CalArti

It is taken five months, but I finally returned to the fields off 48th street today. When I last visited them in March, logging activity had torn them up. (You can see that post here.) Trees were felled in the nearby forest, dragged across the field, and then cut up in a processing station. The entire field was just one huge scar of torn up earth, plants ripped out by the roots, topsoil blown away in the wind.

I’ve driven by regularly since then. One thing about this particular field – you can’t seem much of it from the road. There is a small parking area and one or two breaks in the trees where you can catch a glimpse, but otherwise it is obscured. But I’ve watched the neighboring forest get thinned, the semi’s coming and going with their loads of lumber – sometime waiting on the dirt road for the next chance to load up.

The little parking area where I used to regularly stop is long gone. It became the entranceway for the trucks, and they tore open the road, creating a huge mud puddle at the entranceway. Since no one has been using it, the parking area is now overgrown, and even if you could get through the mud puddle you’d have to plow into dense, four-foot high weeds to park there. So instead, I pulled over on the side of the road and took a little trail into the north west corner of the field. The trail has been there as long as I have visited, but it is now widened and the prairie grasses leading up to have been mown. I guess it is seeing more use as an entranceway to the field these days.

After last spring’s visit, I was expecting the worst – and was happily surprised to see that things were not nearly as bad as I had expected. Here’s a photo of what greeted me as I reached the top of the small hill at the north end of the field:

Huge surprise – things are green! The bare earth has been healed – at least to a degree. What really surprised me is that most of the prairie grasses and plants have returned. If you look at the photos from last march of the turned up soil – now those same places are – mostly – rich with tall grass, scrubby oak, and wild strawberry. Even ironweed and bee baum are in bloom. A wild grape vine that never failed to produce a few nice bunches of grapes was in one hte hardest hit areas - and i was heartening to see it sprawled over the top of the ragweed. Its roots must be deep…

There are still signs of the disruption. There is a pathway along the west side of the field where the soil was most heavily dislocated. The sandy soil was opened up and laid bare time and time again. That area is now brilliant green and full of lush vegetation – ragweed. In years gone by, I’ve noticed very little of this plant in these fields, but those areas that were most heavily churned are choking with it. Remarkably, there is a very clear demarcation between the areas that were repeatedly disrupted, and which are full of ragweed, and the areas that were not, and where the grasses have returned. You can stand with one foot in a mass of ragweed and another on the grass that used to be there. Here’s a shot that show this – taken at the very end of the run, where the trees were dumped to be processed:

Some areas – particularly the crests of small rises in the land – took a bigger hit than others. There are some bare patches of sandy soil , where nothing is taking hold. Lots of small branches twigs form trees also litter the landscape, as do hundreds of pinecones that fell off the trees that were dragged across the earth. These already are crunching away into dust underfoot – most of the brush seems to have been rounded up and dumped into a huge pile at the northeast end of the field.

One victim of the logging activity is the eastern prickly pear cactus. The large patches of cactus are gone – they were right in the path of the greatest activity, and the ragweed is now growing where they were. An isolated sprig or patch of cactus can still be spotted here and there, but it is hard to imagine it ever regaining its hold.

But, overall, the field has endured. There is still a large processing area in the northeast corner, and all the vegetation there is torn up and gone, replaced with muddy roads and piles of logs and brush. But I’d estimate that 80 to 90 percent of the field is more or less intact. I even spotted a few toads hopping around underfoot – I chalked them up as goners where this whole thing started – but they seem to be around still.

So – what is happening at the pond? I can’t call it the seasonal pond any more; it has been a few years since it last dried up in the summer. I trudge down to it and find that it is doing very well. The logging activity has kept people like me away, and that combined with the very wet summer has resulted in the vegetation around the pond really taking off.

The pond itself is doing quite well. The water level is higher than I have ever seen – as I stand at the water’s edge, I see trees 30 or 40 feet away that used to be on dry land. Many of the trees are dead or dying, as the rising water inundates their roots, and they sit in several feet of water year after year.

The frog population also seems to be doing quite well. Dozens of frogs hurled themselves into the water as I walked along the edge of the pond – often crying out “eeeee!” as they jumped ahead. I even saw a splash in the water – way out, beyond any jumping frog – that makes me wonder if fish have arrived in the pond.

And of course, there were dragonflies. Here is a white-faced Meadowhawk, one of the only red meadowhawks easy to identify:

And here is a twelve-spotted skimmer, sitting on a branch near a partially logged area of woods:

I saw other Odonates as well - a few mature male blue dashers - old ones who’s abdomen had turned form blue to pale bluish white. THere were lots of green darners, many unidentified blue darners, and a saddlebags - possibly a Carolina Saddlebags - that buzzed around forever as I waited for him to perch.

