Environment – Page 20 – The Edge of the Wood

The mountains are calling …

“The mountains are calling, and I must go,” John Muir wrote in a letter to his sister, Sarah.

There is a ridgeline a few miles from my home that appears to be a naturally created rock wall. The ridge was created from the eastern U.S. crashing into Scotland thousands of years ago. In some places, one can see the layers folded like a carpet laid flat, then pushed at the edge until it curls into several folds, lain over each other.

[pullquote]In the duff, or between tree branches, barely caught from the corner of my eye, a spider weaves a snare, proving to errant flies and other unaware winged creatures that the seemingly shortest way from A to B is not always the best way.[/pullquote]Atop the folds, in places that have not yet been reshaped by residential development, humungous rocks stand exposed, as though someone had come along with a giant blower and sandblasted around them so they stood free to make later humans wonder how that happened.

Continue reading The mountains are calling …

Heavy snow coming? Bring it on.

I‘ve often wondered about the link between television weather guys and grocery supermarkets.

The thought came to me one evening when I lived in Maine and went to visit a friend about 45 miles from our home. The visit was to be a birthday celebration, after which we would stay overnight – the latter plan, in part, because the television weather guy had proclaimed a wicked storm would occur whilst we slept.

Continue reading Heavy snow coming? Bring it on.

Carbon-and-valve, hold the camera

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the merits of replacing my Grand Cherokee. She’s 13 years old, which is a long time for dogs and cars. The decision is more complicated than when I bought my first car.

When I was a youth, the maintenance schedule for our family chariot included a “carbon and valve” job. Charlie Bates’ garage did not have a lift to hoist the car up. Instead, a pit was dug into the floor; you drove the car over the pit and climbed down underneath it.

Continue reading Carbon-and-valve, hold the camera

Report: Lawmakers’ poor environmental performance

Three conservation organizations have released their 2014 environmental scorecard, giving Pennsylvania lawmakers poor grades for protecting the environment in which we all live.

[pullquote]Place the right industry near the creek and the effect of all that work is gone.[/pullquote]

The report had been delayed to await the results of a Senate vote on a House initiated bill that essentially makes voluntary previously mandatory requirements that developers protect the state’s high value waterways as they pursue corporate profits. The Senate approved, and as I write this the bill awaits the signature of Gov. Tom Corbett, R-Marcellus, to turn it into law.

Continue reading Report: Lawmakers’ poor environmental performance

Autumnal Absorption

Mornings are foggy, though not so much near the ground. In airplane parlance, the “ceiling” is a couple hundred feet above the surface, visibility likely measured in miles, were not the line of site interrupted by hills and curves. I’ll take the hills and curves over straight line of sight, though, any day.

Seen from inside the house, signs of incipient winter decorate the landscape. Rust colored leaves torn from the oak in front of our home, sometimes flutter like a fishing lure tossed into a still water pool, sometimes flow horizontally like an invisibly crystaline river carrying its flotsam to the ocean.

Continue reading Autumnal Absorption

Rural Directions

Friends, meet Staci “Mrs. Matt” Gower. Readers of the Gettysburg Times may remember her as Staci George, an energetic police and fire reporter who eagerly responded to blazing infernos, kept her fingers on a plethora of social events, and once returned to the office with a tip that led to a Public Service award for the paper.

Staci is a detail-oriented young woman who, responding to my request for information to feed the GPS, led us thusly to a diner for the post-rehearsal repast, last weekend:

“When leaving the church, go down the road toward the beer distributor on the left (you’ll see on your way to church). Continue reading Rural Directions

Pa. residents share Chesapeake Bay waterfront

A recent newspaper story about efforts to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay noted Pennsylvania does not have frontage on the bay. That is not quite accurate, unless one is a real estate seller.

Continue reading Pa. residents share Chesapeake Bay waterfront

Coast to coast, water supplies severely stressed

The nightly television news tells seemingly disconnected stories.

California is suffering a historic drought in the middle of its winter “rainy” season.

Power plants have been forced to reduce output in the summer as the Great Lakes, several rivers and an ocean used to cool the machinery become too shallow or too warm —or both.

Earlier this month, a Freedom Industries storage tank leaked 7,500 gallons of coal-processing chemical into the Elk River near Charleston, W.Va., to be sucked into a West Virginia American Water treatment facility about a mile downriver.

