Tainted Snow (SWF)

Limestone cliffs of Clifty Falls State Park,
in snow and icicles

Perhaps even more than in other seasons, winter brings wanderlust upon us.
Long days of work, and fleeting hours of daylight wrapped around them, leave little time to get out and about. We use our weekend days to explore beyond our boundaries and burn the pent up energy that becomes the worst symptom of cabin fever.
And, as always, find we gain much more, than physical exercise alone.


Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana is perched on the bank of the Ohio River, just over the border from Ohio, and a short drive from Cincinnati. The steep shale and limestone cliffs lining this small canyon are seen easily through the bare trees of winter, and are woven with miles of rugged stone trails traversing the plunging slopes. Frozen waterfalls and the icy formations that grow beneath them, as the small feeder creeks make their way to the Ohio River, add to the winter experience here, not found at any other time of year.

Ice Balls beneath the Falls

We arrived later than hoped, driving headlong into an unexpected snowstorm moving up the Ohio River Valley and seriously slowing our drive along the windy, rural roads. So, with limited time to explore, we drove straight to the Inn for that hiking essential, the trail map.
I happily caught lacy snowflakes on the back of my black mitten, stretching my legs from the 2-hour ride.
Towering behind the charming brick façade of the Inn, three monstrous stacks from below, billowing smoke into a cold, snowy winter sky.

Clifty Inn,
Power plant stacks behind

Setting each foot deliberately between the whitened, slippery surfaces, we slowly descended into the gorge, finally reaching the small Hoffman’s Branch in the base, where it meets Clifty Creek.

Ice on Hoffman Branch

Snow at water's edge

Swallowed by steep walls all around, it would be easy to forget yourself here,
hopping stone to stone,
wandering the creek bed as it winds its way deeper, toward the Clifty Falls.


The trail, now almost completely covered with these lovely little flakes, took us up again, along a hillside where the fallen logs accented in white stood out plainly against the brown leaves covering the slopes.


And stacks of limestone, barely releasing a trickle, were held fast by slender trees, roots reaching around them.
Frozen rivulets covering their sides.

Snow-dusted Icicles on face of limestone

Catching our breath, we turned and found it, there, again, in the distance.
Smoke stacks spilling into the air.
And the snow fell all around.

Power plant stacks beyond hillside

Perhaps, easier to recognize at this time of year, more than others, in the lovely white covering that blankets these woods and hangs on crystal drips from its faces, what is other times invisible here.
From the stacks of the coal-fired power plants, its smoke and everything in it, caught by each little lacy flake, and brought to rest on the earth.

Snow-covered Trail #4,
Clifty Falls State Park, Madison Indiana

Power plant at Ghent, KY

Some of the highest concentrations of atmospheric mercury in the nation are found in the rain and snow that fall over Clifty Falls State Park from the towers of coal-fired power plants along the Ohio River in Kentucky and Indiana.

The combustion of fossil fuels, especially coal, releases elemental mercury to the atmosphere. Once released into the environment, the most toxic form of mercury, methylmercury, is formed and can be passed up the food chain to humans.
For more information, please look here.

Tainted Snow

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Going for the gold

Admittedly, I shy away from international issues.
Perhaps because I feel there's little I can do to effect change, where change is needed.
Or, perhaps, because my comfortable home, out of harm's way and buffered by woods, allows me to feel insulated from the troubles of the world.
As if somehow the world's crises will respect my land's boundaries.
And resolve themselves without any impact on me.



Frustration calmed by distraction.
I immerse myself in what is beautiful.


But, even here, removed from it all, I sense a difference.
The farmer's fields usually planted in the green of corn or soybeans, this year are covered in wheat.
Acre upon acre of golden grain, as far as the eye can see.
Standing tall, swaying as the breezes pass over them.
A more beautiful scene, there is not.



Distraction leads to wondering--for this is more than a coordinated rotation of crops.

What I see in my small rural community and unfolding across the landscape is a response to the international food/fuel price crisis.
For in the last year, the price of corn is up 31%, rice 74%,
and wheat...130%.





The crisis on the far side of the world has reached my home.
This year the fields' harvest will be gold.

