SUMMER VISIT TO LIME HOLLOW

SUMMER VISIT TO LIME HOLLOW

LIME HOLLOW CENTERFOR ENVIRONMENT & CULTURE is located in Cortland County, NY.

A new visitor center is located off the McLean Rd near Cortlandville and is quite informative.

The area is second growth woodland, with some mature fields and ponds. A large spring in the woods feeds ponds and a brook which is used as a source of water for a fish hatchery.

One of the ponds near the hatchery is where the two water photos were taken.

This gray bark birch root is neat because the tree seedling sprouted on a punky stump many years ago. At the very top you can see where the original trunk was, a black line is visible. The lower section is actually roots that have "barked" with exposure to air as the old, punky stump rotted away.

Summertime is algae time even in a relatively "clean" pond. Nutrients from the surrounding woods still leach out to support the algae. Between the large algae mats the water is crystal clear.

Along this part of pond's edge a few aquatic insects are seen, but not many, and very few tadpoles. There are some small blue-colored damselflies flying here. Near the "swampy" part of the pond there are more insects.

Calm water is always so visually interesting, great for photos!

The vegetation above water, below water and reflected in water all have differing colors.

The water's surface tension gives great shadow effects on the pond's bottom. The multi-dimensional look is mesmerizing.

Visit Lime Hollow, it's always fun!! RDS

EARLY SPRING AT SAPSUCKER

EARLY SPRING AT SAPSUCKER

In the early spring before real growth happens the woods are fairly open and few signs of green appear


Early creatures inhabit the shallow waters of the woodland ponds. I think this beast is a dragonfly larva, but I'm not sure. He sure is strange looking.

Reflections in the open ponds are quite dramatic and clear because plant and algae growth is minimal. Later in the summer duck weed, algae, cattails, waterlilies all intrude into the picture.

The new Stone Egg Sculpture at Sapsucker Woods is interesting. Luckily it is along a trail leading to the parking lot and doesn't intrude on the ambience of the bird sanctuary.

RDS

BLUE RAIN, CLEARING STORM ONE SINGLE IMPRESSION

BLUE RAIN, CLEARING STORM

The day dawned cloudy cool,
Broken promises seemed to rule,
Drizzle rain made one more blue,
Taking heart of strong-willed too.

The in sudden fury, the storm broke loose,
Lightning flashes vertical shaft
Thunder crashes valley deep
Passion furies from sultry heat.
Wave after wave rain’s pounding beat,
Rolling wave after rolling wave
Rocks day’s soul with passion sweet.
Every lightning’s pulsing shaft
Excites storm to new release.
Tension builds, lightning strikes,
Thunder crashes valley deep.
Torrents come from on high
Wave after wave releasing wet,
Moisture giving her life to earth.

Lightning’s flash vertical shaft
Thunders crash valley deep
Wind and wet take breath away
And yet the best is to come.
Building slowly in the west
Heart beats faster and excites
As storm’s fury reignites
Pounding, pounding waves of wet.

Then as suddenly as it can
Tension relieved, quick as began
Wind’s breath subsides,
Calm’s norm presides.

Storm’s passion satisfied, day is sent
With golden sun the clouds are rent
With sunny afterglow evening went
Into nighttime’s dream well spent.

Life and love no longer blue.
........................................RDS

ABSURD MY SOUL SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS

ABSURD MY SOUL

Enter bravely if you dare
But with certainty beware
Even I’m totally not aware
The cauldron boiling there.

Evil and scary even I admit
Whenever I venture into that pit,
Where whatever is so brazen writ
The light of day should not permit.

Beauty will hold no sway,
Will never evil keep away,
Charm may beguile and delay,
Truth sought will rule the day.

So welcome you are, venture in,
Partake the glory if you find within,
For the darkness may yield only sin,
Or maybe, brightness rewards will win.

................................................RDS

LIFE'S INTERSECTIONS ONE SINGLE IMPRESSION

LIFE’S INTERSECTIONS

The vast majority of humanity
Seek to destroy with inanity
Much quicker than profanity.
Let them curse, I shall ignore.

Never was the world in step
With this strange beast called me.
If you don't get along, no sense
One trying to join, you see.

I've tried to run the silly race,
To oblivion. A race to disgrace
Where free thought is condemned.
Now, myself I only want to face.

Be smart and keep to my own pace,
I need to find that special place
To reach beyond the shallow role,
Where I can cleanse my very soul.

