The Rivanna Rambler

September 18, 2008

 

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This show originally aired in September 11, 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

When we arrive at the informal parking lot at Sugar Hollow Reservoir, it isn’t surprising to find almost every available parking slot between the tall trees already taken. It’s a hot Sunday afternoon with moist air pushed northward by the hurricane – most are here to get cool, to swim or sit by the water. But Cole Peale-Grody, his father, Charles, and me have another goal. Along with another father-son team we meet here, we’re going snake hunting on the north fork of the Moormans in Shenandoah National Park,

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September 11, 2008

 

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This show originally aired in September 11, 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

Last night after a meeting at UVA’s Newcomb Hall, I strolled across Emmet Street to The Dell for a quiet moment on the water. At the end of the hot day, the air temperature was falling as the undersides of clouds darkened with gray. From a bench across the pond I could see blue and orange shirts and shorts moving on the basketball court. The pool before me reflected the action in segments clipped by a row of young arbor vitae planted along the edge of the court. Above me, bats streaked through darkening air, criss-crossing over the water partaking of misquotes. The sound of Emmet Street traffic was constant, but the longer I sat, the more it started to blend with a new sound – one of flowing water from somewhere beyond a large English boxwood leftover from a former landscape.

I was sitting by a section of Meadow Creek that has been rehabilitated and restored, brought to the surface after being contained in the 1950’s.

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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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June 12, 2008

 

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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

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