October-isms

This afternoon, after the nail-bitingly wonderful ball game last night, I wasn't quite ready to sit in the school parking lot and listen to the beginning of the Twins/Yankees playoff game. It was sunny and in the fifties and not raining, as it has so often lately, and part of me was missing engaging in any form of exercise for the last couple of weeks. So I drove to a trail I had been to once before, last spring or maybe even before that. It's a snowmobile trail on state park land that is not heavily advertised or used when there is no snow. It winds downhill, across a couple dry ravines leading to the Kettle River, then uphill again. Off the beaten trail I had heard there was a creek that cut through some rock outcrops, but the last time I was there I did not know where to get off the trail. I'm a sucker for water and rock outcrops, so I was determined to find the creek this time.

I had half an hour to wander, so I quickly covered the half mile or so of marked trail. The tree canopy, mostly aspen and birch with some maple, was a brilliant, other-worldly shade of gold. I saw a scattered pile of feathers that looked like they once belonged to a goshawk or Cooper's hawk. I saw a large mushroom being consumed by a slug.

When I got to where I had to leave the beaten trail, I briefly considered the wisdom of what I was about to do. There was a chance I could get lost in the woods. However, the sun was out, I could hear the freeway from where I was, so I had a pretty good sense of direction. That, and the slope of the river valley was a good landmark.

I wandered downhill through some light undergrowth, and soon I found the stream and some sandstone outcrops. Unfortunately, I checked my iPod clock and realized I had about ten minutes to get back to the car and get to the school, directly across the river from where I was, to pick up Calvin. So I reluctantly saved serious rock exploration and meditation for another day. And I found my way back to the trail easily.

I saw my first rough legged hawk of the fall on the way home. Once I was home I headed out to the garden to gather green tomatoes. It's supposed to get pretty cold tomorrow night and I hope to bring in what I can before it freezes too hard. On my way out to the garden I heard a great horned owl; I had heard one early this morning too. I had not heard one since maybe last spring.

I picked two buckets of tomatoes, but there are still plenty more out there. I also picked a box of tomatillos. Strangely enough, I had my best crop of them in several years. Even stranger, after I had brought them in, Calvin, who did not know I had been out picking them, asked me if I could make some salsa verde this year! He has developed quite a taste for salsa lately, and he told me he loves salsa verde. I should have enough for four or five pints, which I suspect will go quickly. :)

The air is crisp, the multicolored landscape beautiful, and I wish it could stay like this for about two months longer.

treasure found

Wow. This is the BIGGEST agate I have ever found!

This morning at work I had an unexpected errand across the river to our fish rearing ponds. We had some major work done there last fall, re-routing the drainage and stuff, so there was a lot of loose gravel and rock there, either recently placed or dug up from the work. I don't know. Anyway, as I was surveying the new layout I glanced at the ground and saw a stone that demanded picking up. I have been walking gravel roads for over thirty years now, and I know a Lake Superior agate when I see one!


This one is incredible. It has nice fine lines, and viewed from the end the lines form a heart shape. It is about four times the size of most of the agates I have picked up over the years.

For a rockhound like me, this is SWEET!

P.S. I hate to have the frog chorus as an afterthought ever, but tonight the sound is beautiful here. Peepers, wood frogs and Western chorus frogs.

Big Manitou Falls mini road trip

Did you know that the highest waterfall in Wisconsin (165 feet), and the fourth highest waterfall in the United States east of the Mississippi River, is less than thirty miles from Sand Creek?

Neither did I, until recently. Wisconsin keeps her secrets well.

I have a confession to make: I am a geology nerd. I won a 4-H purple ribbon at the 1984 Minnesota State Fair with my rock collection. So I am always on the lookout for geological oddities. Rock outcrops fascinate me; it is as if we are given a glimpse into the ancient history of this little piece of earth we call home.

My home on Sand Creek lies within a half mile of a geological hot spot called the Douglas Fault. About 500 million years ago, the continent started splitting apart along a line that stretches from Superior, Wisconsin to the Twin Cities, maybe even more. It stopped, eventually, and we have not had any earthquakes to speak of lately, but there is an ancient basalt bedrock juxtaposed against a more recent sandstone bedrock. If we drilled a deep well we would be going through sandstone; the nice little rock outcrop a mile and a half to the east is basalt.

I was doing a little Internet research on the Douglas Fault recently, and I found out that Wisconsin has two state parks with waterfalls that are there due to the Douglas Fault. And one of them, Pattison State Park, was less than an hour's drive away. So today the kids had a holiday from school due to the annual teacher's convention, and I was due for a self-imposed holiday from work. The weather was nice, so I tore the kids away from Wii Major League Baseball 2007 for a while, and off we went.

The Black River, source of this water grandeur, arises about fifteen miles northeast of my home in a bog; hence the water is very dark stained from the interaction of acid and plant tissue. The falls is a very short walk from the parking lot. The view is limited to a couple of places, however, and there is no way to get to the bottom of the gorge. That was fine with me. I didn't get any memorable pictures of the falls, due in part to camera movement caused by a very excited Labrador on one of her rare big days out with the family.

We took a half mile hiking trail down to the bottom of the gorge, downstream from the falls. The kids settled easily into the throwing rocks thing. If you look beyond Calvin, you can see that the bedrock cliffs here are sandstone, not the basalt that the waterfall was tumbling over.

There were some amazing white pines along the trail, although I am proud to say I don't think any one of them was bigger than some of the pines we have here on our 40 acres. They are impressive though.