Wheat





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Going green

There’s a wood thrush singing from across the yard. She’s been at it since dawn, continuing even as daylight came strongly forth—the dense shade of our leafy woods, her retreat. From behind a wall of green, her voice resounds. This is her home.
I remember the response upon telling someone of having her here, in our woods—waking with her song a common sound in our world.
“You must live in paradise,” he said.
And I agreed.

We all do. Or could.
For my world is our world.
And what I treasure here, I cannot call my own.
The earth, water and sky belong to none—and all.

We’d like to think we can postpone making changes in our ways. It’s man’s nature to indulge himself until there is discomfort—the expanding waistline that is ignored until our pants won’t close. Or the troublesome tooth that is neglected until the ache keeps us from rest.

This week, the price of gasoline crossed the $4.00/gallon mark--uncomfortable for us all, to be sure.
But, hopefully, the discomfort that is needed to prompt change.

We’ve made a change—to a new lawnmower.
No gasoline?
No problem!



And, although this amounts to just a small difference in our way of doing things, when the choice to do differently arose, (dead lawnmower in the garage), we chose change.


This evening, as the sun slips past the horizon, the wood thrush’s song is still questioning. Asking of me what the world will be like for my children’s children.

"Will it be?"
"I don’t know."

"Will it be?"
"I don’t know."

My actions alone are not enough.
But, with every choice I make, I hope another does the same.
Until paradise is preserved.

Gotta love that logo!

Have you made any changes?

The changing landscape

The field behind our woods has been plowed and planted. And the first green to appear reveals that, this year, it is to be corn.
I've never given it a second thought. The choice of crops. The alternating cycle between corn and soybeans has, in the past, seemed simple.
And although I prefer to walk this lane between fields of soy, where afternoon breezes make the golden plants sway in autumn, the tall stalks of corn will soon transform this path into a tunnel of sorts.
A changed place.

Filling this brown space with a green leafy wall, hiding our woods.
And the geese and deer that walk here.

I wonder if, this year, it is something other than "simple."
And if this field now grows, not fodder, but fuel.
Ethanol.

A wind turbine spins gloriously as the clouds pass.
The landscape is changing.

Thanks to Wigger's World for hosting Skywatch Friday each week at his site!

Sun-kissed planet

The ice will be gone tomorrow.
Today’s sunshine left a kiss—a now frozen starburst within the mosaic surface of our pond.

We skated here last night, under a starry sky—gazing off to the point beyond all brightness. And savored the moments alone with our thoughts.


A speck of life in this vast darkness.

Where discussions revolve around foreign policy and health care, immigration and gun control, budget and economy.

While all that really matters—
revolves around the sun.

Powerless

This afternoon the temperature reached 98 degrees.
Thankfully, it was Father's Day, a day for enjoying-- relaxing, reflecting, reminiscing. And doing very little work.


Just five months ago, our world looked like this--coated with a thick layer of ice. We were fortunate to be safe inside, but without electricity for almost 48 hours, staying warm became the activity of the day.



The wood burning stove kept one room toasty. And a pot of boiling water on top of it meant that hot chocolate would also warm us on the inside. I spent my precious daylight hours scavenging large ice boulders from the roadside, and hauling them up the hill on a sled. I had rearranged the inside of the freezer and refrigerator to accommodate their bulky mass--and hoped they'd keep the food chilled until the power was back.
Our old brick house serves us well in the trying times. Doors on every room mean that we can close off sections we're not needing, and keep our activites confined to just the main room--now the dining room, but what had originally been the kitchen. The hinge of an old swinging crane for a cast iron kettle, still visible in the large open hearth.
We lit the kerosene lamps at sunset--their bright flames, seeming so at home. And, except for the battery-powered radio, sat and waited, suspended in time.



I recall hearing a radio personality flippantly remarking with each weather update, "so they say there's global warming,...(ha,ha)" and wondering how many listening to him trusted this man's "knowledge." I felt like his captive audience, and quickly stifled his commentary.


But, I can't help but think about all this again today, as I see the "worst" drought following on the heels of the "worst" ice storm. And in the middle of it all, sitting and waiting, again, powerless.