The Rivanna Rambler

November 13, 2008

A warm day on the river traveling to Rivanna Mills to sample provides opportunity to reflect on the need for both the short and long view of changes in the watershed.

 

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This show originally aired on November 8, 2007 and then again on November 13, 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.

There is something not altogether right about this day.  Here it is, November 1st, and we should be bundled in fleece and wearing high rubber boots to venture out on the water.  Instead, we’re wearing light rubber wading shoes that sink into the mud as we shove the canoe from the launch into the Rivanna at Hells Bend Farm, striving for a patch of water that will be deep enough to float the boat.  Though the water is a cool 56 degrees, the air temperature is climbing past 65 as the sun arcs into the autumn afternoon.  I’m not sure what doesn’t feel right: is it the air temperature? or the water level? which is still near historic lows in spite of patches of rain we’ve had.

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October 23, 2008

 

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  This show originally aired on October 30, 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.

I do not have a lot of experience counting fish that are schooling, but as our canoe floated by the long olive green shapes in the clear water of the lower Rivanna, I couldn’t help but cry out, “There must be fifty of them!”

Well, as soon as I said it, I began to wonder if I was even close.  True, it was only Becky and me in our canoe paddling down the shallow sunlit water towards the Rivenna Mills sampling site in Fluvanna.  But the claim could not go unverified, so budding naturalists that we are, we turned around and cautiously paddled back upstream, hugging the bank as far away as possible from where we’d seen the fish  that were also swimming upstream.  Turning once again, we floated back down in the foot deep water, slow enough to count them as we drifted by.  Close enough to admire the broad flat tail fin, ridged and undulating, gently propelling the fish upstream.  Close enough to see the

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October 9, 2008

At Scheier Natural Area in Fluvanna County, forester Steve Pence describes how a forest in succession contributes to the carbon cycle.

 

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This show originally aired on October 5, 2006 and as an encore on October 9, 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 is having its last licks in the Piedmont, spreading a layer of warm heavy air over the southwestern reaches of the Rivanna watershed in Fluvanna.  My destination is Scheier Natural Area 10 miles west of Palmyra.  Rolling hills farmed in hay give way to patches of forest and modest houses set back from the road.  Goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace offer patches of color and light.  Here and there, I can see the peaks of pine emerging like soldiers from behind an unruly patch of trees, evidence of land reclaimed for growing timber.  In the distance, the mountain to the west sit blue and cool on this muggy Sunday afternoon.  I’m headed for a talk offered by the Rivanna Conservation Society, who owns the 100 acre preserve.

As I join the group late, Steve Pence, of the Virginia Department of Forestry, has already warmed to the subjects of the role of trees in our lives and the changing climate, a complex subject at best.  Steve has worked with trees his entire career,

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September 4, 2008

 

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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,

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