A Walk in the Woods: Ephemeral Wetlands

Marion County Naturalist Marla Mertz is a treasure. She teaches kids and adults about nature, rescues wildlife, rehabilitates injured eagles and hawks, and does so with a gentle kindness and wisdom revered in other cultures and too often ignored in ours.  She richly explains and brings great meaning to things that most of us drive by, too busy to care, much to our detriment, and to the earth's. She's a great teacher, and has taken Austin DeJong, a seasonal employee, and anyone who cares to listen along with her on her journey to understand and appreciate life on earth.  Here her topic is ephemeral wetlands, and it's time for a walk in the woods on my program for KNIA/KRLS.  The program can be found here.

Muddy Boots

It's raining as I write this.  We're under a severe thunderstorm watch, and we have a flash flood warning until noon tomorrow. We have broken June to-date rainfall records that were set last year.  Last year we broke records set in 2008. In 2008 we broke records set in 1993, another year of great Iowa floods.  And so far, we're lucky--nothing here like the flooding on the Missouri. But it could yet come.

A few days ago I was driving home and noticed a US Geological Survey truck parked by the bridge at Cedar Creek.  Of course, I pulled over and had a conversation with two young men who were taking readings at the Creek, and checking instrumentation there. Garret Welsh and Lance Gruen, employees of the USGS are also students at the University of Iowa who are studying hydrology.

Flash flood watches and warnings save property and lives.  And you can have all the fanciest scientific equipment in the world, and it doesn't mean anything unless you have people checking that equipment, calibrating it, and making real-time observations.  And those men and women who do this important work--have muddy boots.  What's their job like?  And what do they think of notions in Washington DC, and Des Moines that will result in support for these river monitoring services being cut? I work in news for a great radio station--KNIA/KRLS Knoxville/Pella, IA, and my interview with them can be heard here.

Mallet

Old man Grayson in his overhauls, Red Wings,
and St. Louis Cardinal baseball cap grabbed my arm
at the primitive tool auction in Albia on Saturday
and said, “see that big ol’ mallet over there?”

And I nodded, looking where he pointed at a
rough old wooden mallet that was not from
this world but I didn’t know it yet that had
a hand-carved handle long as a broomstick,
thicker than the skinny end of a baseball bat with a
blocky oak head nearly the size of a concrete block.

I took it in my hands, shrugged, felt its weight, and
turned its business end to the ready and imagined
driving something with it, a big tent peg maybe when
Grayson said “my Granpa told before he died in 57
that that there mallet and those like ‘m was used to
drive timbers plumb and flush in the old coal mines,
like the Gold Goose he worked in the old days near
Hamilton, and all these old boys here at the auction just
think that these are mine tools but these here wood tools
are slave tools we brought with us from the plantations.

Or the idea of 'em anyway, ‘cause the plantation bosses
didn’t want black men with steel ‘cause steel was too
expensive to buy they said, but really with enough time --
and they sure had enough time -- a clever fella could make
a nice club or shiv outa steel and they didn’t want that, no sir."

And he looked at me and I said, “Oh.”

Hometown Meats

“There’s some that likes the bone in and some that likes the bone out,” said Mary the butcher of the virtues of the Iowa chops at Hometown Meats. 

“Sorry can’t sell ya that there bag a charcoal sir cause it ain't got no price tag on it,” said Julie the new checkout girl at Hometown Meats.  “I can sell ya this Match Light though.”

“Hamburger?  Ya got yur ground chuck which is the best for patties and grillin’ and this lean 80% for crumblin’ in stuff,” said Mary. 

“Tastes like crap though,” said Gil from one of the tables. 

“You shut up Gil, it’s better for your diet, though it don’t taste so good,” said Mary, “not that I said you should be on a diet though.” 

Shuffling through his change, old Marty in his overhauls and John Deere cap pulled out 42 cents and said “I’d like 42 cents worth of baloney please.”  

Mary cut it, and Marty walked out eating it, with a grin on his face like he was a kid eating a candy bar.