Dam!

Four glacial epochs shaped the topography of the midwest; Wisconsinian, Illinoisan, Kansan, and Nebraskan. The last, the Wisconsinian, began to fade about 12,000 years ago.

But it took awhile. Maybe 2,000 or so years. Because the yearly average temperatures differed only slightly for the onset and recess of each epoch, less than +/- 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

All readers of these humble offerings are endlessly astute, and will instantly recognize that if such minute variations can cause a sheet of ice two miles thick to squat on Indianapolis, global warming is not a theory but a fact, tirelessly challenged and unrecognized by all who might change its relentless course.

The glaciers were 10,000 to 12,000 feet thick. They leveled mountains in Canada, and deposited fine sand and boulders the size of houses. All those rounded stones you find are glacial deposits. Nothing but limestone and dolostone (white and shaley yellow) are from here. Been here for 400 million years. Everything in north central Indiana, and much of Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, and all the rest, came from somewhere up nort'.

If you go up a few flights in any tall building in Indianapolis and look to the south, you will see an unbroken line of low hills in a gentle perpendicular arc. This is the terminal moraine, the extent of all Indiana glaciation. South is hills and forests, much of it too irregular to farm, concentrations of caves and exposed fossils of animals and plants long gone, and coal.

Why should you care?

If you look at a river map of Indiana, note that the Mississinewa and White rivers are scant miles apart in Wayne County. But the White River trends west, while the Mississinewa, Salamonie, and Wabash Rivers all flow northwest. The latter three drain a vast area of glacial till, measured in hundreds of square miles, not acres. The rivers continue northwest to flood control dams, south of Huntington, east of Wabash, southeast of Peru. The flow continues northwest at short distance, turns abruptly west, before the confluenced flow turns south at Lafayette. The northwest flow is directed by an ancient feature known as the Cinncinnati Arch. This anticline runs from its namesake to Chicago, and is the sole reason for Indiana's gas boom, of a county named Wells, of a town named Petroleum, of working oil wells along SR 13 north of Wabash.

So what turns the rivers west? The Teays River. More correctly, its pre-glacial channel. Believed to be from 1 to 2 miles wide, 500 feet deep, it carved a huge valley very much in evidence today.

A river meanders. This is a result of the Coriolis Effect, imparted by the mad spinning of the planet. It's why rockets rotate, bullets drift, and whirlpools, even as you flush, always rotate in the same direction. It also causes a river, stream, or even a ditch to turn, in a predictable pattern (1 turn in 7 lengths), and erode either bank. Flow dynamics mean water with a further distance to travel must move faster. Water's capacity to carry a load, as sediment, is dependent on flow rate. Such that water in the outside of the meander erodes, as slower-moving water on the inside deposits.

The perfect exhibit of the majesty of the Teays is on display in Wabash.

You enter town through a 50 foot roadcut through Mississinewa Dolomite (400 my bp), cross the Wabash River, than climb across three distinct plateaus, formed from deposits from the slow-moving waters on the inside radius of the turn. And this ancient channel, scoured by the billions of gallons of melting ice, continues through Peru, turning all three great rivers.

Before Indiana senators convinced the Army Corps of Engineers to build the dams in the 50's and 60's, Huntington, Wabash, Peru, Logansport, and all points on the rivers were flooded regularly to an incredible degree by today's mild standard.

I have seen watermarks on buildings in all these cities fifty feet and more above today's regulated flow.

And that's the story of Mississinewa Reservoir, my personal playground.

For about seven years I was a vegetarian. Not a vegan. There are synthetic saddles, WinTec an outstanding value, but mine is a Heiser, over fifty years old. What to do with it? And I prefer leather shoes and boots, and belts, billfolds, and holsters.

I am convinced I cannot survive in this or any other climate that includes winter without wool. If there is a synthetic material that approaches the wonders of wool, I never found it. And now I lack the resources to look.

Following an accident in 2000, I was saddled with sleep apneas, undiagnosed until 2008. I was (and am) too tired to cook much, and I found myself living on cookies and candybars. No complaints, except unstoppable weight gain. It started with fish, and I couldn't unring the bell.

