What happened to May?

the month of May will be marked on the Blog this year with only a few posts..My trips and short hikes have been had this month, but without a working camera.

The big digital that died in Yankton was returned to life with A new lens and a lot of delicate cleaning, but was lifted from the back of my car only a week later. The ol'e Minolta monster destroyed it's last roll of film with a faulty shutter and has been put into retirement...
The other (older) ol'e Minolta monster is still down without a light meter..
It seems that I was left camera-less for too many weeks this month. I couldnt collect the money to replace my favorite stolen camera, but was able to find a sweet waterproof point-n-shoot to begin shooting replacement photographs...

Yankton

I started off at the Cabin, near Squaw Creek on Big Lake. We had only sun until late, but the area was constantly under a new Severe storm or tornado watch. Some very cool clouds popped up at dusk- they sat underneath a bright moon. I walked down the the cemetery to take a photo with the old 35mm. The trees are beginning to look very green! Thunder and far-off lightning arrived after sunset, but we got no precipitation. I woke up in a thick, wet fog-mist and drive north under menacing clouds and through several short showers- I met Vicki in Yankton on Friday afternoon- just as the Educational event was coming to a close. I hung with Vicki, John and Alex and helped where I could. Yankton was rainy and rather soggy until hours after I arrived. Blue skies shown bright for an hour or so and I got my things into one of the steel boats; the rest of the crew would arrive later in the day to meet us on our island-camp! I set upstream on my short kayak- The camp was only a half-mile or so from Yankton's ramp.

I paddled and worked to compete with the oncoming flow, and made it to the double-decker bridge before a great, ominous shelf cloud boiled it's way over the city. i saw the thing coming and paced myself carefully to make sure that I would be in a shallow spot under the bridge in case the storm became too wicked. It hit with force- a cold northerly wind blasted at, according to one weather report, 45-60 mph, with damaging gusts exceeding 80mph...

Being on the water quickly became a dangerous idea and I worked against a miserable wind to beach the boat. the dark shelf-cloud passed- I took some dramatic photographs of the storm over the bridge on the city from the water, but the driven rain turned into hail and I sought refuge under my life jacket- removing it from my body meant I would become very cold. The rain slowed and I regrouped and took hold of the kayak's front handle- I wanted to walk to regain my body heat.- I know that I should have been better prepared, but I cant imagine that anyone was prepared for the storm that battered the upstream portion of the city! I wondered how John was doing with the boats.

The wind continued, and formed large white-capped waves that sped downstream with the storm. The persistent stinging rain became miserable pretty quick, but I drug my boat to at least some relief; the shore was all flat sand and mud until I needed to cross a slim, deeper braid in the river. I started to wade across. Already wet, I was not afraid to sink stomach-high in the milky water, but I carried my camera with me and returned to shore to hop in the oat and battle the wind across. About halfway across I caught a good gust and sailed onto a sandbar- I had to get out to launch the kayak again. The rain was gone after another tenth of a mile or so- just as my legs began to tire from towing the kayak. The clouds were obviously breaking up and I got out onto the main channel as winds slowed. I made it to the camp where only one tent stood sideways with a shattered pole. With the kayak secured high on the sand I entered camp- I tried messing with the crippled tent for a second; I stood it up, but did not want to make matters worse and left it. I began collecting firewood- the wind was still intense, but it was surprisingly dry- it felt warm. I stumbled into a pair of juicy Yellow Morels and immediately became distracted...
I jogged back to the kayak and grabbed the camera; it took me the length of the short trek back to the mushrooms to realize that the lens had been temporarily rendered useless by bubbling condensation. I picked the mushrooms and walked another few steps to find one more. I stashed them in the mess kit that I had brought over. Nobody came, and I wandered down the beach -towards the bridges with the wind at my back- Maybe there was a cool stone or fossil to be found? Many fossilized bone fragments sat amongst the largest gravel-

I got to the tip of my island-far downstream of camp, where that deep braid returns to the river. The sharp, shallow point was repeatedly overcome by the wind's largest waves. The slightly-green water is still cold from northern snow melt and cool nights. A large, ancient vertebra sat in the shallows of the point- I stubbed my toe on it while only ankle-deep!

I ignored time and made my way back towards the camp and my boat. The wind whipped at my face kept my hair horizontal. It felt good, but just as I began to feel that I must be close, I caught a glance of my bright orange kayak- rushing over a log and propelled by an unusually gust of dry wind. Immediately I thought of the camera that I had let to dry on the anchored boat, and the thing rolled into a tree not far from me- nearly 30meters from where I had left it! The wind hit me with a blast of stinging, blinding sand- My camera was dead- the lens was lodged under a large drift-wood trunk and the unprotected body was partially cracked and filled with camera-killing sand. I was frustrated and saddened by the loss, but the sun came out again and I couldn't feel bad in such a beautiful place. I still had the 35mm........

Glade Planting

Rocky Point got a makeover today when a small group of volunteers braved the mud to plant a variety of natives; Dozens of flats of flowers were planted- I saw Larkspurs, Blazing stars and Coneflowers among them.
Everybody seemed to have a good time- and the weather, for the most part, cooperated. I'm calling it a success!

Lakeside and the marsh

"Old-Lakeside" caught my eye the other day; I felt a need to visit and check-up-on the old marsh behind the building at Gregory and oldham.
I found a jack-in-the-pulpit and several large patches of bright-pink wild geraniums... the marsh looks clean- it looks good! Smart weed is dense enough to clog out some of the edges and floating accumulations of green duck weed are thick on the surface.
One creek is dammed with bags of sand or cement- they appear to have stopped erosion well!

