Wiker does stuff

It's been a rough winter for the Bluegrass. A foot and a half of snow and ice in the middle of February effectively closed my entire city for a week. Watching the South's ineffective efforts at grappling with snow was a sad, sad thing. Thankfully it melted soon, flooding the streets until the following week when the temperature again dipped below freezing and turned the entire city into a skating rink. That was followed by another foot of snow. I stood in the ghost town of Krogers, watching a hollow-eyed woman load nine gallons of milk onto her cart, and was silently grateful for growing up in Ohio, a land of diverse and terrible weather. We Ohioans know how to hunker down and survive off saltine crackers and ranch dressing for however long we need to.

But it seems like spring is finally here. The roads are flooded again and there's a pothole like a tiny Lake Erie in front of my house. Whitlow grass, hairy bittercress, and spring beauty tied for first place as the first flower up. Every farm pond is crowded with ducks. The salamanders are on the move, and the spring peepers are singing. I've been making some changes too.

First off, I am an ex-student no longer. I'm now a half-semester into my Bachelor of Science from Eastern Kentucky University. It's been an interesting transition; most of my wildlife credits transferred from my Associate degree, and what I'm mostly lacking now is the general education requirements. So even though I transferred in as a junior, I'm still in freshman classes like Lifetime Wellness 101 (also known as How Not To Make Bad Choices and Eat Only Twizzlers for Dinner Because This is the First Time You've Lived Away From Your Parents). But it's okay--the end goal is to get that degree and from there move on to the next end goal.

Second off, the professor in charge of the aquatic macroinvertebrate lab at Eastern has graciously agreed to let me volunteer to gain some experience in a laboratory setting. The goal for that one is by the end of the semester to be ready to take the taxonomic certification offered through the Society for Freshwater Science. Macroinvertebrates are mostly unfamiliar territory for me, so we'll see how it goes; but it's something to work towards anyway.

Thirdly off, I transferred parks to be closer to school. So now instead of 25 acres, I'm working on 700ish acres of deciduous forest adjacent the Kentucky River. Lots more to explore, and lots more in terms of species diversity.

Fourthly off, I got a job in Pennsylvania for the summer, on a field crew looking at how oil and gas development affects birds. It looks to involve lots of hiking and camping and early mornings and bears, so that's exciting. I've been pretty sedentary in Kentucky for the past year and a half or so and it feels good to be on the move again. Plus, who can complain when your actual job is to look at birds? (And possibly get chased by bears).

After that--well, it would be an exaggeration to say I have a game plan for what's going on next, but I guess that's part of the fun.

A foggy morning in the Kentucky foothills--March 2015

Pleasant View Farm at Battlefield Park--camera time

The old Pleasant View Farm is located at Battlefield Park, part of the site of the 1862 Battle of Richmond in Richmond, Kentucky. The area was originally settled in 1801 by a Joseph Barnett. Eventually I'll make a better post about this very neat little park, but for now here's some pictures.

Barnett family burial plot on the old farm site, a remnant from the early settlement days of Kentucky.

Joshua, a servant of the family who "died by a stroke of lightning."

The interpretive sign states that these box-tomb style grave markers were unusual for early settlement Kentucky and were possibly a carryover tradition from the British Isles. However, I have seen similar box tombs in graveyards around Kentucky and eastern Ohio so I don't know whether it was really that uncommon, or maybe common in areas where Europeans of certain descent settled. Something to look into, anyway.

Possibly a servant's grave?

The old farmhouse, finished around 1824

Detail of stained glass above the front door

View from the front porch

Back side of the house

The slave quarters

The Quick 'n' Dirty Self-Help Karst Tour

I have no problem admitting that whatever the opposite of a geologist is, I'm that. Before I moved down to Kentucky I had the luxury of being able to, for the most part, ignore the ground beneath my feet; but those days are in the past. Now I work at a park and the third commonest question I get from people (after "Are there any poisonous snakes?" and "Where are the restrooms?") is, "What's karst?"

The geologic phenomenon known as karst is a big deal in Kentucky. The word itself derives from a Slavic word indicating barren, stony ground. It refers to a terrain formed from the slow dissolving of soluble bedrock such as dolostone or limestone, resulting in caves, sinkholes, sinking springs, subterranean drainage, and general all-around instability. Because of its predominately limestone bedrock, Kentucky is one of the most well-known karst landscapes in the world; this results in some amazing places— like Mammoth Cave National Park—and also some accidents, like the 40-foot sinkhole in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. Now I find myself smacked down in the middle of some of the karstiest karst you’ll see anywhere and I've resigned myself to the fact that I better learn something about it; so I've put together (mostly for my own edification) a self-help guide to some elements of karst topography.

