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The winter winds came blowing in
From out of the northern sky.
The snow whirled and piled up,
Upon the ground so high.
The storm it raged on in the night.
But when the morning dawned so fair,
It brought a beauty to behold,
That nothing could compare.
Sometimes nature at her worst
Brings on her very best.
And we can only see this
After we have stood the test.
We have to remember Mother Natures will always put us to the test. My advice is bundle up and stay warm this too shall pass.
The touch of color scattered into the trees coupled with the early morning chill signal the end of another season.
As I look high up into the sky the birds are making their way southward early this year and I wonder at the reason.
The moth is full and wooly which they say will show that the winter will be harsh and the snow will swirl around us too soon it may seem.
But for now I enjoy the cool breath of the wind upon my cheek that brushes my hair softly across my eyes as I enjoy the remaining green.
Soon enough the brilliant colors of autumn will fill the land as the leaves give us their annual beauty pageant competing with the falling sun.
The sunlight as it slowly slides below the horizon seems to catch the leaves full of fire as though they together are one.
My friends in the far north tell me of the beauty of the Aurora as it dances through the sky in a symphony of light each night.
I have not seen that symphony but I have seen the one that surrounds us with brilliant light as the leaves dance on the wind and it is a beautiful sight.
The falling leaves fill the ground with their colors which quickly fade so they must be enjoyed at the moment as you see them fall from the tree.
Catching them at the moment where they fall in the wind and fill the air with beauty takes my breath away and my heart feels so free.
Each season has its own special beauty but Autumn has always captured my heart in its own special way because it seems to fulfill the destiny of the land.
The brilliant colors are singing their symphony to show us that they have beauty as they fall before they turn dull and gray and fade away as only they can.
Love Always, AJE enjoy your last day of summer for 2007.
Whether you are walking a remote stretch of Schoolhouse Beach on Washington Island or playing volleyball on Two Rivers Neshotah waterfront park, our Wisconsin beaches serve as gathering spots for friends, families, and people of all ages, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
They help weave us together as communities. Unfortunately, bacteria, viruses, and other “germs” from animal and human excrete often puts our region’s beaches in peril. The contaminations ultimately get embedded in the Great Lakes as well as their tributaries thanks to our sewer drainage, wildlife, and any agricultural runoff.
I hope to provide some guidelines on Beach Contamination through some easy steps intended to help you understand why beaches close, and how we can attempt to minimize these ailments for ultimately a healthier beach ecology.
Beach Closings are a Public Health Issue
These pollutants can linger in water and wet sand hidden from sight but yet still do the damage of getting the whole family ill. County and State officials are often forced to close public beaches when bacteria levels exceed acceptable health limits. Bacteria, viruses and pathogens may cause us great discomfort with vomiting, diarrhea, stomachache, nausea, headache, and fever. Other forms of bacteria can further cause giardiasis, amoebic dysentery, skin rashes, and pink eye. Everyone needs to be aware to minimize the exposure.
Unfortunately, sometimes the agencies entrusted with caring for our beaches do not have enough basic information to know whether your community even has a problem. To help eliminate the largest known source of beach contamination, sewage oveflows, you'll need to understand some environmental geography and how what we do on a dalily basis will go directly into our shores with impurities that disrupt our own lives.
Aging Sewer Systems Contribute to the Problem
Many sewer systems in urban areas were built over a hundred years ago and were designed for a much smaller capacity of users. Some cities combine sewer systems pipins that carry rainwater from storm sewers with the pipes. Used to haul domestic and industrial wastewater. This would include water that we use in our homes such as showering, fushing the toilet and washing dishes. These pipes often fail to maximum capacity during heavy rainstorms. Unfortunately when the sewer systems reach capacity, extra sewage, which includes human, animal, and industrial waste, is usually discharged into our lakes, rivers and streams, making them contaminated. These discharges are called, combined sewer overflows or CSOs.
Aging Sewer Systems Contribute to the Problem
Then other communities have separate pipes for sanitary waste and stormwater (separated sewers). Just like combined sewer systems, separated systems can have capacity troubles and experience oveflows. These overflows are called sanitary sewer overflows or SSOs. Not all communities are served by sewage treatment plants. Many homeowners in country bergs and rural areas must provide their own septic system. Even these systems leak sewage directly into streams, YUK. With age
sewer lines can fail thanks to crumbling, corrosion and pure age the septic systems will leak a smelly flood of hell, trust me I have seen it happen! These inconveniences will allow raw sewage to enter both the surface and groundwater.
