My little old truck has been under the weather the last week, confining me to where I could walk from here.
Nowhere.
As soon as possible this afternoon, I loaded up the dogs (well, actually, they just jump up on the seat) and headed for Mississinewa Reservoir and Pearson Mill S.R.A. It has the most vertical relief anywhere on the reservoir, with two fairly steep hills, and the boat ramp, a climb when the lake is at winter pool.
Indiana is a fairly stable tectonic area, although it would be very much affected by any realignment of the New Madrid Fault. The 1813 quake, estimated as the US' second largest, changed the course of two of the nation's largest rivers, in places by miles. Kentucky gained some Indiana, but we got Evansville.
Oh, joy.
The quake spread the fear of the Lord in our once-proud nation (you know, back before the middle of the last century, when we could still win a war), prompting the most prolific church-building era we've seen.
The ground reportedly rolled three feet, up and down.
There are three types of waves generated by an earthquake. The third is a lab-measure, so the two of concern are the primary, p, and the secondary, oddly enough, the s wave.
The waves propagate at perpendicular to one another.
The p wave resembles a wave in the ocean, like any wave you see on an oscilloscope. The s wave moves side to side, and is much more damaging, responsible for everything from a cracked foundation to total destruction.
The s wave moves slower than the p wave, because of the resistance in the earth. The difference in arrival times for the two waves fairly accurately locates the epicenter (with the help of triangulation).
The s wave also loses energy faster, from the force expended to propagate through earth, while the p wave has to varying degrees only has total resistance in one direction - which is why it was so much easier to move the surface of the earth six feet.
The s wave does the real damage, though, and another 8.6 (estimated) shaker would turn St. Louis into a graveyard. Dams up and down the Mississippi, and up the Ohio, would just go.
And if you live south of the Soo, your house will be damaged.
So it came as a real shock to me that, in just the last nine days, there was seismic activity at Pearson's Mill. Today, the hills were steeper, and higher, than just last week.
I've been walking around the pool table that is Converse for a week, and I'm laboring on these little hills. Lordy, lordy, I'm in crappy shape.
I was kinda guessing about going back on SR 13 or going across Red Bridge, wondering how clear that road was. Being the adventure maven I am, I opted for the icy possibilities on the chance I might see something.
About a mile along west, a red tail rose up from the shoulder and flew across the road in front of me, low, low. After she crossed, she made a hard right and began a short, unhurried climb about thirty feet up into a tree and lit, maybe ten feet from the (smaller) male.
Okay, now I'm glad I went that way.
Across Red Bridge, just as the road turns to the south, there were two hawks in a tree about 40 yards off the road, perched two feet apart, facing each other. I have never seen this, as I'm a total novice, and maybe everyone else sees it all the time. If anyone knows, don't make me work for an answer.
Meanwhile, I'm guessing foreplay.
I'm going to hazard an uneducated guess here, and say they were red-shouldered hawks, because they were closer in size, and the red tails I have seen in the immediate area have much lighter, usually almost white, breasts.
Left turn: good choice.

My life is currently dedicated to rehab, but there is too much happening not to comment on, with my insight, sarcasm, and humor (for those readers who can't figure it out, that's what that's meant to be). The three Upper Wabash Flood-Control Reservoirs are distinctly different, and a potential user would be well advised to consult this blog when selecting one for a visit.
The Salamonie tailwaters are a one-day-per-year fish harvester's Paradise, as the "fishermen" line up in the water, rubbing up against each other, and the IDNR releases 400 mature Rainbow Trout into the tailwaters. The harvesters then snag the trout in any legal manner.
This is the same as Ringneck Pheasant "put-and-take", where the gun harvester pays the appropriate fee, then attempts to kick the pen-raised birds into the air to shoot them, rather than, say, just pick one up and slit its throat.
But the busiest spillway, by orders of magnitude, is at Mississinewa, with Peoria on the NW side, a private campground and public access to both the spillway and the pool downstream, and Peoria SRA on the SE side, with public access to the spillway, pool, and river for several miles downstream.
There is a nice paved road to the SRA tracking down the dam. Years ago I ran it, but Tuesday I was walking, and when the steepest length began to mellow, a fox walked into the road about seventy yards ahead and turned, watching us.
Coyotes, as much as I admire and love them, can look scruffy and almost mangy.
Foxes, on the other hand, are like healthy cats, always well-groomed and looking sleek and clean like they just came back from the groomer.
Someone claimed you just don't get to see them, except I've seen at least five foxes since I last saw a cottontail rabbit, and that should disturb you.
I saw at least six generations of bunnies in my yard, and can't remember the last. I drive mostly secondary roads, and can't recall the last bunny pancake.
Where the hell are they?

There are a lot of red tails hanging around, and I'm seeing them in different places. Big white breasts hanging in the trees.
Driving north on SR 13 past Oak Hill Schools, there was a red tail perched on a Speed Limit 55 sign on the right, and, left, a red tail was working so, so low over a field. Lazy as I am, I would choose low-altitude hunting to hanging off the edge of a 6-foot sign in traffic.
Walking (Finally!) I came on a bunch of bark-feeders. There was a red-headed woodpecker, bright red and plump and beautiful, and two smaller, one I think was a downy and the other a hairy woodpecker, but that is a guess. They could easily have been both or either. And there were a couple of nut-hatches, incredibly cool, and you can have them in your yard if you have a tree and pack some crunchy peanut butter in the bark.
A red tail surprised me coming up off the edge of a road with the sun back-lighting, and the unworldly copper red glow through that tail went straight to the heart.
There are about 720 birds on the continent, so ignore none, but save a place for the red tail hawk. You will be much rewarded, much entertained, for the merest effort.

This must not pass unnoticed: too-long-lived piece of life-sucking shit Oral Roberts has died at the ludicrous age of 91.
How can this human tick have been allowed to suck money from the most gullible to build a monument to his miserable, loathsome self in the Oklahoma nowhere?
He created tele-evangelism, where a few ass pilots worked a warped medium and bypassed the sweat-soaked tent and all that bothersome travel, to suck billions from the least self-reliant, most dependent, most vulnerable, most gullible people in TVLand.
And these beautiful, caring creatures bundled up their money and sent this festering drain on all well and good money that could have helped needy neighbors, only to build a testament to Oral Fucking Roberts.
If Oral Roberts doesn't make god puke, god needs a different job.
There's that thing in the bible about all the wonders of the earth being created for man's dominion.
Since nothing in god's creation is more abominable than war, maybe he could get off his ass long enough to address that giant fuck up, before we only have each other for food.