Article: When Abraham Wakes Up: What envy....
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| What a wonderful story, and a fun filled thread to follow it. Salamanders are fascinating creatures, and the mountains around Sharon's home are known to have lots of rare species of them, some endemic to very small areas. Maybe you found a new species, and did not even know it! To all those longing to be a child again and have these experiences, I would say you do not need to be young in age to be young in heart. Find some natural areas around you, and enjoy the seasons. You can find a world of nature even in the smallest places, watching the spiders and insects and plants do their thing. But most important, don't forget to make sure your children and grandchildren can also have these memories. My son said yesterday he is glad we live in the middle of the woods, even though it is nowhere near as remote as Sharon's childhood. Even if we lived in a suburb or city, I would still find opportunities to share nature and natural creativity with him. Arlene, I will add to the bit about lakes above for you. As you may remember, oceanography and limnology are my main fields of study. In northern lakes that are deep enough, the lake goes through 3 distinct phases. In the summer, the top is warmed from from sun and air temperature, and you have a lake with 3 layers - the warmer top layer, a middle separating layer that has a very fast temperature change, and a lower colder layer. Since the bottom layer is colder, it is also denser and stays on the bottom; it is typically not mixed with the top layer until fall. When colder air arrives, it cools the top layer of the water. At some time, the combination of cooling water and a big wind storm will overcome the decreasing differences in the water density, and you have fall turnover (the top and bottom turn over each other now) when the lake water is mixed from top to bottom. As the water cools even more, one still night the surface will freeze. You now have a stratified lake again with ice on the top and the water under it. When will the surface freeze? As soon as you have 32F water and a cold still night. Wind will prevent the surface from freezing, as the ice crystals will be too busy bumping into each other to join together. One of the wonders of water is that as it freezes, it expands instead of contracts (almost every other material contracts or gets more dense as it gets colder), which causes it to float. Therefore, the colder water is now on top as ice and almost ice. Water is most dense at about 40F, I think it is, but my memory for numbers is not the best. The ground below the frost depth, however, stays about 50F or so. Any water coming into the lake, river, etc. will be much warmer than the rest of the lake, and much too warm to freeze, so those areas will have less ice. And since this water is also less dense than the surrounding almost freezing water, it will come to the surface until it cools off and is mixed in. During the summer, it feels much cooler than the surrounding water because it is, but still about 50F. Hot springs are an exception to this, as they are warmed by the deeper heat of the earth, as mentioned above. As the air warms in the springtime and the sun warms the surface of lake ice, the ice begins to melt again. Here is another fascinating aspect of ice melting. The ice gets honeycombed as well as getting thinner. I found this out once while in Wisconsin. One morning, I walked along the edge of the lake on the ice and did just fine, but by that afternoon, the ice was gone. The ice had lost its structural integrity as it was no longer solid, and a high wind blew it into pieces. These pieces can cause lots of shoreline damage, as high winds blow them into the shoreline. Remember also that the ice and snow is a bit dirty, and all that stuff on top of the ice can get much warmer and melt right through, contributing to the ice melting. We now have spring turnover, and the lake is again mixed from top to bottom, and a full season of cycles has completed. Here is a site I just found with pictures: http://faculty.gvsu.edu/videticp/stratification.htm . Thank you Sharon for another wonderful article. Sorry to hijack your story for some lake lessons, but since it was asked, I thought I would go for it. Fortunately for everyone reading this, I left out the challenges of water chemistry that go with the seasonal changes and stratification. But that would be a different story. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground -- the unborn of the future Nation. The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations. Dogs; Family Fun Unplugged; Perennials, Annuals, Veggies; Happy Birthday Wishes |
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| It's always good to get your scientific take on things of a mysterious (to me) scientific nature, Lance, so hijack away anytime. There's another mystery of the lakes that I've never quite understood. Maybe because the nature of large bodies of water never entered my mind when I was growing up. We had none in the mountains except the winding mountain creeks. So now I live near two very large lakes and 3 large enough for barges rivers: the Ohio, the Cumberland and the Tennessee. In this little pocket near all that water, our weather never matches that of those within a few miles of us. It might snow 6 inches in a town 10 miles to the west, yet we get nothing. Same with rain. At the same time 10 miles to the east there can be 15 inches of snow or ice or sleet or something, and we get a rainy drizzle. Usually our weather right here in this spot is milder than that around us, but during the ice storm of '09, we were hit harder than they were. I know it has something to do with the temperature of the lakes, the moisture coming from them, but I don't really understand it. Anyway, thanks Lance, great information. My grandson will be with me all next week. It's his spring break and here is where he wants to be. We'll have a good time anyway, but I sure hope we can spend a lot of it outside. |
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Sharon, What a lovely story with the magic of innocent youth and unspoilt nature. You really do bring me back to when I was a little girl in the country when there was sunshine almost all 24 hours of the day You know the magic of telling stories that make the reader feel so good and I feel your tales have a healing nature.  Magga |
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| Magga, thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoy the stories. Good for us that we have great memories of childhood. |
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| Yes...so healthy you have wonderful memories of your childhoods...and that you are willing to share!!! Please share more...I love them!!! Leap. The net will appear. |
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| Weather questions from Sharon: I am afraid my physical science, especially having to do with advanced mathematics and modeling of things like water and air motion, is a bit limited. Perhaps there is a meteorologist around that can help out a bit more. Personally, I am amazed by how relatively small changes in landscape can seem to cause large changes in weather. The atmosphere extends much further up than even the highest mountains, but single mountains and mountain ranges have a profound effect on climate, creating rain shadows (where it does not rain on the downwind side of the mountain) and unique cloud formations. I have a similar situation here, whereby rain will fall all around, and not a drop on me. Maybe it is our highly charged personalities, creating an aura around us that repels storms. All I can think of is just like you said - the combination of water and landscape creates an area maybe with air flow that tends to move storms around your location. Makes gardening a bit rough, as well.Your stories are always fun, keep on writing. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground -- the unborn of the future Nation. The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations. Dogs; Family Fun Unplugged; Perennials, Annuals, Veggies; Happy Birthday Wishes |
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| Thanks Lance... I've been accused a time or two of 'setting the mood' for one thing or another, but a 'charged personality'? I'm not sure. I do tend to steal a few words from my hidden cache occasionally and use them rather well and loudly....like when it hailed and hailed and hailed yesterday afternoon for seemingly hour after hour on my car and the irises and the blooms on the pear tree. Finally my words were heard and the hail stopped and the sun came out for a glorious sunset. Like that, you mean??  |
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| As long as it works, that sounds like a good way to do it - did your neighbors hear you, as well? Sunny but cooler here today, and I am hoping my pepper seeds will get warmed by the sun and finally sprout soon. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground -- the unborn of the future Nation. The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations. Dogs; Family Fun Unplugged; Perennials, Annuals, Veggies; Happy Birthday Wishes |
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Shar are you sure Abraham is a mudskipper/salamander? Perchance he is a Naiad (water nymph)  |
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| No matter what he is, Dahlia...he sure taught me about spring! Good to have you back with us... |
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