POP and Mariana

I’ve spent days watching this owl watch the fields for food.  Even as the blizzard was raging, she sat in a branch, listening, head spinning at ever squeak that might mean her stomach would soon be full.

Here’s one fun thing about a blizzard: it gives you time to think.   To chew over whatever’s been chewing at you when you can’t sleep at night.  One shovelful of snow after another, your mind is free to wander, unless you are raking a roof and trying to avoid power lines.  Then the focusing of one’s attention on the task at hand is paramount.

Having seen a headline about the depths to which our pollution has sunk (no, I’m not talking politics right now), I spent some of my shoveling time thinking about POPs, or persistent organic pollutants.  Turns out that scientists are finding traces of manmade (human-made? woman-made?) chemicals in one of the most remote places on our planet – the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.  The research has been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, http://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-016-0051.  You can also simply Google “Mariana Trench Pollution” and select your own news source on the topic.  The bottom line is that humans continue to destroy the planet in a variety of ways.  So part of my time spent shoveling included figuring out the “But what can I do” piece of the pollution puzzle. I also am always on the look out for photos to take, so here are a few shots of my tiny corner of the planet.

First, several nights ago, after the Nor’easter and before the blizzard, I ran outside to capture the colors the sunset had left behind.

Even subtle hues will suffice after the slate gray skies that have hung low for so long.

This morning, with the blizzard finally blown out, we have blue sky.

So this morning I stood in my driveway and took a picture of the moon over the lake.

At then I swiveled 180 degrees to capture the sun coming up over the tree line.

The birds are hungry and eating their fill today.