hibernation.
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And so they got fat right before fall, and their cubs are now feeding off of mom,
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us her milk. And so now she has to go out and find new food. She's been feeding her cubs
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during this hibernation period. Her own body is starting to wake up. She probably lost like 30%
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of her body weight, food is scarce. So she's going to be looking for berries. She's going to be
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looking for leftover nuts. She's going to be looking for carrion, dead animals. And it's not
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exciting, but she is looking. And spring is at a hopeful time where she's looking to put on some
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her body weight again. And now her cubs are able, capable, big enough where they can go outside
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with her. And she's going to start to teach them how to forage on their own. If you look at a
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groundhog, we have groundhogs day, right? And the males will emerge before the females. And what is
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their first task? They are looking to map their territory. They're looking to locate female burrows.
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And so when the females emerge a few weeks later, we're all ready to go again. So that's why that
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kind of came up with the males looking for a mate, not for their shadows. They're trying to find
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a girlfriend. The chipmunks, the true hibernators and all of this, they're the deep sleepers. They
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wake up on occasion. You know, if it gets like a 50 degree day, you might see them here and there.
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But they're spending their winter time hibernating. And then they go and look and they're done. And they
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have stores of seed. They've been eating out that all winter long. Their stores are starting to get
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empty. So their first task in spring is to pop out. Sort of look around. Is it safe? Did someone
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move into my neighborhood while I was out sleeping? Did anything change? And then they're going to
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go look for a snack. So I always love that first day of chipmunks being out and about looking for
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something to eat. And chances are, as I mentioned in the flower edition of this podcast, they're eating
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my friends tulips. The raccoons, they don't fully hibernate, but they do go into a deep winter rest.
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And so their first task is foraging. They're looking for a snack. And they remember where the food was
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from the previous year. They understand the backyard organization. They know where there were
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leaf piles. They have a mental map already there. So they're going to start looking for some of
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the foods. Like I said, some of the nuts that got dropped and not eaten yet, not rotted yet.
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Some of the berries that are out there. Maybe there's a good garbage can, you know, that we can do.
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So they're they're going to be hungry more than anything. The birds. Now there are some birds. There's
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a couple of different kinds of birds, right? They're the birds that stayed here all year long.
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They're eating the berries. They're eating even still bugs that are in the trees. We saw
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out hiking. What is called a brown creeper. They're so adorable. They're little tiny birds.
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They're pecking on the trees. There's bugs just under the layers of the bark, even now while it's
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still mostly still winter. But then we have some birds that are thousands of miles away. We have
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redwing blackbirds. We have some of the sparrows. We have some of the ducks. But anyway,
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the redwing blackbirds are one of the earliest migrants that come back into my neck of the woods.
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Oftentimes in February where there's still snow on the ground, the males start to come first.
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My friend yesterday saw her first redwing blackbird. And what do they do? They start to sing.
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They start to declare their territory over this part of the marsh. They're announcing,
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this is my spot, don't you come in. And when you start hearing their call, it's the sound
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of spring, right? And my friend, like I said, she saw her first redwing blackbirds on her bird feeder
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and they are back in town. The robins, they never left. Some are most overwintered,
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but they primarily went into the woods because that's where all the food is. But now, you know,
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the soil is starting to melt a little bit. Can they find some worms? Can they find some leftover
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berries? And so you'll see the robins come from the deep woods to come back out
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into like the populated areas. The soil temperature is still not quite yet thought,
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but it's starting to get there. And they're ready for action.
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Sandhill cranes, they are starting to fly back into this part of the woods. They return to the
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same wetlands year after year. And what's their first task? They reconnect. They have a rattling call
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and an elaborate dance. They're trying to meet a babe. And so they try to get to their bonds
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that they had previous years. And like I said, it's a dance. It's a call. And so it's one of the
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most exciting things. We have one of the largest sandhill populations in the eastern United States.
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It's a it's a conservation success story. And they are starting to creep in. The other day I was
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lying in bed. And all of a sudden I heard a call and I'm like, what was that? You know what?