....................................RDS

SKUNK CABBAGE - TODAY'S FLOWERS & WATERY WEDNESDAY

SKUNK CABBAGE
Symplocarpus foetidus

DENIZEN OF THE SWAMP

Seeks still water more than flowing,

Even damp spring woods will suffice!

Bizarre and quite unreal, gotta love it!

Before the frost has left the ground, skunk cabbage melts through ice and snow to get a heads-up, literally. The flower bud has elevated its temperature with respiration, 15-35 degrees C above ambient temperature. Even while blooming the hood allows heat to build up and “ripen” the skunky stink. Heated stink is more attractive, if that’s what turns you on!!

If you stick your finger in the hood it does feel warm. And if your nose is in this close the smell is definitely not sweet!

It’s fascinating wondering how such survival methods ever develop.
The struggle for early, scarce spring pollinators is daunting, but with the right “bait”, rewarding.

As the leaves emerge after flowering, I always marvel at the contrast of the coarse, huge leaves of skunk cabbage and the delicate finery of fernery. Being neighbors really enhances that contrast!

As a fan of ferns and not of stink, my heart leans to finery, but in my head skunk cabbage has a spot.
.......................................RDS

OSI: WHAT'S IT LIKE?

What’s it like?

What’s it like when lost
In conscious thought
And reality’s surreal?
When what is real
And what is thought dissolve,
Uniting to form anew,
Tempered by truth and experience.

What’s it like on restless nights,
When slumber does not quiet,
And mind races on and on
To places quite unknown?
Unknown places seem so known
when night thoughts,
Drifting thoughts, invade the day.

Let the subconscious rise
To guide the pathless way.
Wandering the wilderness
Is the saunterer’s stray.

Nothing’s left to say!

…………………..RDS

NATURE NOTES: ROOTS

ROOTS

In the ageless drama
Where life meets earth,
Gripping great strength
From that so fragile,
Brief moment in the sun,
Living defies the vastness,
The vastness of eternity.

Where tree and earth unite,
The struggle of life is seen.
Roots cleave, mine solid rock,
No apparent rhyme or reason,
Except to live,
Cling and claw at life,
And fight against the ages.

Soft and fragile, temporary and new,
Leaves harden to root and trunk sinew,
Course of season stolen from eternity,
Moot testimony, giving life its due.
...................................................RDS

This posting is dedicated to the memory of
Mary Lou Keifer
“roots show such strength of character”
as did she!

WATERY WEDNESDAY- MARSHMARIGOLD

MARSHMARIGOLD

Caltha palustra

Out of black ooze,
In slowly moving melt,
Brightest lush green,
Encouraged by golden sun,
Eases from the earth.

Mounding watery leaves,
Amid the brown remains
Of growing season past,
Arise above reflected sky,
Gathering flowering sun.

Every yellow bloom
Glows against the dark,
Glows with gathered sun,
Uniting spring with one.
..........................................RDS

TODAY'S FLOWERS-- APRIL HEAT

SPRING EPHEMERALS

WOODLAND VIOLET

RED TRILLIUM

HEPATICA

SPRING BEAUTY

BLOODROOT

ADDER'S TONGUE

Oppressive is the April heat, spring stealing days of bloom, soon the leafy canopy will close as spring woods hasten towards the summer shade.

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Brief is the refrain of spring’s ephemerals, heat shortened even more. The glory of spring quickly passes; savoring the moment in in summer oppressive heat is not to be.

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Life mysteries are best
In proper perspective kept,
Only gradually revealed
Should such Truths yield.

Long winter wait is hardly worth the effort. Optimism tries to win the day, but time is of the essence. Blink and spring is in retreat, to hide from summer heat. Richness of color, largeness of bloom, all shrivel in dry April, shrink in April heat. We are all adapted to long term averages, be we plants or not, to really reach our peak.

Each weather shortened spring seems stolen from our lot, never gotten back and too quietly is forgot. Memories and fondness harken back to springs that seem to last forever, with time to relish changes life begets with winter’s mantle tossed. But summer with no spring is winter with no fall. Neither quite as bearable, transition much too short, for it is the changing that spring and fall does best.

Endless summer, endless winter, boredom soon prevails, give me change in spring or fall, with time enough to savor, that does seem best. Enlivens life to reach a peak, Frees thoughts stifled by the Bore.

The summer-like dust smothers fragrance so much alive in April’s good, rich, damp earth. RDS

WRITTEN AFTER 90F. HEAT!! The last week in April.

