February 3

Tuesday, while Remi continued his convalescence at home, I traveled 9 miles west of Mt. Pleasant on Pickard Rd. and hiked at Sylvan Solace, a 78-acre property of the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy. The early morning weather was mostly sunny with a temperature of 10 degrees and no wind. From the parking lot, I headed south on a path covered with 5-6 inches of powdery snow that had fallen yesterday. This scene reminded me of yesterday while schools were closed and my wife and I were home admiring the white stuff blanketing the yard when she caught me off guard with her science question, “Why is snow white?” So with Google’s help, I found out that snow is a whole bunch of individual ice crystals arranged together. When light enters a layer of snow, it goes through an ice crystal on the top, which changes its direction slightly and sends it on to a new ice crystal, which does the same thing. Basically, all the crystals bounce the light all around so that it comes right back out of the snow pile. It does the same thing to all the different light frequencies so all colors of light are bounced back out. The "color" of all the frequencies in the visible spectrum combined in equal measure is white, so this is the color we see in snow, while it's not the color we see in the individual ice crystals that form snow. Next, I turned west and followed the River Loop trail as the morning sun shown through a dense stand of Aspen, Oak and Maple. Fresh deer tracks were evident all around. Arriving at the banks of the Chippewa River, I paused to admire the quiet, picturesque winter scene as the current moved thin pieces of ice downstream. The path went south on a bluff above the river and then turned northeast back into the barren woods where I was startled by a pair of wild turkey that suddenly flew noisily from their perch in a tree high above me. Having nearly completed the loop, I came across a single set of large tracks just off the trail that puzzled me since there were no others nearby. After stepping back and looking around, I found similar tracks in a line 12-15 feet apart and determined it was from a full grown deer that was running fast to escape something while making significant leaps (adult deer are capable of leaps twice that long). Finally, I retraced my steps north toward the light at the end of the tunnel of evergreens to the car and took off for home.

Waters of life

Nourishes earth

Flows in her veins

River of worth

Wonder of nature

Beauty to inspire

Clean and clear

River I admire

More than a stream

More than a creek

Cherish the Chippewa

A river unique

D. DeGraaf