http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler stories of landscapes, conservation, and people in and beyond the Rivanna Watershed Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:11:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 © lmiddleton@embarqmail.com () lmiddleton@embarqmail.com() stories of landscapes, conservation, and people in and beyond the Rivanna Watershed lmiddleton@embarqmail.com No no http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler 144 144 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:05:06 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/feed/ 0
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4:40 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 ... 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. This show originally aired on November 8, 2007 and then again on November 13, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; 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.nbsp; Here it is, November 1st, and we should be bundled in fleece and wearing high rubber boots to venture out on the water.nbsp; Instead, wersquo;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.nbsp; Though the water is a cool 56 degrees, the air temperature is climbing past 65 as the sun arcs into the autumn afternoon.nbsp; Irsquo;m not sure what doesnrsquo;t feel right: is it the air temperature? or the water level? which is still near historic lows in spite of patches of rain wersquo;ve had. Headed downriver to sample for aquatic bugs for the StreamWatch volunteer program, we quickly learn that the shoals in the center extend almost entirely across the river.nbsp; We snuggle up against the left bank, a vertical wall of dying asters and poison ivy, where a channel twice the width of the canoe is just deep enough to get a decent stroke.nbsp; Rounding Hellrsquo;s Bend, we stick to the outside, but in the long straightaway below we have to shove our way to the other side, seeking a route through the shallows of coarse sand deposited as the water slowed and dropped its load after the last storm.nbsp; The bottom is now being sculpted by the gentle flow into underwater ripples and bluffs much like the sharp relief of the winter beach is built by the tides and wind.nbsp; The channels along the banks are a Piedmont version of aquamarine.nbsp; The summerrsquo;s weed is gone, and everywhere, the water is clear enough to see to the bottom, where sunken leaves tumble and pile up against underwater tree limbs and rock outcroppings. Once at the sampling site below the Mill, we get to work, scraping bugs from a shallow cobbled riffle into the mesh net and pouring over the contents with our middle aged eyes.nbsp; We enter the world of macro ndash; where everything of interest is small ndash; one-eighth to as much as an inch long, like the fat, ribbed crane fly larvae that are in abundance today.nbsp; Wersquo;ve also captured small pebbles, twigs, and leaves in various stages of decomposition ndash; and from this tumble of browns and yellows, we must pick out the larvae of mayflies, water pennies, and caddisflies ndash; as well as the tiny clams and snails and worms that inhabit the stream.nbsp; Having sampled for a couple of years, we know that you look until you canrsquo;t find any more bugs, and then you look again, switch sides of the table and look some more, flip the net over and keep on looking, before you can have confidence that yoursquo;ve collected all the bugs in the net, which is necessary to assure quality data.nbsp; While we pour over the net, the river tumbles over the stone from the old dam, the sound making it seem like a fuller river than it is. By four orsquo;clock, wersquo;re winding down, just as the sky turns an ominous gray and the late afternoon sun catches clouds in curving lines stretched out in the wake the tropical depression Noel.nbsp; After pulling the canoe back up through the rapids to head home, I trip trying to step in the canoe and am suddenly on my butt in two feet of water that now feels plenty cool.nbsp; The paddle back upstream is welcome and warming work.nbsp; At the far end of the long straight channel, the late afternoon sky is dense with clouds descending their dark on tawny yellow sycamores that flank the river.nbsp; After straining to find the small bugs, it feels good to ... Climate,,Ecology,,Fluvanna,County,,Natural,History,,North,Fork,Rivanna,,Rivanna,River,,Rivanna,mainstem lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/23/108-an-exhibit-of-gar/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/23/108-an-exhibit-of-gar/#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:16:44 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/23/108-an-exhibit-of-gar/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/23/108-an-exhibit-of-gar/feed/ 0
