Skip to main content

The Sacred Cycle of Life, and Some Other Stuff

I work on the northwest side of town in a mostly residential area. While it's a fairly suburban community, nature still manages to find a way in and stake out its claim. This is perhaps most obvious near the neighborhood's retention pond. I usually try and get out for a walk during my lunch break and I'll often do a lap around this arguably modest body of water. Depending on the time of year, I might encounter herons, ducks, Canadian Geese, swallows, turtles or groundhogs. I've seen people angling in the pond as well, which leads me to believe there must be fish of some sort in there too.

While I'm certainly no Henry David Thoreau, I'm surprised at how attuned I've become to rhythms of this little pond's life; from the arrival of the ducks to buds on the forsythia, I'm starting to internalize its seasonal patterns.


In the pond's annual cycle, nothing is quite as exciting as the arrival of the goslings and ducklings. They usually appear about the same time, and seemingly out of nowhere. I've never found a nesting site, though I've never looked particularly hard either. This year's crop appeared within the last two weeks, and I took a few pics while I was out. It's amazing how quickly these bird mature too. You can see changes in them almost daily.


Of course things also die around the pond; presumably for a variety of reasons though I suspect traffic is most often the culprit. I'm not sure what did this duck in, but it's sad to think its demise came so close to the time the ducklings hatch. If nature is indeed a cruel mistress, so too is Bilingsley Road.


All this nature doesn't mean there's not also room for some high-end man made technology. The same walk that takes me around my 20 minutes of Walden also takes me past Franklin County's most notable (and perhaps only) wind turbine.


It stands amid a sea of car dealerships just off 270 and turns (by my estimation) 70 percent of the time. I'm not sure what it powers (or for whom), but I'm always happy to see it.

To me it looks somehow like the future, and I find it not altogether incongruous with Candadian Geese, Blue Herons, and newborn goslings.

Comments

  1. karareuterMay 8, 2011 at 2:33 PM

    Watch out - geese can be fiercely protective of their young. I've been hissed at and charged!

    Also, the wind turbine actually powers the dealership: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2010/10/08/tower-of-power.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jeff RegensburgerMay 9, 2011 at 8:56 PM

    You're right! Any other time of the year you can practically walk right up to the geese, but when they're in "protect their young mode" they have a totally different temperment. I've gotten close enough that I've been hissed at, but never so close that I've been charged.

    Apparently the parents shed their flight feathers during this time too, which I never knew. That explains all the walking around :)

    Thanks for the info on the wind turbine too. I thought that was the story behind it, but I was too lazy to look it up. I know, some librarian, right?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ohio Historical Center: A Defense

A couple weeks ago I was contacted by Carrie Ghose at Business First to share my thoughts on architecture in central Ohio. The recent controversy surrounding the new Student Union at Ohio State had apparently sparked a number of conversations regarding what constitutes "good" building design. Carrie was following that story , and developing a second piece to get feedback on other notable Columbus buildings. At the time I offered a staunch a defense of what I believe might be the most maligned and misunderstood building in central Ohio, the Ohio Historical Center. Business First wasn't able to run the whole piece, so I've decided to turn it into a blog post. photo courtesy of OHS/ www.ohiomemory.org The refrain is a as old as the building itself, "It's ugly. It's just a giant brown box. It doesn't even look like a museum". Sadly, it's that exact line of thinking that poses the greatest threat to the building Architectural Record referre...
7 comments
Read more

The Problem With Librarian Problems

So it's come to this; a curmudgeonly blog post about the state of the profession (complete with finger wagging, tsk-tsking, and even a little SMH thrown in for good measure). "Shake your fist at 'em Pops. These kids don't know from librarianship". That's how you do it, right? Oh, the irony. I've spent 15 years in the profession deriding Will Manley and his hectoring ways. Now I've apparently become him. Point being, I'm acutely aware of all the contextual layers of this post. I know the implications and risks of saying, "Hey, that's not cool". I've been around long enough to know how easy it is to dismiss the contrarian stance; to push back against even the slightest hint of correction (Trust me, I've done it plenty of times myself). More to the point, I've been around long enough to know how easy it will be to dismiss what I'm about to write. Please don't. It's important. It's important to us individua...
8 comments
Read more

Can Retro Design Be Great Design?

It appears that Spyker (the high-end Dutch sports car company) is making plans to develop a car based on the original Saab 92 (1949-1956). If you've been following the tales and travails of the Saab brand you'll recall that Spyker saved t he car maker from almost certain liquidation after GM cut the Swedish niche-brand loose last year. Having been a Saab loyalist for nearly 20 years, I'm thrilled by the idea of a resurgent Saab entering the market with a new direction and focus (most Saab fans look on the GM years as time lost in the wilderness). And while I've always understood the 92 to be a lovely little post-World War II car (and quite innovative for its time), it raises an interesting question about what constitutes great design. Namely, can retro design be great design? It's a question worth asking since we're clearly living in a time when re-manufacturing the past has become a common practice. Whether it's cars (like the MINI Cooper , VW Beetle , a...
5 comments
Read more