Overall, it was a good day in the Allegan forest. After leaving the field off 48th street I visited a few other locations. Off 44th street I managed to get this snap shot of a Monarch Butterfly – the best photo of the day, IMO:

A feeble mid winter sun greeted us early this morning, December 27, and then the clouds rolled in and brought an exceedingly light snow. Come evening, barely half an inch of fresh snow lay on the sidewalks and the car windshields. I had checked the snow throughout the day only to find it to be tiny, crunched-up bits of dusty ice. But stepping outside this evening to grab a log for the fireplace, I was surprised to see that the dust had changed over to some very nice snow crystals.

I fired up the camera and for brief intervals in the evening the dust gave way to crystals, which in turn gave way to dust again. Here’s the first shot of the evening:

Here’s another shot from tonight – the little specks all around it are the ‘dust’ I as referring to early – tiny bits of eroded snow crystals. They make the main subject look quite large – but it was well under 1/16th of an inch in size. More shots will be coming in the next few days.

For an interesting article on Heart-shaped ice crystals, check out The Story of Snow blog.

- Mark

Great news!

The Story of Snowhas been named an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12 by the National Science Teacher’s Association and Children’s Book Council!

If you are interested in kids’ books for the holidays, check out the 18 New Holiday Books For Kids photo gallery on the website of the Chicago Tribune - which is www.chicagotribune.com.

I particularly like #2 in the lineup - but there are a lot of interesting titles here!

Click Here to go there!

I just put the teacher’s guide for The Story of Snow online at storyofsnow.com. If it’s of interest - hop over there to grab it!

The 2009 Signature Gallery is getting set up and soon will be open!

This year the gallery runs from December 5 to the 26th, with the Artist Reception on Sunday, December 6 from 12 to 5.

The address is 4644 West Main Street. Our new location is in the Westwood Plaza at the corner of West Main and Drake Road - near Mackenzies¹ Bakery and around the corner from Coney Island. The space was formerly used by Wild Goose Chase and most recently Quilts Plus.

I won’t be participating this year, except for the inclusion of the three framed prints. (Go figure - we finally snag a location between a Coney Island and Bakery and I miss out!) But I plan to hang out at the reception for a while.

Stop in and see the fabulous assortment of art objects in all media at the gallery!

For info about all things Signature, visit the website at www.signatureartistcoop.com

The Kalamazoo Nature Center’s Buy Local Art and Gift Fair is coming up in just 2 weeks. I’ll be on hand to sign books and talk about snow crystyal photography from 11 a.m. till 1 p.m. The Art Fair runs from 10 to 4, and in the afternon the results of the Photoblitz contest will be unveiled. Holidays At The Homestead will also be in full swing, with live Celtic Music, horse drawn carriage rides, and other holiday festivities from the past at the historic DeLano Homestead. For more about the event, visit www.naturecenter.org.

And don’t forget the December 4 art hop at Nature Connection in downtown Kalamazoo!

Link: http://www.storyofsnow.com

A few days ago I set up a new blog, dedicated to The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder.

Check it out at storyofsnow.com.

Saturday morning. Though it is only late August, an autumnal chill has settled in on the land. My replacement K7 camera arrived earlier in the week, and I’m eager to get out.

Driving into the Allegan forest I see what looks like a hazy, light fog ahead. The clouds have thickened as I’ve headed west, from my house, into the game area. Driving north on 48th street, I look at the cloud of dust spiraling out behind the car and take that as a reassuring sign that while it may be cool, the rain is gone for now.

The car closes in on the mist and suddenly slams into a wall of water – a fine driving rain that splatters down heavily from the clouds above. Well, so much for signs. A mile down the road the rain passes and soon dust is billowing up behind the car again – and then again another micro downpour drenches the landscape.

I make my way a narrow two track to a small clearing, deep in the young forest. Here the grass has gown long and is dotted with patches of lupine and vetch. I spot one of the small toads I’ve been seeing this year, originally thinking it was a cricket hopping through the grass. But it manages to disappear before I get a shot. Wandering around in the tall grass I still up blue dasher, white faced meadowhawks, and several green darners – but they all settle back into the low grass some distance off, reluctant to fly around an perch in the cool damp day.

And then - another downpour. Here’s a snap of the road into the forest, just as the rain is starting to come down:

And one shot of an eastern tailed blue, the only decent macro shot of the day:

After an hour or so, I decided to call it quits for that day. The rain followed my home, and for the rest of the morning and the afternoon the mini downpours rolled though . Fortunately, Sunday was somewhat a better day for photos – more in my next post.

Sometimes I can’t think of anything to do. I get out into the woods or the fields, but can’t tell my left hand from my right. I bump along muddy dirt roads or down sandy two tracks, oblivious to the things around me.

I did manage to spot another tiny toad – this one a few hundred yards from the pond where I saw the last one. It was no larger than the other, but was much more animated as it made its way through the dried and cut up grass.

Other than that – one yellow dragon and one red dragon, and that was the whole day Sunday…