Deb's blog

In chatting with a friend, it became clear that it is difficult to get across what it is actually like where I live because I include photos from all over Ohio here. So I've decided to create a new tag, "BikingDistance" to add to those blog articles that are about areas close to home. Right now I can do a 14 mile (22 km) round trip without much difficulty. Maybe as the summer goes on, I'll be able to increase that distance. So if I say that something is within biking distance, that means it's probably within 7 miles (11.2 km) from my home.

So what's really exciting is that Bob discovered that there was a wetland right inside my town. There is a pond next to my subdivision where I took some photos of swans (here and here). Well Bob wondered where the excess water in the pond went. So using Google Satellite he followed the path of the water until he discovered a very small park (technically a "nature preserve"); it covers a mere 11 acres (0.037 sq. km). And it's really neat. Here's what it looks like.

My neighborhood wetland

Let me guide you around this little marsh.

It turns on that this wetland was created during the last ice age. The pond is a glacial kettle. It formed when a glacier "calved" -- in other words, the end of the glacier broke off. It's great weight compressed the ground above it. After the ice melted away, the depression became a pond. Normally these fill up with silt over time, but in cases like these, there is flowing water that keeps the silt from accumulating too much.

In the foreground you are seeing yellow water lilies.

In the background you are seeing cattails. Here's another peak at them; they're the tall grass-like plants in the middle of the photo.

What is wonderful about cattails is that they are a magnet for redwing blackbirds. I had an awful time trying to photograph them (I'm using one for my blog's header right now). But even though the photo below is lacking in quality, I wanted to show it anyway because this is the iconic blackbird pose. The male is on the left; note he is straddling two cattails. The female is on the right on a single cattail. (A hat-tip to SC for explaining to me that the female looks completely different. ).

There were mallard ducks.

There were Canada geese and their babies.

And there were snapping turtles. These photos were not so great, but I include several anyways because I thought it was interesting. The turtle is looking around underwater for food.

The trail around the marsh was mostly loose gravel, but at one point it turned into a kind of dilapidated boardwalk.

It was a beautiful day.

There were wildflowers along the trail.

And near the entrance to this mini-nature-preserve, there was this tree covered with poison ivy.

Poison ivy is on the tree and all over the ground to the right of the tree.

If any of my non-American friends ever come over to this continent to do a little hiking, you want to avoid touching that stuff.

Well all-in-all a very pleasant discovery thanks to Bob's satellite work. Now whenever I am feeling homesick for redwing blackbirds, I know where I can find some. And maybe someday I'll get a really good photo of one -- well, you can always dream.