Today I didn't see much in the way of birds, but did see two groundhogs.

Even as I have killed nothing since before Clinton was president, only last week I had considered killing and eating a groundhog.

The recipe I found was detailed. And, rated difficulty was "Insane".

So much for pot hunting.

Driving north of the reservoir, a county road. A redtail left the trees at a home and flew at us, 15 feet up. A big girl, she passed directly through our view. It was simply awesome. I could identify all the feathers, that close. A wonderful gift from a magnificent raptor.

And today, east on the Slocum Trail, nearing Red Bridge, seemingly from nowhere, a turkey vulture, perhaps even lower.

These are huge birds, wingspans averaging over 5 1/2 feet. That low, that close, the wingtips seemed to span berm to berm, shocking, disquieting, heartstopping, all there was in the world.

My collie puppy has a wonderful nose, the best of any of my dogs, ever. We were walking a canopied road, he about 35 yards ahead. He caught a scent, went to my left, whirled back to the right side of the road, circled the scent again, went left, then hit the brush to the right at speed.

It was dizzying just watching.

Later, he picked up something and crashed into tall weeds on the roadside. But there was a small, hidden ditch, and a tiny whump, and the least little yelp, then he was off, running.

Sorry, it was a banana peel moment. Had to laugh.

Saw my first indigo bunting this week. Don't want to wear it out, but can only describe that blue as iridescent. If you know a better word for that deep blue with a radiance of its own, share, and I'll use it the next few times I try to impart the beauty of a singular North American color of stunning clarity and beauty.

I have a problem with calling people pigs, as I think it an insult to all swine, wild, feral, and commercial. Okay, "commercial" is better than the practice deserves, as pigs grown for slaughter live out their "lives" shot full of antibiotics, packed together on a slotted concrete floor over a foul, reeking pit of their own waste.

Enjoy that tasteless pork roast, those bleached chops where the only flavor is in the fat.

So what do you call people who "litter"? That is a cute term for those who befoul the world with their trash and refuse.

And what to call soul-sold legislators who vote to deny women the most basic protections, to strip the aged of basic medical protection, to deny needy children health care, to perpetuate draconian definitions of "terrorism"?

Republicans? Too legitimate, for soulless, heartless, human stains.

What, then?

Bluebird of Happiness

There were several Eastern Bluebirds doing birdwork in and about some low trees as I passed.

Beauty is transcendent, and the beauty of a bluebird makes me as happy as I'm apt to get that day. Love blue & orange paired, and the combination of such a vibrant blue back and deep orange breast is captivating.

There are several exquisite colors in our local birds, commonly the stunning red of a Northern Cardinal, the bright, cheerful yellow of the American Goldfinch, that iridescent blue of the Indigo Bunting, and the intensely bright head of the Red-Headed Woodpecker. No matter how many of each and all I see, I still hungrily anticipate more.

Yet the bluebird is just a joy, one, ten, or twenty.

Saw a sharptailed hawk, flying low and damn fast. 45 mph, easily. Wind assisted. Still awesome.

And a redtail cruising south along Red Bridge, maybe 30 feet up, and I at first thought she was a red-shouldered hawk, which I have never IDed. But nope, wrong tail underside. Disappointed? Hardly. Will never be let down seeing a redtail, ever. Love'emLove'emLove'em.

No indigo buntings, yet, but the aforementioned red-headed woodpecker, too close for glass, and a goldfinch just yesterday, already sporting a spring breeding gold jacket.

Some while ago, in the gloaming, I shot a bluejay in error.

When the subject is nasty birds, the bluejay has a full-time PR staff working to keep them, marginally, below cowbirds.

Didn't matter. That pile of blue, black and white feathers hung a guilt suit in my memory closet I try on several times each year.

I'm a largish (okay, fat) man, whose weight ebbs and flows like the tides. Unlike all my other clothes, that guilt suit always fits. Good cut, perfect drape.

I shot that bird over 20 years ago. Today, I have a nice collection of guns, and shoot one or more every day.

But I have never aimed any gun at any live thing since I killed that bluejay.