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5:00 October 23, 2008 There's a healthy population of long nose gar in the Rivanna ndash; an amazing fish that not only looks prehistoric, but really is ... October 23, 2008 There's a healthy population of long nose gar in the Rivanna ndash; an amazing fish that not only looks prehistoric, but really is prehistoric.nbsp; The gar's ability to survive in low oxygen waters is part of the secret to its long term survivability as a species. nbsp; This show originally aired on October 30, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; 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 couldnrsquo;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.nbsp; True, it was only Becky and me in our canoe paddling down the shallow sunlit water towards the Rivenna Mills sampling site in Fluvanna.nbsp; 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 fishnbsp; that were also swimming upstream.nbsp; Turning once again, we floated back down in the foot deep water, slow enough to count them as we drifted by.nbsp; Close enough to admire the broad flat tail fin, ridged and undulating, gently propelling the fish upstream.nbsp; Close enough to see the unmistakable body shaped like a cylinder, olive green and spotted with black from tail to head.nbsp; And close enough for the give ndash;away that makes it possible for even a non-fishermen like me know for sure that the slender tapering snout must be the long nosed gar.nbsp; There's nothing else like it in these waters save, perhaps, the American eel, and I know just enough about fish to know that these were no eels. Sometimes called pike, sometimes gar-pike, these long-nosed gar, were proceeding by in a lazy upstream stroll, in groups of three and five.nbsp; The long-nosed gar is the only species of gar native to Virginia, and today they ranged from foot long adolescents to close to three feet long.nbsp; The gar is often called a living fossil, because its family has survived with little change since the time of the dinosaurs.nbsp; The Latin name, osseus, confirms its structure:nbsp; Genus name, Lepisosteus,nbsp; comes from Lepis, Greek for scale, and osteus meaning boney in Latin.nbsp; The species name, osseus, repeats the boney description for added measure, just like the fish, whose touch, over-lapping plate-like scales wrap it in a virtual coat of armor, leaving it few predators in the wild. Locals nod knowingly when we tell them we have seen gar along this stretch of the Rivanna. Though they can make for a good fight on the end of the fishing line, they are commonly thought of as noxious predators, eating all the game fish around.nbsp; But they actually play a special role in the ecology of the river ndash; true predators, they help balance the populations of other fish.nbsp; Armed with rows of razor-sharp teeth, they lie still and ready to ambush the unwary fish that swims close by with a quick thrash of the snout, and they prefer smaller fish and minnows. The long-nosed gar has evolved to handle varying levels of oxygen in the water.nbsp; Typically, like other fish,nbsp; it breathes through gaseous exchange at its gills ndash; but the gar also has a swim bladder connected to its esophagus that serves as an auxiliary breathing apparatus when oxygen levels in the water are low or not even present.nbsp; They are sometimes seen at the surface of the water, gulping the air.nbsp; Thus, they do well in slow moving streams and behind impoundments.nbsp; Though I have no way of measuring it, today I suspect that the low flowing Rivanna, absent the flush of any recent high waters, is also deficient in the life giving oxygen. As it turned out, there were actually fifty-one long-nosed gar schooling in this stretch of the Rivanna... Ecology,,Fluvanna,County,,Natural,History,,Rivanna,River,,Rivanna,mainstem,,Wildlife lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/09/106-carbon-cycles-at-scheier-natural-arera/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/09/106-carbon-cycles-at-scheier-natural-arera/#comments Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:07:41 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/09/106-carbon-cycles-at-scheier-natural-arera/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/10/09/106-carbon-cycles-at-scheier-natural-arera/feed/ 0
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5:19 October 9, 2008 At Scheier Natural Area in Fluvanna County, forester Steve Pence describes how a forest in succession contributes to the carbon cycle. This show ... October 9, 2008 At Scheier Natural Area in Fluvanna County, forester Steve Pence describes how a forest in succession contributes to the carbon cycle. This show originally aired on October 5, 2006 and as an encore on October 9, 2008nbsp; on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; 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.nbsp; My destination is Scheier Natural Area 10 miles west of Palmyra.nbsp; Rolling hills farmed in hay give way to patches of forest and modest houses set back from the road.nbsp; Goldenrod and Queen Annersquo;s lace offer patches of color and light.nbsp; 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.nbsp; In the distance, the mountain to the west sit blue and cool on this muggy Sunday afternoon.nbsp; Irsquo;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.nbsp; Steve has worked with trees his entire career, so I trust that any opinions he offers are informed.nbsp; Hersquo;s just finishing up on the basics of the carbon cycle ndash; how trees breathe in carbon dioxide and give off the oxygen so necessary to human life.nbsp; And talking about the difference, from a foresterrsquo;s point of view, between carbon sequestration and carbon sink, terms we should