If you look closely (you can click to enlarge the image) at the base of the stone arch bridge you’ll see a guy who’s busy fly fishing in the Mississippi river in Downtown Minneapolis. Then you also see the high tension power lines over his head, and the power plant smoke stacks and you wonder, would I want to eat those fish?
Needed a little time off from postings.
Back now, hopefully with a little more regularity. Took this shot of our local hydro-electric feature. The water at the base of the dam is teaming with fish feeding on algae, and then of coarse the heron, hawks, falcons and eagles all stop by for a snack.
I don’t hear much talk of this dam being controversial, but others sure are. Here’s a good example of one group trying to reverse the ecological impact these structures can have on the world around us: http://www.hetchhetchy.org/
Sometimes you see those neat stencils by storm sewer grates. The ones that say things like “No Dumping – Drains to River,” usually accompanied by a few cute little silhouette fish.
The question I have is where to put the stencils that warn people about the consequences of using tons of fertilizer on their lawns and gardens which then wash away and end up creating algae blooms and eventually thousands and thousands of square miles of dead water in the Gulf of Mexico.
March 22.
Happy World Water Day 2010.
Rohrschach.
That’s what I thought when I took this photo. Not the perfect symmetry of a snowflake, but it’s still interesting to see a stream working through it’s snow blanket with this kind of balance.
Right down to those little dimples at the top.
Water, barley, hops and yeast. The alchemy of brewing beer.
Seen here: the copper brew tank at the Summit Brewery in St. Paul Minnesota.
Thanks to Adobe Photoshop, and the alchemy of digital photography.
One last gem taken from Elizabeth Royte’s book “Garbage Land – The Secret Trail Of Trash”, from her chapter about plastic waste titled “Satan’s Resin”
“In 2003, Americans consumed 13 billion liters of bottled water…and global bottled-water sales reached 155 billion liters.”
Who says oil and water don’t mix?
Iron, meet oxygen and water.
Thanksgiving.
One of the things I’m glad for today is ice water. I’m fortunate not to be one of the 1.1 billion people across the globe this year who didn’t have access to clean drinking water, or one of the 1.8 million people who died from a water transmitted illness.
In his book “Between A Rock And A Hard Place”, Aaron Ralston recounts the mind bending saga of his canyon climbing misadventure and reminds us of the venerable saying:
“Gravity is happening now”.
It’s a strange but oddly comforting way to think about things, that everything you pass is just waiting to fall. Gravity is always there, always working, just biding time while friction or balance or something else changes.