The Rivanna Rambler

June 26, 2008

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (87)

This show originally aired in July, 2007 and then again on June 26, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net

Summer time is travel time – and for some of us involves hours in the car, watching the road, the clouds, the passing scenery. On a recent trip to Orkney Springs, I took stock of summertime’s fullness: the tree-covered mountains fuzzy with blossom, the roadside grasses, prolific and head-heavy with seed. I recognize chicory’s cheerful blue flowers, along with Queen Anne’s lace, mullein, and thistle.

Once at our destination, I take to foot along a rough macadam road headed towards West Virginia. Walking uphill at a leisurely pace, with a field guide in hand, I stop from time to time to identify those flowers I do not yet know. Bouncing Bet, or soapwort, with its generous flowering orbs of pale pink and white; New York ironweed, tall, stately, with emerging purple flowerets. Oxeye daisy, everlasting pea.

For better or for worse, roadways are as good as any for seeing wildflowers, in part because in clearing a swath through the trees suitable for roads we make it possible for other plants to thrive.

Read the rest of this entry »

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (86)

June 19, 2008

This show originally aired on August 2, 2007 and then again on June 12, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net

She fairly coos at them, these bugs, these tiny aquatic insects who, in their larval stages, can reveal much about the health of the river.  Rose Brown, Program Manager and Volunteer coordinator for StreamWatch, is my companion for the morning at Rivanna Mills down in Fluvanna County. The overflow chute is now a shallow cobble filled channel below the rapid.  It is here that we’ve grabbed our sample, set up our table and are culling through a net full of the results.

“I see you,” Rose says to a healthy sized stonefly that’s crawling through the wet debris away from her blue plastic forceps poised to snatch, ever so gently, the bug and place it in a white plastic ice cube tray filled with water and used for counting the specimens.  I, too, am talking to them … “Here you go,” and “there you are” — especially the caddisflies and, of these, especially the more exotic casemakers.

And it is hard not to talk to them – for once you have seem the elegant home that the longhorned casemaker crafts of the detritus from the bottom of the river, you are likely to think of these tiny insects as entities worthy of respect,

Read the rest of this entry »

June 12, 2008

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (87)

This show originally aired on June 12, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net

It could be any spring day on the river. True, the weather is especially cooperative: May morning temperature just rising from the low 60’s as we approached the water. Cumulus and blue above, the green fully leafed out over the river. You might say that it was as scenic as a perfect Virginia morn, as you put your boat in the water amongst cattails and the fresh mist from the sheets of water tumbling over the dam at the South Fork Rivanna River Reservoir.

Or, you might, as we were, be launching your kayaks and canoes for a trip with the specific task

Read the rest of this entry »