River of Play

Last Word on Geese

As you can plainly see...no photos. Alas. But the photos below are huge. Click on one and find out (while they are of a size and quality that you could use them as your desktop, don't. I tried. A dense black and white pattern with a black and white cursor is not a good combination.). Thus, one of the moments of great poignancy was realizing that while there were many birds, they were snow geese, not, oh, passenger pigeons. Still, living near one of the great migration corridors offers a glimpse into the profound compulsions of nature. It's an awe-inspiring experience, and a chance to see cedar waxwings twice a year. 

The girl was unimpressed. A bit chilly and windy. But she bore the inconvenience like a trouper.

More Geese

I mean it. Geese: 

Visions of Flight

But I'm going to say something quick, first. Working on a project based on where you live is...strange, wonderful, enlightening. Beyond the sudden ability to visualize older versions of this small city, I've had the unsettling experience of learning more about the place than life-long residents. Now, to be sure, the people I work with know more about what it has been like to live here for their entire lives so far, but I can point out new significant details to them. I'll try to remember to explore the implications of that later.

Now, on to birds!

I mentioned house guests and snow geese a week ago. Right, so we didn't get a chance to see many Sandhill cranes, but we did get to see these other birds instead. I'll try to do this so that the image below will blossom into a big ol' picture if you click on it. Let me know if that works. 

Our first clue about the birds came from the highway.

So we pulled off to investigate further. And walk along the lake with the girl, who remained oblivious to the wall of sound. Geese are, you can see, quite social.

After this lovely time looking at calm birds, something set them off. Or at least quite a few of them.

I'll have to continue this little narrative later...

Trying for an Update

Not that there are readers stopping by, but I thought I'd mention that I'm done with the first draft of the entire field list. Getting close to the end of the focus list. A couple of good pubs, including an acceptance from Isotope. Lots of ecology and science news, too. We're getting close to DNA, another blow to creationism, I'm afraid. 

Speaking of evolution, we're watching our baby ape get used to being in the world. It's an amazing process, though not without a certain level of...loudness. 

And now, I need sleep. Think slow thoughts for me.

Nebraskiana

The national media came and touched us not so long ago, but not to worry. The wind scours everything pretty clean. And it was in the single digits last night. The Daily Show rolled into town to do a segment on some university research and used one of the owners of a local coffeeshop as an example. The coffeeshop in question is a short walk from our apartment, so when I write about being in a coffeeshop, it's this one. If you go and watch the spot, you'll see a brief shot of the storefront. Right next to the coffee place is the health food co-op where we shop, and our video store is at the other end of the strip mall. 

On the Wendy watch: the child keeps getting lower, the contractions are still random, we're just waiting...

Almost Level, West Virginia

It would be one thing if the coal money stayed in the state(s). Maybe you could make some kind of economic argument, then. But it doesn't. The poor get more poor. And now they get even more than their share of poison, too.

If you want to blow a gasket, click over here.

Bug Weather

We have survived the visitation of my parents, but the chaos of the first weeks of the semester continues unabated. Meetings and meetings and new students and readers and and and... Whew. The weather has taken a turn for the autumnal. Overnight lows in the 50s, daytime highs in the 70s. Long pants and closed toes are back, as are bugs. Our house, almost a hundred years old, was probably never airtight to begin with, and the years of settling further into the former prairie has opened gaps. So we get lots of crawly visitors when the weather turns especially damp or cool. (Or very hot. Tiny brains will seek water, eh?) So we're seeing a lot more insects and spiders than we have in a while. The situation can be a little unsettling, but the cats enjoy it, and we let the spiders thrive. A strong cold snap will thin the population a bit more, and then we'll reach a stasis again. Since we don't leave food out, and clean up after ourselves, the visitors don't find much to snack on. And, mostly, I haven't found that aggressive anti-bug action works well. So we let nature take its course. 

It's a bit tricky to track down ecopoets and green bloggers--not greenwash blogs--I've found. Lots of cobwebbed sites. Activists find better things to do, but poets... Anyway. I'll link to a good, consistent blog here. Go!

Green!s

So the convention has ended and we have the high-profile but politically explosive and frequently objectionable Cynthia McKinney as the Green nominee. I almost wish for Nader. I myself was pulling for this guy, in part because I'm from a DNA group called Johnson from West Virginia as well. I'm happy to see that he's been drafted for the gubernatorial race by the Mountain Party. Still, McKinney's a gadfly, and she's been able to demand attention. We'll see. I hope to warm to her. 

In other parts of life, my brother and his family came, saw, exhausted our small apartment. The oldest boy has taken a turn for the geeky, so we had some long conversations about games, gaming, sf, and so on. This is going to be interesting to watch. The others are, well, still little kids. Strangely, and this goes to a couple of issues that Richard Louv has taken up in his work, these are are indoor kids. Given a choice to visit an outdoor playground and park space or an indoor space (the local Children's Museum), they took the indoor option. Now, the museum was a great place, but they'd already been there once. Let me add, in their defense, that these are active, wiry kids. When we did a nature walk, they had no trouble running around, but they didn't step off the path, and they didn't immediately go looking for bugs, rocks, nests, whatever. It seemed very strange to me.

But really, we had a great time. Hey, That's My Fish and ElkFest were big hits. And the oldest one, as I've hinted, pored over the games collection. And my brother and I had a great evening looking at some old RPGs that we played as kids and showing them to the boy. So, yeah, it was a good visit. This time, the fireworks were simply literal.  

Deriving Pictures

I took a lot of pictures (though not as many as I wanted to because the camera kept telling me that I couldn't use the chip. I found that a 20 minute wait would clear things up, but if anyone has any suggestions on how to avoid this with the Coolpix, let me know). To keep the post from blowing up, I'll break the experiment into two posts. So, with this one, we start out:

Home. D and I.

On the way to the meeting site, my neighborhood wants me to know that it's watching out for itself:

Maybe on the lookout for, oh, monsters:

This used to be the very farthest edge of town. Maps from the late nineteenth century show some windbreak trees and houses entirely alone on a block:

Some of the hardy souls fortifying themselves:

Looking south, there used to be farms:

Uncaptioned:

A sidewalk from before the era of sidewalk codes:

Lincoln extends south after WWII:

Humanity not able to make up its mind about landscape and bucolic escape:

Or its own entertainment:

Travel Update, Now with Pictures!

We're going to start with the campsite. Caribou. Soon, snow will start falling.

After mother and calf, D and I headed out to the canyon itself.

Somehow, D became the photographer of record. Especially of snow in the canyon.

We did manage to convince a nice passing stranger to make an image.

First, a stop at Four Corners. I mean, why not?

And then we're off to Mesa Verde.

A nice view of the first Anasazi structure we toured.

And, of course, the Ladder of Doom. D went up it like a monkey even though terrified and three months pregnant.

To round things out, some scenes from the tiny two-lane roads we rode across Colorado.