And if you want you can follow along with a picture from our beautiful signage.

For the sake of demonstration and a visual tour, let’s start at the beginning with the karst system at the park where I work. The headwaters (so to speak) of our little spring system is the Blue Hole. Essentially a sinkhole filled by water leaking through an underground fissure, prismatic effects work together with the Blue Hole's depth--an abrupt 15 feet--to create its unique appearance. 

or MAGIC

Insulated by the bedrock, the water coming up from the Blue Hole stays a balmy 55 degrees Fahrenheit all year around (similar to many cave systems). You can see a little snow on the bank, but otherwise there's no clue that this photo of an American Robin stopping for a drink was taken on subzero January morning. Aquatic plants, like the water purslane in the background, stay green all year round in the spring water.
 A few yards past the Blue Hole, the water disappears underground again into a handful of crevices. Following the trail for another 1/8 of a mile or so, and you'd never know there's water running under your feet until you come around the corner and stumble upon the second spring in the karst window, known as the Boils. Much shallower--about calf-deep--than the Blue Hole, the underground water filling the Boils comes to the surface under enough pressure to create a bubbling, roiling effect. After a solid rain the Boils sometimes rises up a foot or two like a tiny Old Faithful.

The Boils, after several weeks without rain. Most of the water comes up through cracks and crevices hidden under the limestone outcropping.

And then the old H20 is above ground again for another quarter mile or so. If you deviate from the path of the water a little and go up the hill into the woods you'll find something of both historical and geological interest (if you're a massive nerd). Way back in the day before the land was a park, it served as a farm (and also an old settlement site, and a gunpowder mill, and an illegal dump, and lots of other things, but that's a long story). One of the remnants of the earlier usage are long stretches of ye olde famous Kentucky drystone fences, so called because they're held together by artful stacking and gravity versus mortar. Usually dating back to the 19th century, the drystone fences have weathered the years shockingly well. Coming from Ohio--a land of short-lived split rail and barbwire fences--I was surprised coming into the Bluegrass region, where hundred-year-old property lines are still clearly visible in many places. Most of the fences on the park, and some of the other historical structures, were built from limestone from a little limestone quarry situated up the hill from the springs.

Limestone quarry, a couple different views and a closeup (right) of the stacking

This rocky outcropping gives you a nice little cross section of what's going on under your feet. It's stacked very loosely, more like paper piled up than the stratification that you sometimes see in bedrock where highways were cut through and that sort of thing.If you wanted to you could walk up and pull out big slats of rock just like it's a giant game of limestone Jenga. (But don't. Because it's on the National Register of Historic Places and you aren't supposed to destroy it. Actually it's a good idea not to destroy things in general.) Limestone (in case you didn't know) is basically made of sediment and remains of smashed sea creatures from the millions-year-old sea that once covered Kentucky. This means that some of the best fossil hunting I've ever come across has been in the Commonwealth. Most of what I've found in areas like this has been branch coral and brachiopods, but just about anywhere where you find some good exposed limestone has the possibility to be fossiliferous. That's a real word.

Whoa, so fossiliferous!
(from a creek bed in Madison Co., KY)

If you're interested in the fossiliferous properties of local limestone, get more a more educated and in-depth look at it here.

Anyway, back to the water. After the Boils, it continues as an above-ground stream for maybe another 1/8 of a mile or so, and then it abruptly disappears at the back side of the park, into a little cave entrance called the Final Sink. Unlike the cracks that allow the water to come up from the Boils, the Final Sink is large enough and cave-y enough that an adventurous skinny person would be able to crawl down it, but it certainly doesn't look tempting. (This is the spot where, on a school field trip I was leading, one of the kids yelled "I SEE EYES! I SEE GLOWING EYES DOWN THERE!")

If you look at the upper righthand corner, you can sort of see another element of karst topography, a small sinkhole on the far side of the Final Sink.

In an interesting twist, the park was owned by a development company back in the day and slated to be filled in and become part of an industrial park. This backfired when the plan was derailed by a city ordinance prohibiting people from filling in sinkholes and springs. (Why anyone would think it was a good idea to build on sinkholes I have no idea.)

So there you have it, some karst topography. At the very least I've come to appreciate the effect geology can have on a landscape. I've vastly oversimplified the whole idea here, because that's where I am in my learning curve, but if you're all about the karst and want to see some awesome examples, be sure to hit up the Bluegrass region. And if you aren't all about the karst, at least you learned not to build a house on a sinkhole.

