Snowtorso

Snowtorso

Walked the main loop in our subdivision, 300-degrees of the circle, anyway, before turning west for just more than a mile and outlining the next subdivision west of here where I ran into ghastly-happy Snowtorso. Sidewalks are clear enough, but the inter-subdivision trail network isn’t maintained in the winter, so although its surface has been traveled by dozens since last week’s snowfall, the surface is all icecrags and snowruts. Unpredictable. Sometimes slippery.

I listened to last week’s “Mapping” episode of This American Life. I think it was a re-run from several years ago with a snippet about Denis Wood’s new-ish book, Everything Sings, dubbed in. Could be wrong. The segment reminded me of what I find so interesting about Wood’s work, and it convinced me that I made the right decision to devote a week to Wood and Monmonier on my winter Visual Rhetoric syllabus, which remains a work-in-progress pending a few finishing touches.

Drainage

Early Wednesday, I stopped about a mile into my run for this shot of a nearby subdivision’s drainage pond. It had been drained and excavated. A foul odor all around. Usually, this spot is busy with nervous sparrows who dive-bomb me (to intimidate) when I pass through. The low creaking of frogsong. Deer flies. A heron stilt-stalking minnows. A beaver hauling a branch across the breech to an unnecessary dam. So, what sort of eco-sphere is this, the recently drained and bulldozed pond? What are the air-earth-waters? What toxins pollute the muck? Why empty it and push the mud around in late July?

x-posted to G+ (experimenting with something…)