Its mushroom season

Its mushroom season

... the ginger and anemones are going nuts and in accordance with local wisdom the elm's leaf has just outgrown the size of a mouses ear to summon the early spring's morels. Local spots of success in previous years have been disappointing, but the devoted hunters have collected hundreds of pounds from spots new to me.

Ive searched every promising city park- even found a few big ones near the Hogan! And while the Blue gifted me none, a similar urban lowland displayed hundreds of healthy grey and larger yellow morels.

My shroomy expeditions have brought me upon the season's first lethargic reptiles. Snakes and box turtles, mostly...

A few good Black Rats' and a handful of central lined snakes. One big one on The Hill was severely scared across his face, but extraordinarily cooperative when it came to posing for my photos- I still didnt get anything too good.

Mushrooms are just an excuse for most who hunt them- An unnecessary justification for a visit to the finally pleasant outdoors. Me too-

The highlight of the week's short season was never expected to be that 5-lb bag or the hand-sized monster; this week it was Swope's own flowering dogwoods. The bright trees explode from the ridge tops above blue river road and throughout the woods and glades on the hill.

This is the first time I have ever really had the opportunity to see them. Wonderful!

Arkansas Wavellite!

Through the Ozark mountains and into the Ouchitas- I went on a short crystal hunt south, in Arkansas..

The difference between the two mountain ranges is Awesome; the Ozarks are still pretty bald but only an hour south it seems everything is well into the greening process. There is a lot of sandstone and limestone near ponca, which hosted a boom of lead mining operations in the first years of the 1900's. To the south, Mt. Ida sits on an ancient disappeared salt marsh- the source for many of the Aluminum-Phosphate minerals I searched for on the trip. A quick stop near ponca- I checked up on the ol' lead mines I discovered last trip. Near the highway, a small series of century-old tailings-piles or "dumps" marks where I enter the woods- They kind of look like dunes- Limestone waste piles are white or grey and where they extracted the heaviest ore- in the form of valuable galena crystals- is red from a bit of sandstone that they dug into- both matrices are common in the region. The dumps hold lots of cool stuff- druzy, clear and smokey quartz, calcite, galena and some interesting marine fossils like thick crinoid stems and bivalves.The galena crystals appear as large metallic cubes- some are inches, and all have been dulled and darkened by years weathering and oxidation; beautiful crystals in their matrix are not uncommon in the less-hunted upper terraces of the dumps and mines. In the picture below are two of the pieces I found; both have multiple large and small lead-coloured cubes.

... I swung through Lost valley and visited the river- and the cows- on whatever highway that is.South on 7- and hwy27- I found myself camping near Crystal Vista just outside Mt Ida. It was a cool night... I think the early-morning low may have been just above freezing- It felt crisp only for a second while the sun rose- I packed the big camera bag and had a thing of apple cinnamon oatmeal to get me up the steep trail to crystal vista. Some darker clouds rolled on my ascent of Gardner; Lots of large dogwood blooms added a sense of the Ozarks. Most flowers were past their prime- rotting brown along the edge of each petal-

the flowering trees that I spotted along the highway, just south of 44 to state line yesterday, appeared much more fresh and vibrant. I dont think that Kansas City's dogwoods are blooming yet.

At the top of the mountain- amongst the walls and terraces of the old crystal mine- the clouds were (almost) threatening; They looked bad, but seemed to be doing nothing but passing by. I walked the perimeter of the eroded pit, and dug a few shallow holes to expose a handful of points a a small cluster with a cool magnesium inclusion; spent some minutes examining a crevasse in a far high wall and the morning was over pretty quick. I drove a bit down the road and made a right turn onto a worn gravel road. It led me all the way to my wavellite hole in the County Quarry. - I scouted some nearby rock with a knife and a crowbar to find a wonderful patch of bright green variscite and a few tiny, fiberous cones of burnt-orange cacoxenite or wavellite..

The famed Mauldin Mountain locality is currently closed to collecting, but several local miners and business owners have recommended parking down the street and walking in; apparently nobody really minds! I made my presence obvious to several machine operators in the quarry and only got a few friendly waves.

My original hole yielded some brilliant green wavellite crystals- they grow as the small partial-spheres or botryoidal masses and some are very lustrous and colourful. The darkest of the crystals are my favorite- like a deep emerald-green. Some darker clouds continued to sweep the sky and cast shadows on the Ouchita's- the day grew warm and pleasant. A late-afternoon meal at 'Ida's gas station and a pit-stop near the flooded river and I was off on 27. The fields around I-40 were smothered in yellow and wine-coloured clovers grew in patches along my route throughout the state. The warm air followed me home and it was surprisingly comfortable every time I got out of the car!

Smith

Jerry Smith Park was- for whatever reason- especially beautiful today; dramatic clouds- a low sun and blue sky- the warm temps and a few wonderful flowers transformed the already-extraordinary park into a more exciting version of itself. It was void of people, and despite a few stormy moments the park was quiet and peaceful. maybe the wind was able to send the sounds of traffic and target practice in another direction- at moments the wind was certainly strong enough.

Some areas of the park are still thick with young trees and cedars- I imagine if this scene- left- is what Larry Rizzo found when he first discovered the prairie remnants near Sager Woods CA.

The ground-cover was green and beautiful, and the still-bald trees could hide less than they will any other time of year. Pink globs of redbud flowers stuck out all over the park! Strawberries were the only flowers on the ground- some cool weathered crinoid fossils too. ..