(Unnatural) nature

Last week, I took my granddaughter and her best friend to the local swimming pool. The aroma of bacteria-killing chemicals assaulted us as we entered the pool area. Within about a half hour, one of the girls came to me.

“Do my eyes look red,” she asked.

Continue reading (Unnatural) nature

Shinseki is out. But are the vets in?

Recently, I needed a prescription. My doctor called it in and later I went to the drug store to pick it up.

I am old enough to be on Medicare, but I didn’t buy the extra part that pays for prescriptions. I also am retired from the U.S. Navy and therefore covered by TriCare For Life, the current version of continued medical benefits for military veterans. It pays, except when it doesn’t.

Continue reading Shinseki is out. But are the vets in?

Birches are meant to be climbed, bent

“I should prefer to have some boy bend them, / As he went out and in …” Birches, by Robert Frost.

Better a boy than an ice storm should bend the birches. A girl could bend them, as well, if a girl is in the house, and requires exploratory forays into a nearby forest. To climb a really tall tree is to gain a sense of accomplishment not available to parents and other adults who are well advised to stick to the lower, thicker branches.

And to have Mom worried that you might fall is to have an opportunity to show her, “No, I won’t.” There is no finer feeling than to tell her you will not fall, and then prove it.

Continue reading Birches are meant to be climbed, bent

Welcome to Terra II, maybe

An exciting piece of news crossed the television screen last week, sandwiched between a missing airplane (“Breaking news: Searchers still have not found Malaysian Flight 370.) and Russian troops daring the Ukraine army to come out and play.

The news was the discovery of a planet that may be capable of supporting life as we know it. It didn’t get a lot of play – couple mentions during the day and it was done – but it’s pretty big news in the history of human-kind. It is the first planet that is both the right size and the right distance from its sun for its climate to possibly have water and other features essential to human existence. Continue reading Welcome to Terra II, maybe

The world beyond my window

John's thumbnail (Published in the Gettysburg Times, 4/18/2014)

The world is coming alive with the warmth and light of Spring – this week’s below-freezing day notwithstanding.

A little bit ago, there was a bird singing loudly in joy at the edge of my back yard. I couldn’t find him to discover his name or photograph his appearance, but it was enough to hear his robust love song.

Continue reading The world beyond my window

I’d almost surrendered

John's thumbnail (Published in the Gettysburg Times, 4/4/2014)

I finally gave up trying to keep the House Sparrows out of the bluebird house. For about three days.

I feel badly for them, trying to set up a home outside my studio window. They are mid-1800 immigrants to this country from the Mediterranean Sea shores, by way of Europe. I’ve read they were a pest in China; Chairman Mao tried to eradicate them thinking it would make more grain available for his burgeoning human population.

Continue reading I’d almost surrendered

Thoughts on the cost of new homes

John's picture (Published in the Gettysburg Times, 3/21/2014)

An article in the Gettysburg Times reported on “Discovery Gettysburg,” a 2,000-unit housing development proposed for the intersection of US15 and PA394 (Shrivers Corners Road).

It’s a fact that residential growth is the most expensive when compared to agricultural and industrial. For one thing, each new worker living in a residential development occupies a separate home; the same number of employees work together in stores, factories or office buildings.

Continue reading Thoughts on the cost of new homes

How cold was it back in B.C. (Before Cell)

(Published in the Gettysburg Times, 3/7/2014)

A friend told me this week it has been so cold where she lives, kids have been complaining their cell phone keypads have been freezing. They have had to wait until second period before the keys have thawed enough they can be used to text the youngster across the aisle to set a lunch meeting in the school cafeteria.

Being without a working cell phone is rough, but I guess it is all relative. I bet my daughter remembers being unable to satisfactorily explain the necessity of tying up the home phone to talk to friends with whom she had just spent the day at school. Even that was B.C. – Before Cell.

Continue reading How cold was it back in B.C. (Before Cell)

Thanks to a municipal plow jockey

John's picture (Published in the Gettysburg Times, 2/21/2014)

I was sitting here doing what I do when I heard a truck backup alarm on my street. There are not many trucks with backup alarms on this street, so I got up to peek out the window – to see the Cumberland Township plow stopped, and the driver walking back to where a neighbor was helping an 80-something gent back to his house through the snow.

Continue reading Thanks to a municipal plow jockey