OK - we are all getting weary of winter!  But here we are in Wisconsin, so we might as well learn to appreciate it.  Need some help in that regard?  Here's a book for you:  Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich (591.54 H469).

The author, a biologist, takes you along as he explores his local woods in Maine and Vermont and shares his enthusiasm for all the wonders he finds there.  From tiny little kinglets and winter caterpillars to torpid turtles and frozen frogs and even to the remarkable black bears, the animal kigdom has developed systems to adapt to winter that we can only dream of.  

Heinrich feels we can learn from these special adaptations.  Take that bear for example:  "Hibernating bears accomplish metabolic feats that, if we knew their secrets, would likely lead to cures for many human ills.  They have the secrets of how to survive lack of exercise, and then after five months of resting, of how to get up and walk up a mountain.  In all of those months of what amounts to bed rest, they suffer no bed sores.  They have marginal loss of muscle mass and no change in muscle fiber type.  Despite their non-weigth-bearing position for months at a time, they do not suffer from bone loss or osteoporosis.  After burning fat for fuel for months during which their cholesterol levels become double those of humans and those they have in summer, yet they still don't suffer from hardening of the arteries or gallstones..."

Yes - maybe we could appreciate winter more if we were bears...