all be learning these days as we face the uncertainties of global climate change. ldquo;In short,rdquo; he says, ldquo;We need plants; but they donrsquo;t need us.rdquo; This is a startling thought to me as I stand amidst a crop of young trees, two foot high seedlings of oak, beech, hickory and maple on the edge of the thicker woods beyond the gravel parking lot. Carbon sequestration is the term used to describe how carbon, the ubiquitous and necessary building block of life, is removed from the atmosphere as a young forest of rapidly growing trees absorbs carbon dioxide, resulting in a reserve called a carbon sink.nbsp; If, on the other hand, a forest is allowed to mature, itrsquo;s ability to ldquo;take uprdquo; or remove carbon from the atmosphere is slowed, resulting in a dynamic equilibrium:nbsp; as trees die and decompose, they give up the carbon to the soil and atmosphere.nbsp; As new trees grow in their place, these youngsters utilize the carbon in the atmosphere to photosynthesize -- hence the green leaves, the underground roots, the colors of fall, and the shelter from the storm. Proactive efforts to mitigate global warming often include planting trees, to accelerate this process of removing carbon from the atmosphere.nbsp; However, the rate at which forests can sequester carbon, given the available land, is far exceeded by the rate at which it is released by the combustion of the fossilized forests that we have removed from the carbon sinks in the form of coal, oil and natural gas.nbsp; The facts remain that to reduce carbon emissions in the US by 7% , as stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol, would require the planting of "an area the size of Texas every 30 years", according to William Schlesinger, of Duke University. When Howard Scheier bought this land in the 1950rsquo;s, it was open and agricultural, farmed successively in corn, cotton, and tobacco since the last century.nbsp; He planted loblolly pine, reclaiming the land as trees.nbsp; In the 1980rsquo;s, when the pine bark beetle was starting to impact forests in Virginia, Mr. Scheier proactively harvested all loblollies on his property, leaving the young hardwoods that had sprouted in the understory to grow and thrive.nbsp; Thes... Climate,,Ecology,,Fluvanna,County,,Natural,History lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/09/04/101-mud/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/09/04/101-mud/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:40:58 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/09/04/101-mud/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/09/04/101-mud/feed/ 0 00:01:01 September 4, 2008 A trip down to Rivanna Mills and the James after a high flow gives an opportunity to experience ... September 4, 2008 A trip down to Rivanna Mills and the James after a high flow gives an opportunity to experience this first had (or first foot, one might say). This segment originally aired in the first season of the Rivana Rambler (July 2006) and has been updated with current information. This show originally aired in September 4, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net We were warned that the launch is really muddy. ldquo;You may want to wait a couple of days,rdquo; the landowner tells me the night before our trip down to the Rivanna Mills sampling site. Last night I'd checked the river level online ndash;itrsquo;s come down from a high of 1600 cubic feet per second during last weekrsquo;s rains to a mere 500. Worry about a little mud? I think not. My friend Becky and I drive our cars across the fields at Hells Bend Farm to drop off the canoe. The river is a light chocolate brown, moving along smartly, and holding unknown tons of sediment it has dragged from banks upstream during the high waters. The slope down to the river is caked with mud, already dry and cracking open in the rising heat of what promises to be a scorcher of a day. As Becky carefully steps down, her foot, then ankle, then calf, disappears in muck. We rig a 100-foot climberrsquo;s rope from the truckrsquo;s tailgate to the waterrsquo;s edge, giving us a handhold to climb back out. This works well enough. And, not surprisingly, when we leave the truck at the public boat launch on the James six miles downstream at our take-out, we find the same scene. During the flood, the James has deposited a slick, deep load of mud on the paved ramp. But wersquo;re committed, and one expects to get a bit dirty doing river work, so we drive one vehicle back to the put in, and take giant, sliding, mucky steps down to the water, shake the load of mud from our sneakers, and depart for our sampling site. No one knows for sure the source of the sediment in our Piedmont streams. Sediment transport is, to some degree, a natural and important function of rivers ndash; over the slow time scale of centuries, one expects water to work on the land, to cut away at the mountains, to broaden floodplains, to bend straight, fast rivers into meandering streams. Unfortunately, like the startling climate changes that are now irrefutably linked with our human activities, increasing sediment loads in our rivers have the same source ndash; us and how we live and have lived on the land the last couple of hundred years. During the 17 and 1800rsquo;s, much of