Month: March 2016

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Since yesterday’s post several people have said that Spring Mill is their favorite state park in Indiana.  One visit surely affirms the highest ranking.

Today’s blog will feature our walks.

After breakfast, a hike around the lake.

No kidding. There on the tree is a gag of sleeping vultures.

One of many footbridges

On the east side of the lake.

Three turtles claim their perches.

The lake empties into a further extension of Mill Creek. The creek, incidentally originates at the mouth of Hamer Cave. That is, the water rushes from out of the mountain …

… and tumbles boisterously (at 59 degrees year-round) down to Pioneer Village.

After Pioneer Village the creek slows to meadow speed.

The trail along Mill Creek comes right out of fairy land.

Joy knows many spring flowers. Many, today, were waking up for April

Below is dogtooth violet.

Perhaps because of color blindness I miss small flowers, but notice interesting trees.

These two have been hugging for years and years.

Another thing that catches my eye are water reflections.

Or simple water shots.

We stayed in the lodge in an ample room. The evening meal was bounteous, the lounge by the fireplace inviting. Spring Mill State Park is perhaps 25 miles south of Bloomington, near the town of Mitchel.  I hope you enjoyed this photo visit.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Two days and an overnight at Spring Mill, south of Bedford. A pioneer village now preserved within the state park gives us a glimpse of development in southern Indiana before Indianapolis was settled. Most of the buildings were erected from 1810 to 1825.

The plume and grist mill. Below are the lines and textures of pioneer buildings.

Our visit also includes hiking that I’ll show you tomorrow.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Midway or so through the morning I saw the C‘s on my daily chore list.

• fill the Coffee jar
• replace the nasal pillow on the C-pap machine
• Clean the bird feeder
• write note to Carl
• Collect the house garbage
• Construct a Ceiling protector on the Cellar steps
• thank Carri for the Easter bouquet
• don’t forget to insert the Card into the Camera

Then I noticed that the word for the day is Cognomen (any name, especially a nickname).

They say a C is mediocre, no more than so and so. But for me today, C was my Companion.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

A gentle Easter Day graced by seven family members here for dinner, tennis, walking, coloring, paper cut 0uts and a birthday party ended with a rousing storm with lots of lightning, continuous thunder, wind, rain and hail.  Here are three cloud pictures.

The rain changes the agenda for tomorrow since hauling mud instead of dirt doesn’t sound doable or wise.  Yet I shall not blame this rousing storm; storms are not to be belittled.

Saturday March 26 2016

I come upon this tree trunk. Why do the lichens and moss go up in rather straight lines? This configuration is not anything to complain about. It’s rather catching. But why?

In the creek I see a thin-legged critter, able somehow or other to skid across, atop the water. In the photo shot directly down into the creek, the little twerp is located in the upper left portion of the photo.  The first question is why doesn’t it sink like the rest of us?  The second question, given those very thin legs, why is the shadow rounded?  The shadow is in the lower right.

Then I come to two dogs, separated from me by a white fence. The one dog (right) raises the fiercest ruckus. The dog to the left just stands and smiles at me.  Why the difference in dispositions?

I’ll finish with another tree puzzle. What you see in the foreground is the rotted base of a tree that fell. Why has the one piece of the base — perhaps a root, withstood decomposition longer than the other parts?

 

Friday, March 25, 2016

Last evening we ate tray lunches in front of TV — channel 13 which is NBC affiliated. For half an hour the local affiliate, which calls itself “Indiana’s news leader” offered about twelve minutes of police blotter items, six minutes of weather, 10 minutes of ads, and a couple minutes of “banter.”

The twelve minutes of “news” included the finding the body of an 18-month-old child; the gathering of people to remember the killing of four people one year ago yesterday which has not been resolved; several more shootings in the city; a feature of an old car being driven through a locked gate at a store followed immediately by about six males running into the establishment to steal; and the governor’s signing a bill prohibiting a woman from getting an abortion even when there is clear evidence of the fetus having a disability.

National news had its setting in Belgium where more than 30 people were killed this week by exploding bombs. The feature moved to a discussion of safety in the United States. The “Evening News” also included on item of Donald Trump trying to disparage the wife of Tom Cruz by showing a glamour photo of his wife and an uncomplimentary photo of Cruz’ wife.

At the close of the hour we turned off TV. I sat quietly for awhile in order to identify and then assuage what I can only describe as my disheartenment. Our city. Our nation. Our world. My family. My neighbors. My friends. My co-citizens of the globe. What in the world is going on?

I wondered about the effect upon TV viewers of hearing/seeing the daily report of violence. I wondered about the result if we close ourselves from news of what is going on. I wondered how I might in some small way live a testimony of peace.