Although I very much enjoyed our destination, I think the kids and I enjoyed the journey as much, if not more. We traveled through some very back country roads that went through Holyoke, Minnesota, a town immortalized in a song by a band I really like, The Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank. One of the nephews lives in Holyoke, and I'm pretty sure we passed by his house. There are not that many houses in Holyoke.

Not that much later we passed through Foxboro, Wisconsin. This is it.


I wonder about the history, if there is one, of this town that maybe never was.

After the falls we drove on up to Superior, which was only thirteen miles away. We laughed at how there was a bar every half mile down Wisconsin 35. I told the kids "We're in Wisconsin now, that's why we sometimes drive to The Shack on Sunday!" In fact, I was driving to The Shack to pick up some Summit Scandia beer that was on sale. 3.99 a six. I was thinking of how, if I knew where the Barack Obama campaign headquarters was in Duluth, I would pick up a sign or something. Then, a curious thing happened. The kids wanted to drive back home through Foxboro, so in turning around and driving through downtown Superior I happened to drive right by the Obama Superior headquarters. So I stopped in, made a nominal donation, and got my sign. Which is now at the end of my driveway, next to the Franken and Vote Yes.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. The natural beauty that surrounds this place where I live never fails to amaze me.

Edited to add: Here is a view of the entire waterfall. When I was posting this last night, for some reason I didn't think this photo was "good enough". But I decided I could not post about this magnificent falls without showing the bottom half, which is a more sheer vertical drop.

Banning State Park hike

I re-found out today that I live about fifteen miles from one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Just look at that photo; that is the Kettle River, as it flows through a narrow sandstone gorge. And that sky...definitely September in Minnesota.

The entrance to this gem in our state park system is a few hundred yards down the road from the entrance to my kids' school. I pass by it every day. So why is it that I have not hiked these trails in 1 or 2 years?

The salon where I get my hair cut is also very close to the park entrance. So when I made appointments for me and Starflower for this morning, I had an idea. The leaves should be pretty, it's supposed to be a gorgeous day, so why not go for a walk in the park? Mr. Attitude was in, but Calvin decided to go on errands with Dad. Starflower and I got similar, shorter than usual haircuts, then we were off to the park.

We took a trail loop that took us past 100 year old abandoned sandstone quarries, which have grown over with new vegetation; in the woods you could hardly imagine you were standing in an old mine. We passed sheer cliffs of sandstone, with the parallel marks of drills, where miners drilled down and then sent explosives down the small holes, shooting slabs of sandstone away from the formation, so they could be cut and sent away on rail cars.

The whole operation was pretty much through by the 1920's. Buildings were being made by structural steel, not rock (although there is a classic look to a stone building!) so the market collapsed for sandstone. Fortunately, the state acquired the land surrounding these former quarries in the 1970's so it could be preserved as a state park.

We were not alone. There were many people hiking the trails, and I was surprised to encounter a Chinese speaking party, as well as a couple who looked maybe Indian, or Tibetan. Everyone looked like they were enjoying the weather, the river, and the spectacular leaf color.

Geology lesson for the day: This photo was taken looking upward through an elliptical hole in the rock. This kind of hole is called a pothole or kettle, hence the name Kettle River, and is formed due to the actions of a river that was once much larger. Somehow, as the glacial melt river was cutting through this geological fault, which made this sheer canyon of ancient sandstone, some rocks got caught in eddy currents. They spun around and around...and in doing so, cut deep holes in the sandstone. This park is full of evidence of how water acts on stone, in geological time. And how humans act on stone, in less than geological time.

I had forgotten how deeply the river cut through the bedrock in this small area. There were parts of the trail where one side dropped off in a steep hill a hundred feet or more. Which is really fun to hike with an impulsive 5 year old...I kept telling him "Keep on the left side of the trail! The left side!" I think the canyon must approach 200 feet in some areas. I am perhaps over sensitive to heights, so in some parts of the trail I was actually getting dizzy. Again, I had fogotten what geological wonders lurked so close to home.

I have made a sort of goal for myself, since I sprung for the $25 State Park sticker that will allow me entrance to any state park for one year. I would like to hike in Banning State Park, or in slightly more distant Jay Cooke State Park, or cross country ski, once a month. I really have no excuse to not stop by Banning once in a while. Hope it's a good snow year too; I really miss skiing.

rocks

We have an abundance of rocks in most of our soil here. I say most of the soil because we have two very different soil types on our 40 acres. Out by the road the soil is sand and gravel, evidence of perhaps a much larger Sand Creek during the melting of the last glaciers. However, as you come up the driveway near the chicken yard, the soil composition abruptly becomes different: darker, a bit more clay, and boulders, ranging from fist size to several feet in diameter.

The most abundant rock is a pinkish sandstone, which also makes up the bedrock in this area. There is also a greenish rock that I don't know the name of; it is a dense, fine grained rock. Occasionally there is granite or gneiss, or basalt with various inclusions.

The soil is so rocky that I have given up using the rototiller and instead opted for raised garden beds. But there are many potential uses for the rocks: flower bed edges, walkways, walls, terraces, perhaps even a garden shed or greenhouse in the future. Some of the bigger ones could be strategically placed in Sand Creek to enhance fish habitat. Most of the pile above is reserved for facing the half wall that will be built behind the wood stove; the rock will provide thermal mass, helping to moderate temperature and store heat. It's nice to be able to use some locally available, free building materials in the house.