Hold on its not all that bad, I do carry good news. My guidelines will outline a variety of measures you can take for mitigating or safeguard your community from unnecessary health risks associated with bacterial/viral pollution. Because every beach is different, this may not be intended for all places depending on the degree of contamination and if its been contained; rather, this is to provide a game plan which we all can utilize for the entire Great Lakes shores.
Make Changes Around Your Home
While water use at home is a smaller source of point pollution than larger industrial and agricultural sectors, practicing water conservation at home can ease pollution to local watersheds, rivers, and beaches. Every bit we do will counts in the short and long term. Plus, imagine all you’ll learn from practicing water conservation in and around the home which can also be applied to your jobsite.
What you can do:
During storms, delay activities that require a lot of water, such as laundry or washing dishes.
For example automatic lawn sprinkling systems can sometimes will continuing to water lawns, even while it’s raining! When this water leaves your home or lawn it can enter the sewer system and contribute even more to an already burdened system. This extra water increases the chances that untreated sewage will be released to a river, lake, or stream.
Keep your septic system in proper working order.
Have your septic system pumped out annually and inspected regularly. An overloaded or broken septic system can leak sewage into the surrounding ground and water.
Eliminate or minimize your use of manure as fertilizer on gardens and lawns.
During rainfalls, these wastes can get washed into local sewers. Try using composted food waste from home recycling as a fertilizer for gardens.
Responsible Beachgoers
Waste from wildlife is a source of bacteria on the beach and in the water. Garbage, especially leftover food from picnics, can attract gulls, raccoons, opossums and lord knows what else to the beachfront. The wildlife then leaves their discharge all over the beaches and over time this can cause enough contamination to red flag the coast.
Don¡'t feed seagulls or any other wildlife you encounter at the beach by doing so your aiding to the dilemma. The animals/birds will adapt to being fed by humans very quickly.
Properly dispose of your trash in waste receptacles. Ask your local beach management agency to provide trash bins that are large enough to contain leftover garbage, even from long holiday weekends.
Infants and toddlers are advised to wear rubber pants if they go in the water. Research concludes that waste from children does contribute to beach contamination. Incontinent adults or adults experiencing any type of gastrointestinal illness should avoid swimming in
the water as well.
Ask your local park/beach management agency to clean up dead
Alewives. For those who don't know Alewives are a small fish that wash up onto beaches, at times in great numbers. As they decay they contribute bacteria to the lake and attract feral or scavenger wildlife, which in turn deposit additional waste on the beach.
Next Practice Proper Pet Management While Visiting the Waterfront
All pet owners enjoy walking their 4-legged friends and playing freebee with them at the beach. The wastes from our pets, whether in our yard or at the beach, is a source of thriving bacteria that can contaminate our waters. You can help reduce the impact of your pet’s excretion by following some simple steps.
Properly dispose of your pet’s waste, while at the beach. Doggie Bags will do just fine.
Properly dispose of the pet’s waste on your lawn and when walking your pet around the neighborhood. If left on lawns, sidewalks, or alleys, pet waste will wash into local sewers and waterways. Remember this too goes right into our permeable soils to the aquasheds and eventually right down to the lakes.
Dog beaches should be properly laid out and carefully monitored. Dog beaches are becoming more popular, and controversial, in some cities. If they are going to exist, they should not lead to beach contamination or migratory bird disturbances.
Scientists divide the Earth into a number of periods - the "Geological Time Scale", according to the rock types and sort of fossils found in each one. These divisions are pretty arbitrary, like any man-made divisions, but they at least can serve as useful labels. The Paleozoic era or "ancient life;" is characterized by fossils of invertebrates, such as primitive Wisconsin’s trilobites, etc etc. The Mesozoic era or "middle life", we see the fossils of our dinosaurs and the last is Cenozoic era also known as "recent life;" is dominated by mammals of modern day plants and invertebrates.
On the “GEOLOGICAL CLOCK,” the age of the earth is represented by the 12 hours on the face of the clock. The sweep of the minute hand around the dial twelve times from 12 to 12 marks the passage of time from the beginning of the earth to today.
At about 4:48, not far from half the earth’s age, life first appeared. This is not to be classified as either plant or animal life because it possesses the simple properties of each. You are less likely to speculate enthusiastically about the possibilities of human beings on other planets when you contemplate the vast amount of time is required to adhere life and the factors necessary to create life. Even more so do realize that the likelihood of organisms on other planets as we know them today on Earth’s Biomes is remote.