our region was cleared of trees to make way for farm fields and pastures right up to waterrsquo;s edge. The erosion from this time was extraordinary and massive amounts of topsoil simply washed downstream. While better land use practices in recent decades have slowed this type of erosion, the volumes of water continue to cut away at banks already steep and exposed. Those studying the problem in the Rivanna basin are beginning to think that the quantity of water entering streams from overland sources is as much of an issue as the polluting substances it carries. Our paddle down to the sampling site is swift ndash; though the water is only a foot deep in some places, it is opaque, and we only know where the bottom is by feel. Therersquo;s a good flow over the riffles at Rivanna Mills ndash; stoneflies, mayflies, and dragonflies are in abundance, a sign that this stretch has weathered the storm, for now. Along the way back to Columbia, we see the high water line of the flood, leaves coated with a layer of dried mud, twelve, fourteen feet over our heads. A towering sycamore has toppled into the river, its root exposing a bare bank, a casualty of this most recent storm The Rivanna perceptibly slows in this lower stretch, and we have to work to keep moving. We hug the slender shadows of the bank... Fluvanna,County,,History,,Rivanna,River,,Sediment lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/06/19/92-love-them-bugs/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/06/19/92-love-them-bugs/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:53:38 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/06/19/92-love-them-bugs/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/06/19/92-love-them-bugs/feed/ 0 00:01:01 June 19, 2008 This show originally aired on August 2, 2007 and then again on June 12, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; a weekly public affairs ... June 19, 2008 This show originally aired on August 2, 2007 and then again on June 12, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; 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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; It is here that wersquo;ve grabbed our sample, set up our table and are culling through a net full of the results. ldquo;I see you,rdquo; Rose says to a healthy sized stonefly thatrsquo;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.nbsp; I, too, am talking to them hellip; ldquo;Here you go,rdquo; and ldquo;there you arerdquo; -- especially the caddisflies and, of these, especially the more exotic casemakers. And it is hard not to talk to them ndash; 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, if not conversation, however one-sided it might be.nbsp; I find individuals of this family of caddisfly in slender tapered cases the length of my fingernail and attached to the dark-green filamentous branches of the pondweed that came up in the sample net along with leaves, bugs, aquatic clams, and a few snails.nbsp; The larva builds this case from small pieces of plants, fine particles of sand and rock, and the pure silk that it excretes from its mouth parts.nbsp; This portable case is its protection during the larval stage ndash; and like other caddisflies ndash; its sanctuary during the metamorphosis into the adult hood. The river is low ndash; and though the last rainfall was three nights ago ndash; it is still cloudy with sediment.nbsp; Though only a foot to two feet deep in most places, I could barely see the bottom as we paddled down here by canoe.nbsp; The owner of the farm where we put in reported gobs of algae growing at the small launching beach, and while we saw little of this as we paddled the mile downstream, the water felt thick and we had to navigate around dense mats of common waterweed.nbsp; Everywhere, bugs were swarming, evidence of recent and prolific hatches. So perhaps it is no surprise that we have an equally prolific net full of bugs ndash; all told over 500 ndash; and that a good many of them are caddises.nbsp; And new to me are the micro caddisflies, their cases tiny oblong orbs smaller than a grain of rice, fashioned from sand and detritus.nbsp; Through a hand lens, I can see the tiny head and forelegs emerge first at one end and then at the other.nbsp; This casemaker lives its fifth and final larval stage almost entirely within the case and accommodating growth of its body parts by cutting along the bottom seam of the purse-like structure, adding material to both sides, and then gluing the two halves back together again. While we cull and count, Rose and I share our experiences of learning to love the bugs ndash; for each of us, it took several tries ndash; sessions pouring over the contents of nets, with simple field references in hand to distinguish the aquatic stonefly from the mayfly, the dragonfly from the dobsonfly from the black fly.nbsp; Persevering, going out with experienced samplers, and above all, taking the time to watch the critters magnified with the hand lens, crawling on my palm in a small puddle of water, is what eventually came to captivate me.nbsp; The next stage ndash; and one that I suspect will be for life-long learning ndash; is starting to understand the life cycle of thes... Ecology,,Fluvanna,County,,Rivanna,River,,Water,Quality lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/11/08/65-autumn-on-the-rivanna-the-long-view/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/11/08/65-autumn-on-the-rivanna-the-long-view/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:48:00 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/?p=15 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/11/08/65-autumn-on-the-rivanna-the-long-view/feed/ 0 00:01:01 November 8, 2007 A warm day on the river traveling to Rivanna Mills to sample for water quality provides the opportunity to reflect on the need ... November 8, 2007 A warm day on the river traveling to Rivanna Mills to sample for water quality provides the opportunity to reflect on the need for both the short and long view of changes in the watershed. 