Dark Water in Winter

I'm endlessly fascinated by the relatively rare (in Minnesota) sight of unfrozen water in wintertime. The contrast to the snow on the banks makes the water look so dark and mysterious, and the bare trees are beautiful when reflected. My friend Adele and I went for a walk on Saturday and I captured these scenes.

In the first photo, you may be able to see a group of mallards at the back.

As my friend Adele and I looked down at this next bit of the creek on Saturday, it almost looked like a summertime scene where skimming insects leave constant dimples and ripples on the water -- but this was late January, so insects weren't a possibility. We soon realized that there was very fine drizzle, which we hadn't noticed until then, making the drop marks on the water.

This next one is a crop of the photo above. Click the photo to see the larger version showing the many overlapping ripple marks.

Frosty Birdbath with Goldfinches

During some of our recent bitterly cold days, the edge of our heated birdbath developed a thick rim of frost. The birds have been flocking to the feeders and appreciate the chance to sip some liquid water from the birdbath. In this series, a bright-eyed American goldfinch in winter plumage took a drink and was joined by others. (As always, click on the images to see a much larger version.)

Blog Action Day - Water!

Blog Action Day is an annual event, held every October 15, that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year's topic is water.

We in Minnesota and the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest region are among the earth's fortunate when it comes to water -- in most cases we have abundant sources of fresh water and reliable water treatment and distribution services. That's not the case everywhere, as I'm sure you know.

According to Water.org:

• Every 20 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease.
• 890 million people lack access to safe water.
• 2.5 billion people don’t have a toilet.
• The majority of the world’s illness is caused by fecal matter.
• More people on earth have cell phones than toilets

And think about this:

• In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use.
• This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger, according to Gary White, co-founder of Water.org.

Water.org envisions the day when everyone in the world can take a safe drink of water. It is easy to take for granted ready access to a safe supply of drinking water. Yet nearly one billion people lack this most basic commodity. Creating accessible, safe water supplies in developing countries liberates people to live healthier, fuller, more productive lives.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Discovering a Remarkable Writer

While browsing for something to read on my flight home from Oregon 10 days ago, I discovered a remarkable writer I'd not heard of before: David James Duncan. He's a Portland native who now lives in Montana, and is the author of The River Why, described as the second-best-selling novel ever about fly-fishing, after A River Runs Through It (seemingly a distant second, Duncan remarks, based on the status of his bank account).

I haven't yet read The River Why, or his other fiction. The nonfiction book I picked up at the Portland airport Powells' bookstore, which held me spellbound for several hours of Portland-to-Las Vegas, Las Vegas-to-Minneapolis plane time, has the following title: My Story As Told By Water: Confessions, Druidic Rants, Reflections, Bird-Watchings, Fish-Stalkings, Visions, Songs and Prayers Refracting Light, From Living Rivers, In the Age of the Industrial Dark.

A 2001 National Book Award finalist, it's fierce, astoundingly beautiful, moving writing, described by Publishers Weekly as "angry, heartbroken, yet hopeful and often quite comic nature essays... his unabashed polemic is nicely cushioned by rhapsody; he's the ranter as poet." Read more here.

Highly, highly recommended.