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Sandhill cranes back in town again. I'm so excited. The bumblebees, I mentioned it a few episodes
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ago. They spent the she spent the winters underground alone. And she emerges
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as the the entirety of the colony. And her first task is to find food. And the next one is to
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find a nest. And then the third task is to lay eggs and incubate them with her own body heat.
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So she acts as an architect and a forager and a nurse and a furnace to her young. What's fun is
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when I go camping in the spring, you'll see the bumblebees sort of buzzing around really close
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to the ground. And they're looking for something. And my friend while I was camping with her,
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you know, asked, well, what is this be looking for? You know, is it food? You know, some
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traditional flowers down there. And what they're looking for is a hole that she can build her nest.
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And oftentimes what happens, particularly when you're at a campground area, is they might have
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found a really good hole. And people keep putting their tents over the hole. So it's not going to
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be a good hole for them to reproduce in. They got to look somewhere else because there's going to
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be a lot of tents right over this spot. So if you see one big slow bumblebee in early spring,
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you know what she's doing? She's looking for a den. She's looking for food. And she's looking for
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her next generation of bumblebees. Really incredible. You'll start seeing moss and butterflies.
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Looking around, they're tucked into the barks of trees. And what they start doing when they
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start coming out, the ones that overwinter, is they're looking for tree sap and rotting fruit.
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They don't need flowers. They're not going to be flowers for a little bit. So they're looking to
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survive on different kinds of fuel. So you can see all of these different patterns that nobody
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just eases into spring, right? There's no stretch, you know, kind of thing. They're beginning to work
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right away. Whether they're looking for their next snack, whether they're looking for their next
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home, whether they're looking for their next girlfriend or boyfriend. Usually like so the boys
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arrive early and look for a girlfriend. The redwing blackbirds isn't going to wait for a nicer
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weather. The robins sometimes come when it still snows afterwards. I remember when I ran out to get
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mealworms to put in my bird feeders because the robins came out early and then we had a huge
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snowstormer. They couldn't get to the ground. No worms, ground frozen, worms dormant. And so the
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robins were struggling and having a hard time. And so a lot of us went out and got blueberries
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and mealworms to put them in our bird feeders to help the robins survive this late snow.
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But everything is active. Every creature needs to act. And they need to act as soon as possible.
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They need to find, like I said, find a new home, find a new flower, eat a new worm. And essentially
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everything shifts right now at this particular time. So again, like I said, keeping your backyard
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messy, having compost piles will help a lot of these early go getters stay healthy in this time
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of year. One of the things that you'll notice is that if you get like some rain, you know, like a
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40 degree night in rain, you maybe live near a marsher woodlands. You'll start hearing new sounds,
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whether it's a new bird that came into your neck of the woods, whether it's the frogs that are
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looking for a girlfriend. You want to look near sunny windows. You might see new bugs and new birds
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outside of there. Or if you have a little pond, you might start seeing those painted turtles trying
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to warm up on a log. Write it down on them. Check out to see where you do it. And my friend,
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she keeps a log. When was the first time she saw Red Wing Blackbird every year? You know,
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it's her first indicator of spring. When was that first time you saw that bumblebee queen
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looking for a home? When was that first time you heard a spring peeper peepen? So I hope you enjoy
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that. And if you're looking for more books, like I mentioned before, Winter World by Bert Heinrich
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is my absolute favorite. Just such a great book and a look at what actually happens in winter to
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animals and then what happens in spring. And then Summer World is when we're in the heat of
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the summer. It's really fascinating. Anyway, I appreciate you being out there. Hopefully you're
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getting excited for spring just like I am. You can email me at Jill at startwithsmallstefs.com.
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And tell me what it is you're seeing happen right outside your front door. I appreciate you being
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out there. And you can remember that I have Jill from the Northwoods.com has all my podcasts on it.
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So make sure yeah, get out there and go listen carefully. Something's going on out there.