At 10:45 plus an additional 6 seconds, nearly all of the oldest groups of organisms were likely represented within the Earths hemisphere. Although there hasn’t been found any fossils. For the most part it was only forms that had shells or other hare crustations, which were preserved.
At 11:33 plus 30 seconds, the reptiles began the “Age of Dinosaurs” and would rule Earth until the mammals resumed the duty. Earth saw such species as plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and pterodactyls. The reptiles we know today as the turtles, crocodiles, snakes and lizards were also sharing the niches with the dinos.
At around 11:51 plus 22 seconds, the great ruling race of reptiles was replaces with a new dominate life form: mammals.
The Pleistocene Epoch (ICE AGE) started at about 11:59 plus 51 seconds. Ohh wee time is really cutting short! North America saw the great Megafauna species which are just some of the following: Proboscidea wooly mammoth, Carnivora the saber tooth, Edentata the giant sloth, Edentata Doedicurus (cousin to armadillo), wooly rhino, Carnivora Dire Wolf, Arctodus simus or Short Faced Bear, Artiodactyla Stag Moose, Camelops hesternus or Western Camel, Perissodactyla Tapris Horses, and Rodentia Giant Beaver.
-->These last 2 million years has been dominated by shifts between the colder episodes and the warmer spells during the Pleistocene Epoch. Scientist still doesn’t know exactly what caused the periods of interglacial from that of the continental glaciations. While the Ice Ages have tended to last for up to 100,000 years, the intervening interglacial periods have really been much shorter in duration, at around 10,000 years in length.
What we commonly call the ice age was during the most recent Quaternary Period; which began about two million years ago and then ended 10,000 years ago... During which timeframe held many inter-glacial spells. At the peak of the last glaciations, approximately 97% of Canada-Northern US was covered by ice with the thickest ice approximately 3,300 meters occurring over the Hudson Bay. The Wisconsin Ice Age was the very last advancement of the continental glaciations to bulldoze North America. I believe the name was given based because of many wonderful glacial topography Wisconsin received throughout the state. To see more descriptions please read my Wisconsin Glaciation Terms.
Earth is presently in an interglacial phase that could last for another 10,000 or more years then again we may have another Ice Age begin during our time. Interesting huh!?
BEST FACT YET-->Man appeared in North America at about 11:59 with an additional 59 milliseconds 6/7th, just think that was 1/7 milliseconds ago. WOW! The climate, plants and animals were now set into motion much as life is today. It is very likely some of the ice age animals were still present on the planet such as the mastodons, sloths and bear. Although I have to admit man was in Europe and Asia before they set foot in North America.
Several years ago well more like a decade ago, while in Florida we stopped at a pet shop and my younger brother feel in love with this cockatiel chick. He bought the little lad and a cage all for $60. Well it was a journey from there. After taking the bird from warm Florida to bitter cold winter in Wisconsin on that long trek up norte...the bird donned the name ANGEL.
We had Angel for 5 years which during that time, he was a strong-minded bird and very bright. He was an excellent whistler, talker and loved the people’s shoulders but hated hands. He perfected the "Andy Griffin Song", several Spanish style whistles and all the backyard birds' songs. He also had a very nice vocabulary. Unfortunately he was a dominate and independent bird except the days when the neighborhood hawk came to visit the outdoor bird feeders then his humans were his refuge.
During those 5 years the bird gave our family unlimited amount of joys. One unforgettable moment was when my father was asleep in the living room recliner after a long day of student driving (summer). Angel pranced up my father just to perch on his nose... Dad never woke up! hum...
Unfortunately, an October day about 3 1/2 years ago brought our little Angel to wings of freedom. Even though the day before his wings were clipped he managed to fly out our door. My family spent 8 hours pursuing that cockatiel. He saw us, we saw him but he just plain didn't want to come home. We were heartbroken, and at 10:30PM hung up all hope of seeing our little friend alive. Either the Predators or the Cold would be his dying fate.
.... Until 1 1/2 weeks ago
My father was driving with a student and somehow conversation was brought to discussing the family's pets. Well turns out at that time some 3 1/2 years ago the family lived on the other side of my community of Valders and one day out of the blue a Cockatiel flew into their window to join the tiel they already had. Ironic huh? So my father pushed several poignant questions about the bird named "Buddy". Conclusion was "Mr. Evans I do believe we have your bird!"
Saturday, my family was reunited with our long lost friend the cockatiel Angel. Although he is several years older he still has the same charm and vocabulary as the last day we saw him. Our Angel has come home!
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