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, wersquo;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. Irsquo;m not sure what doesnrsquo;t feel right: is it the air temperature -- or the water level? -- which is still near historic lows in spite of patches of rain wersquo;ve had. Headed downriver to sample for aquatic bugs for the StreamWatch volunteer program, we quickly learn that the shoals in the center extend almost entirely across the river. We snuggle up against the left bank, a vertical wall of dying asters and poison ivy, where a channel twice the width of the canoe is just deep enough to get a decent stroke.Rounding Hellrsquo;s Bend, we stick to the outside, but in the long straightaway below we have to shove our way to the other side, seeking a route through the shallows of coarse sand deposited as the water slowed and dropped its load after the last storm. The bottom is now being sculpted by the gentle flow into underwater ripples and bluffs much like the sharp relief of the winter beach is built by the tides and wind. The channels along the banks are a Piedmont version of aquamarine. The summerrsquo;s weed is gone, and everywhere, the water is clear enough to see to the bottom, where sunken leaves tumble and pile up against underwater tree limbs and rock outcroppings. Once at the sampling site below the Mill, we get to work, scraping bugs from a shallow cobbled riffle into the mesh net and pouring over the contents with our middle aged eyes. We enter the world of macro ndash; where everything of interest is small ndash; one-eighth to as much as an inch long, like the fat, ribbed crane fly larvae that are in abundance today. Wersquo;ve also captured small pebbles, twigs, and leaves in various stages of decomposition ndash; and from this tumble of browns and yellows, we must pick out the larvae of mayflies, water pennies, and caddisflies ndash; as well as the tiny clams and snails and worms that inhabit the stream. Having sampled for a couple of years, we know that you look until you canrsquo;t find any more bugs, and then you look again, switch sides of the table and look some more, flip the net over and keep on looking, before you can have confidence that yoursquo;ve collected all the bugs in the net, which is necessary to assure quality data. While we pour over the net, the river tumbles over the stone from the old dam, the sound making it seem like a fuller river than it is. By four orsquo;clock, wersquo;re winding down, just as the sky turns an ominous gray and the late afternoon sun catches clouds in curving lines stretched out in the wake the tropical depression, Noel. After pulling the canoe back up through the rapids to head home, I trip trying to step in the canoe and am suddenly on my butt in two feet of water that now feels plenty cool. The paddle back upstream is welcome and warming work. At the far end of the long straight channel, the late afternoon sky is dense with clouds descending their dark on tawny yellow sycamores that flank the river. After straining to find the small bugs, it feels good to stretch my eyes into the distance. This is a good time of year to stay flexible and acknowledge what is. Though the Virginia autumn has been fickle with little water and overly-warm temperatures, what is just right is the slant of light -- unmistakably autu... Fluvanna,County,,Rivanna,mainstem,,Water,Quality lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/27/60-the-old-and-new-in-fluvanna-county/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/27/60-the-old-and-new-in-fluvanna-county/#comments Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:57:00 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/?p=9 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/27/60-the-old-and-new-in-fluvanna-county/feed/ 0 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/20/59-the-chubs-of-ballinger-creek/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/20/59-the-chubs-of-ballinger-creek/#comments Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:39:00 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/?p=8 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/20/59-the-chubs-of-ballinger-creek/feed/ 0 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/08/23/4/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/08/23/4/#comments Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:04:00 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/?p=4 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/08/23/4/feed/ 0