frogs, poison ivy, muck

West Creek Watershed Center front pond frog – foto Smith

Lady K’s wall post: “Had a bit of a challenging time in a stream yesterday! It was murky and full of muck! Our boots would get stuck and we had to test each step with a stick. Smith found multiple leaks in his boots. It was not my favorite stream. Poison ivy in abundance on the banks. We barely made any progress because moving took so much effort. I sure hope most of the streams aren’t like that, unless that’s how they’re supposed to be. OTOH it is one of my favorite running areas–lovely marshy area nearby. But am seriously thinking about different work in the watershed program rather than assessing the streams. But we felt that it was still an adventure.”

Lady’s got us dog walking for the APL every Monday, doing BEHI (Bank Erosion Hazard Index) for the MetroParks twice a month, and today we’re volunteering for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce picnic. She also lures me into the occasional of her constant anti-fracking meetings and protests. There was feeding Occupy Cleveland for 9 months as well, and the irregular ongoing peace march or police violence march or neighborhood solidarity march. I’ve accompanied her to a few meetings at our Senators’ and Representatives’ offices for her anti-fracking presentations, and probably other stuff as well, like this week’s Greater Cleveland Bee Keeper’s monthly meeting. She’s a busy little soft-hearter smart-brainer, while I’m more of a cynical hardened heart stay-at-home-write-about-it-and-make-art-for-or-against-it type. She also calls the White House and her Congress folk weekly to nudge them in more moral directions, which I won’t because I hate being on fone with friend or foe.

So I’m having a lot of adventures I normally wouldn’t. Once thought you lived your life, then when you got to my age you settled down, rested, played, philosophized, summed up. But not true. Seems life just keeps on living, each day a new dilemma, each sleep new recharge.

Our stream walking this week was something. We’d tried to asses the creek last week but it was swollen and dangerous from the constant rain. This time it was lower and slower, but as soon as we stepped in through the poison ivy’d banks, the soft wet clay bottom sucked us down, tried to pull our boots off and dunk us in the gas-sheen covered water with each step. Had to use walking stick branches to keep balance and test unknown depth through the muddied waters as the clay muck bottom even tried to snatch our sticks from us. Humans versus nature . . . think it came out a tie.

This was our first BEHI assessment alone. You have to analyze how much toe protection the stream bank has, height and slope and composition and striation of the bank, root density, vegetative cover . . . add all these indices together and get the danger factor for the stream’s health.

It was brutal, but fun. My stress levels dropped as soon as we entered the water, which was so high I discovered several small leaks in my hip waders.

I fell against the bank once and by grace of space landed in a rare small area not covered with poison ivy. After we got back to the car and took our boots off we realized our boots were covered in poison ivy oils and we’d just handled them and were worried, but we were either lucky or aren’t susceptible. I’m pondering touching a poison ivy leaf next time with the back of one finger just to test my sensitivity, but probably won’t.

Interestingly, the warming of the earth is putting more CO2 into the air which is making poison ivy poison oak poison sumac even stronger because they feed off it. It’s also making plant pollen denser, causing worse asthma attacks. Such crazy consequences we leave in our human wake.

West Creek Watershed Center front pond frog – foto Smith

thigh high waders (my right boot leaks) – fotos Smith & Lady