Heading back to the Potholers for a second weekend, I was surprised how much water levels had dropped. But then again, last week we didn't get any rain, and this area is in a dry spell as noted by the lack of water in the Potholers and theamount of dust along the roads.
Taken on Saturday July 25, 2020 at Piseco-Powley Road.The monarch butterfly fluttered a step closer to extinction Thursday, as scientists put the iconic orange-and-black insect on the endangered list because of its fast dwindling numbers.
“It’s just a devastating decline,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who was not involved in the new listing. “This is one of the most recognizable butterflies in the world.”
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.
The group estimates that the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over 10 years, depending on the measurement method.
“What we’re worried about is the rate of decline,” said Nick Haddad, a conservation biologist at Michigan State University. “It’s very easy to imagine how very quickly this butterfly could become even more imperiled.”
It seemed like just yesterday that I was listening to John Denver singing about the “He was born in summer of his 27th year, coming home to a place he had never been before.”
How fast time comes and goes. In a few short weeks – well, January – I’ll be starring down the barrel of my forties. As Denver sung, “The days past so quickly now, the nights are seldom long, time whispers when it’s cold, changes have to frighten me but I have smile.”
In some ways its been a tough summer with inflation, high gas prices and my truck getting increasingly creaky and worrisome as it traverses these back roads. Work just gets more and more demanding, even while I make good money. Getting drunk ain’t the same fun these days and there are fewer and fewer really neat, unique new places to explore nearby. The exciting ever expanding world of my late twenties seems farther and farther away.
While I’m sure my forties will be exciting and adventure filled I both approach them with fear and joy. It’s the decade when I will probably get closer to my maximum earning potential, where steps continue to exist but won’t nearly be as significant. I will probably buy land or maybe take over my parents homestead. I’ll settle down and have fewer weeks in the wilderness with land and a home to take care of. I might move out west, and I will likely loose my parents to old age.
I am sure for probably at least a few more years in my forties I’ll get away to the Adirondack wilderness and West Virginia. But even that may end at some point as other life priorities advance. Maybe I’ll give up owning a car in favor of a new more urban way of living. Or maybe I’ll have land and hogs to feed, water to haul and wood to chop. Maybe the off-grid home will become a reality. Only time will tell.
In the clouds.
Taken on Saturday July 21, 2012 at US 6 in Pennsylvania.