And everyone likes nice fences.
(Bryan Station Rd., Lexington, KY)

Words from Aldo

"A man may not care for golf and still be human, but the man who does not like to see, hunt, photograph, or otherwise outwit birds or animals is hardly normal. He is supercivilized, and I for one do not know how to deal with him. Babes do not tremble when they are shown a golf ball, but I should not like to own the boy whose hair does not lift his hat when he sees his first deer. We are dealing, therefore, with something that lies pretty deep." 

--Aldo Leopold, "Goose Music"

Three Things That Haven't Disappointed Me (and won't break your budget sort of)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you buy something it will probably disappoint you. Most advertisements are at best misleading and at worst, basically lies. (Consumer reviews aren't always helpful either. I hate paging through five star Amazon reviews that all read some variation of "OMG just got my new binoculars!! They work great can't wait to try them out! Thanx Amazon!" I don't want to hear that you just got them and they work great. Of course they do. I want to hear that you set them on fire and they work great.) Therefore I'm always pleasantly shocked when I encounter some piece of outdoor equipment that not only lives up to the advertising, but goes above and beyond. In recognition of that here's a list of my top three items that have proved to be reliable field companions over the years.

1. Cabela's Rimrock Hiker
The world of women's outdoor wear is a cold and bleak place inhabited mostly by pink camouflage and yoga pants.  I can't tell you how many times I've opted for men's clothing, which, although usually too big and awkwardly-shaped, is miles above the travesty that is the women's department of the average sporting goods store. Onto this depressing landscape the Rimrock Hikers shine like a beacon of hope. Pants, shirts, even coats can be compromised on; but as any outdoorsperson knows, you're only as strong as your feet.
I bought my first pair of Rimrock Hikers four years ago, before I set off for college. They survived an associate's degree with grace and style--and that includes miles of hiking every day, camping, caving, late-night-early-spring-salamander-hunting, wading, chainsawing, ghost-chasing, tractor-driving, an internship with the Forest Service, and just about everything in between. When I graduated they went West, and spent a good solid eight hours a day tromping over the soaked ground of the prairie pothole region in search of elusive grassland birds. For the autumn we headed back east and I wore them from sunup to sundown as an intern at an environmental camp. Afterwards we did a short-distance move to Lexington and, after several months of hoofing it around parks and some duct tape repairs, finally gave up the ghost. I bought another pair, and just in time, because the original Rimrock Hikers were discontinued and replaced with a very similar boot. I don't know why but my hope is that it wasn't to introduce something lower-quality. Don't disappoint me, Cabela's.

2. L. L. Bean Continental Rucksack
The Mary Poppins' bag of backpacks. I can't quite get everything I own into my rucksack, but I can come close. (The car doesn't fit.) It doesn't have bazillions of tiny useless pockets so you can sort out your chapstick from your pencils. Instead it has one central compartment, two water bottle holders on either side, and a biggish front pocket for stuff you need easier access to. There's lots of straps and buckles, so it's easy to batten down the hatches for long-distance hikes. It's also just plain a nice-looking, no-frills backpack. No weird patterns, no built-in water thingie, no large brand symbol, and it comes in several naturalist-y colors such as Tidal Sand and Dark Russet. It's the sort of backpack John Muir might wear whilst overlooking the Yosemite Valley and stroking his beard. The only thing I have a bit of a problem with is the width. It's a very flat pack, which means even when full it doesn't stick out very far in the back. This is a sort of double-edged sword because it disperses the weight better so you don't get tired as quickly, but it's also harder to dig through if you want the thing you packed on the very bottom. Also it's pretty tall and I'm a tiny bit short in the torso for it to fit quite in the way it's intended; for anyone under 5'2 it would probably not fit well at all. All in all though, it's the best pack I've had so far.

"I approve of your backpack." --John Muir

3. Nikon Monarch
I saved the best (and the most expensive at around $250) for last.This is actually a series of binoculars rather than one single model and I'm not quite sure which model I own, simply because most of the distinguishing markings have been worn off by 10 years of use. Mine are 8x42s but you can get Monarchs in just about any reasonable magnification. In terms of clarity, close focus, light-gathering capabilities, and all the other important binocular things, the Nikon Monarch consistently rises to the top of its price class and in my opinion out-performs some models with quadruple-digit price tags. It also just plain looks and feels like a good pair of binoculars--good weight, a rubberized coating that makes it easy to hang onto and more bouncy if dropped, good grips, and adjustable to a variety of faces--there isn't a thing to complain about. And you'd never know it's a piece of delicate optical equipment from the way I treat mine. It's advertised as waterproof and fogproof, but I can state from experience that it's also cement-proof, car door-proof, chocolate pudding-proof, semi-fire-resistant and about everything in between. (Disclaimer: Don't try it, though.) This is truly the cockroach of binoculars and I mean that as a compliment.

The Nikon Monarch also looks super sleek in action.