One Single Impression #60 One Word

To Listen, a Friend

To focus concentration
One needs to dialogue
With but one To Listen.

To Speak one word
Without To Listen is
But noise,
Dissonance not resonance.

Thought is not wasted
Within vast emptiness
With but one, one To Listen.

An audience is one,
The necessity of one,
With but one, one To Listen.

Into nothingness ideas float,
Without an audience of one,
One To Listen, a friend.

OSI # 59 LIVE WATER

LIVE WATER

Coursing through spring veins,
Being red or even not,
Live water, Life streams.

...............................RDS

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Spring runoff, greening open fields and newly budding trees, life seldom is any better!

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Thoughts along a camera-less brook.

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A fine spring day near a sparkling surfaced brook, the sun is high and bright, blue sky is deep, crystalline, and multiple in the liquid brook below.
A small brown bud coat shed by a neighboring tree glides over this page every so often, another major event in the sequence of spring.
A flowing brook is an ever-changing sparkle, a study in contrasts, the rough and tumble commotion at stream’s center is surrounded by back eddies of solitude. The many faceted jeweled surface sparkling in reflected sunlight and the haloed darkness of shadows on rocky bed near the shore. Each rock and pebble, every reflected hill and hollow appears on its surface. Each point transforms the streambed’s shape to light.
A fine spring day means life, and life can be smelled in the air; it enters every pore. Awaken and observe, it is but a fleeting moment, an emotional state of mind, a culmination of a sequence of events. You have to be right for spring, it is but momentary, that special joining of the sun, water, air and you. RDS

WATERY WEDNESDAY # 30 HAVANA GLEN

HAVANA GLENN PARK NEAR MOHTOUR FALLS,NY

At Havana Glen Park, McClure Creek heading for Catherine Creek the main inlet to Seneca Lake, is squeezed by towering cliffs into a narrow channel.

Near the falls, called Eagle Cliff Falls, the headlong rush of the creek calms as the falls-carved amphitheater opens more creek bed. The falls is positioned in a beautiful setting, clearly marking the passage of time.

After summer thunderstorms the creeks in central New York rise quickly, before slowly retreating a few days later. Water clarity usually returns rapidly since the stream beds are rock solid.

The trail, after entering the woods from an open picnic area, virtually overhangs the creek.

The roar of McClure Creek, thunderstorm swollen, echoes off cliff walls. Rushing, tumbling, agitated, the water hypnotically draws you towards it. The effect is intriguing.

OSI: LISTENING & REFLECTIONS AT SAPSUCKER WOODS

LISTENING



Out of stillness, listening
A distant voice is heard.
Darkness flees tear-felt eyes
With every heart-felt word.

Noiseless, dark clouds flee
Stillness of silent listening,
Pursuing others relentlessly,
Deaf to distant voices heard.

Out of stillness, listening
For distant voices heard
Silent seclusion steals away.
Its vision proved absurd.
.......................................RDS
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REFLECTIONS AT SAPSUCKER WOODS.
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The absolute stillness of the water contrasting with the clouds moving quickly overhead gave one pause, a reason to stop along the trail. The mood of the woodland pond changed as the clouds passed by the sun, sometimes somber, other times cheery. .
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Looking down to see the sun and sky,
Looking down to glimpse the tree tops,
The wonders of a woodland pond.
.............................................RDS

Watery Wednesday: Sauntering Chimney Bluffs

CHIMNEY BLUFFS STATE PARK WOLCOTT NY NEAR SODUS BAY ALONG LAKE ONTARIO

The park showplaces an eroded drumlin in central New York. Drumlins were formed by the great glaciers from about twelve thousand years ago. According to geologists there are about 10,000 drumlins near Lake Ontario. As far as I know there is only one Drumlins golf course!

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Drumlins are scattered throughout the area and appear to be smallish, elongated hills.

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These spires and chimneys can be as high as 150 ft. Walking at their base along the lake shore is humbling. The erosion of the drumlin is quicker than plants can grow to stablize the slopes.

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Old tree trunks, cobblestones and clay actually make an interesting mosaic.

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From the shore to the top is a long way, all stairs, too many stairs. But the view from the top is worth the sweat, as the two pictures at the start show. The kayaker gives some perspective of the height.

The rate of erosion is seen by some perched garden plantings! The trail along the edge was missing occasionally, eroded away.
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The trail back was through pleasant woods made unpleasant by heavy rain from a quick summer shower that lasted until the parking lot. At least it diluted some stair-sweat from the shore to ridge hike.