Missouri Land

I found my photos from Summer '07. These will show you how incredibly beautiful it is up there...this is the turn to the left (west) to the flying field across the Gerald Creek. I was forced to name the creek Gerald because I had to Ford it . . . This is the height of summer, mind, and squarely in the middle of the photo is where I caught my Luna Moth - at night - I spotted him in the headlights, jumped out with the net and charged into the darkness after him. My first swing with the net knocked him out of the tree ------DAMN! he's not in the net! There he is in the grass! Saaaawooooooosh! I'm a lousy golfer; the grass just collapsed, and I had to take another swing - an overhand smash to trap him with the net against the ground to finally get him into the net. I folded the net over to trap him in there and the Ranger and I clambered across the creek to the Launch Control to put him in the killing jar. Did you know months can scream? You want to talk about depressing . . . I waited up with him while he died so I could pin him in my collection box while he was still flexible.His wings were so incredibly soft and flexible - they just sort of rolled up on my fingers and tongs while I was working with him. But I got it done by around 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. Then it was all right to go on to bed. Gawdawg! but he's a pretty corpse in my box.]This view looks directly west after Fording the Gerald. Right where the sunlight is the brightest is where the road takes another fork. Going straight and slightly doglegging to the left goes on up the hill to the Buffalo Natural Area. This is 486 acres of Missouri State land, and it's on my west fenceline. And it's just incredible - walnut trees a couple hundred years old, deer, turkey, skunk, armadillo, fox, coyote, rabbit, every tree God made in North America, some of 'em bigger than for of us can reach around . . . I like it.

After taking that turn to the right I mentioned, you come up this rise that is cooled by the trees and it just keeps coming till you get to the sentinel walnut I stopped the dozer man from flattening. this is the gate, the statue-in-the-fountain-drive that opens into the flying field. I plan to plant daffodils and anything else that is deer- and rodent resistant. There's plenty enough to eat out there; I don't need to supply the salad bar.

Notice how the land has a little slope to it? Hah! It's a lot easier to walk toward the creek than away from it. And you see how thick the trees are across the field? That whole area was that way before George and Randy bulldozered it down. It was a shame to tear up/down all the forest, but there was nowere to see the sky. Now you can see where you are and still be embraced by the wood. It's enchanting on a midsummer night with the fireflies putting on a lightshow and the owls hunting up and down the creek in accompaniment and the Milky Way overhead turning so slowly you don't see it unless you drift off and wake back up in your chair. Kathryn and I launched daylight parachute fireworks out there that 4th of July. Those are so cool! This gargantuan monster mortar tube lobs seven or nine aerial bombs up into a sky of crystal blue with horsetail streaks of strato-cirrus cloud . . . and the bombs blow up, of course, and spray a dozen or so colored-tissue parachutes all over the sky to drift down in the echoing silence after the booms. It's like being a little kid again and blowing dandelions in technicolor . . . This is all I can handle right now; I need to get lesson plans together for the rest of the week. But I can breathe a little deeper knowing that little slice of heaven is up there waiting.