- This forum has 2 topics, 1 reply, and was last updated 2 years, 2 months ago by .
South and north Coyote groups singing alternately. The north group sounds like laughing foxes. A Barred Owl some nights.
Soybean field over the fence, planted on the contour with contour embankments
Beans harvested one afternoon through evening darkness
Finally, a non-wildfire sunset as the western fires die down
The chill of night, asleep in a cocoon of insulated clothes and blankets
The tart taste of ripe groundcherries, the inherent and unrealized productivity of the land
The failing market for aronia berries
The distant hum of combines in other bean fields, then corn
Upright corn in an area untouched by the derecho storm; news of good yields despite the drought
The sole occupant of the campground in a Coleman popup camper during the week
A lunar halo through altocumulus, disappearing as the sky clears
Eight feet of loess mantling whatever ancient glacial material lies below
Plentiful bur oaks on the ravine slopes, bluff, and bottoms of the Big Sioux River
Red-orange autumn equinox sunrise through wildfire smoke
Wondering about the possible allopathic effect of Wood Nettles because of their dense stands
Hydric soil colors in clay at seven feet down: oxidized, orange iron and pastel yellow, reduced clay
New wetlands as wealth
Dark blue-green clay in the stream bed, a “gley” color from permanent saturation
The fine latticework of reed canarygrass roots in a broken tile
Nightcrawlers already three feet deep despite a warm autumn
Drought, windstorms, sun- and wind-tanned faces, dust eddies, bean leaves filling a ditch
A late Familiar Bluet, a late Monarch, an Autumn Meadowhawk
Plentiful bald eagles, functioning stream ecology, lady beetles, hover flies, pollinators, earthworms, centipedes, soil bacteria and fungi as wealth
An American Kestrel pursuing one Killdeer of a flock, without success
A Peregrine Falcon flying past in a strong breeze
Sightings of rare animals and plants as wealth
Two Redtails drafting on a thermal
A couple of Western Meadowlarks, jumped from the weedy field
Firedot lichen growth on wooden posts
A straightened headwater stream rechanneled to its 1950s location
Achy muscles and contentment at twilight as wealth
Humans beginning to regard the work of the natural world,and flowing water as its own best architect of the landscape
Clean, free-running water as wealth
Common lichens on the bark of a row of Honeylocust: Gold Dust Lichen, a couple others; the life in the upper limbs of mature bur oaks
Effects of livestock air pollution on lichen diversity
Mussel populations and species in the Big Sioux; unfortunately, the sandbar is on the other side, in Nebraska, unreachable without trespassing.
Milkweed pods splitting open and letting their plumed brown seeds into the gusts
Three to four feet of erosion at the fence line in a waterway, a foot of topsoil lost on the uplands, three to four feet of topsoil over wet blue clay along the stream
Soil, not cash or credit or bank paper, as wealth
Rusted barbed wire, bent and rusted steel fenceposts, boundaries across natural watersheds and plant communities
The Jeffersonian grid system, with its farm-to-market roads of yellow limestone
Four semi loads of cattle from the yard across the road this spring, six more this autumn
Manure hauling, load after load, day after day, the land’s capacity for so much
A day in the sun and wind as wealth
The nature of wealth
Oak Grove Park and Marshalltown, Iowa
September and October 2020