This morning I had occasion to make a phone call. “Hello, this is Brenda.” I said good morning and hoped that her start of the day was pleasant.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

These days my meandering mind frequently loops back to political discourse. Specifically, I note the distance of campaign trail talk from the intense debate, often behind closed doors, of leaders and their advisors in pursuit of correct policy and practice.

I refer you to a cogent essay in the April, 2016 issue of The Atlantic.  Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg identifies what he has come to understand as “The Obama Doctrine.” The article details why and how President Obama initially drew “a red line” of warning to President Assad of Syria if he used chemical weapons. When Assad then reportedly used these internationally forbidden chemicals, Obama decided not to attack him militarily. For this refusal to follow his own warning the President has been roundly and soundly rebuked.

Goldberg takes us step by step through the agonizing discussions (intense debates) with the likes of John Kerry, secretary of state during the second term; Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor; Samantha Power, ambassador to the UN; Hillary Clinton, secretary of state during the first term; Leon Panetta, defense secretary; and Joe Biden, vice president. Of particular interest to me was Obama’s hour-long walk in the south lawn of the White House with Denis McDonough, White House chief of staff.

These high-level conversations, nuanced by history and personal experience, served as backdrop for the President’s decision NOT to bomb Syria.

In sharp contrast to Goldberg’s report are the newspaper and tv reports of what presidential candidates say  — cheap attention-getting one-liners that have no relationship whatsoever with rational deliberation, no indication of how these candidates would function in office. They sound like us little boys arguing about Farmall and John Deere tractors.

Most major issues — social, moral, economic, ecological — can’t be solved by an outrageous one-liner. One can’t solve emigration and immigration with a wall. One can’t solve gun-related homicides with 40 more police. One can’t reduce carbon emissions with one limited law. One can’t change North Korea’s apparent militancy with a warning.

Thus I find the current presidential campaign misleading to the point of de-educating citizens of what citizenship implies. The political discourse conceals the qualities needed for the effective leading of a nation.

 

 

 

Wednesdy, March 23, 2016

Try as I might, I can not define “universe.”  They say there are not only millions of stars, but millions of galaxies. NASA indicates that dark energy “occupies” 68% of the universe, dark matter uses up 27% while earth and everything else uses less than 5%.

Nor can I get a grasp on “eternity.” When I try, my brain goes into a convulsive eruption.

What I can know, however, is that the increasing amount of sunlight awakens what has slumbered for several months in frozen soil.

 

Sunday, March 20, 2016 (first day of spring)

Fall Creek

channel

catching morning sun

ditto

not yet 33 degrees

coupling up

another fix to my addiction to stumps

Duck Pond

Saturday, March 19, 2016

William James and his brothers including Henry used the term “growing up zigzag” to indicate the many interruptions, advances and backtracking, changing of domiciles not only in New England but also in Europe, contradictions and upheavals of their childhood.

Their experience led me to think about my own path(s) even as I walked in the woods this week.

I started in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in what I now consider to have been 17 years of family stability and support. The first significant shift occurred when I traveled south of the Mason and Dixon line to a college in Virginia. There I came to know that my childhood occurred in the North.

The second move impressed on me that I grew up in the East, for I and my spouse lived for two years in the Midwest. The third move to upstate New York was significant geographically and culturally and intellectually, again positioning me vis-a-vis my origins on a Pennsylvania farm.

The path then returned to the Midwest, for a career teaching in a liberal arts college. There I experienced a welcomed zigzag because our 33-year tenure included many side tracks: Costa Rica, Spain, Chicago, Thailand, North Carolina. Those forays threw yet another light on the path that I had trod. I learned that I had been a North American, a Yankee, an affluent citizen of a first-world nation, an English speaker and yes, an academic and a writer.

The next turn in my path occurred after I retired from teaching. During fifteen years of consulting in organizational communication, I traveled and worked in more than a dozen states. During this same time my wife and I visited England, Spain, Italy, Malta, Chile, Argentina and we returned again to Costa Rica.

To be sure, when the path turned my vista changed as did the point from which I viewed that vista. While I experienced a path that can not be construed as a straight one, I do not think of those occasions as negative zigzigs but rather opportunities.  Those turns contributed to significant changes in my outlook  but I do not now regard those turns as upheavals.

I have met many people, including the hundreds of students who attended my classes and the people with whom I consulted, who knew experientially major zigzags that unsettled them, in some occasions, forever. As I continue reading the biography of William James, I shall be interested in learning the effect of zigzag on his rich intellectual and spiritual life.

Perhaps this blog will encourage you to recall your path(s).