Life, Death and Marshes

The weather predictions for Saturday turned out to be correct, fog and mist, turning into rain and thunder, so I didn't really want to go for a bicycle ride. I prefer to think of bicycling as something I do for fun, not for the health benefits or competition, and limiting my bicycling to good weather goes very far in keeping it that way.

Although the weathered turned out to not be conducive for bicycling, I have lived in Iowa too long to not take advantage of any day in March where the weather isn't completely inhospitable. So I pulled out my trusty Sportsman's Atlas to weigh the options I had for local nature areas I could go to. I'm fairly familiar with the nature areas in the area, but it never hurts to look at a map, and sometimes you see a destination that you wouldn't have thought about otherwise.

That was the case today, after glancing at my map, I realized that I hadn't been out to Palo Marsh since before the flood. Being a marsh to begin with, I assumed that it had been pretty waterlogged during June of '08, and I was interested in seeing how it had fared.

Being a marsh, it is generally very marshy, and the rain over the last 12 hours didn't really help dry it out much. To make this nature foray even more uplifting, the marsh was decked out in the finest grays and browns an Iowa winter has to offer.

I was first greeted by a set of muddy ruts (actually the second greeting, my first greeting was a sign warning me about the possibility of drunk idiot with shotguns). Luckily it was only the path that was a muddy, boggy, mess. The rest of the area was simply wet and muddy.

(Author's note: I have to apologize to the two readers I have, I put off finishing this article too long and now have lost the train of thought. I am still learning this whole blogging thing, and this is the best lesson yet. Hopefully I will be struck by creativity again soon and actually write a conclusion to this post.)

(Author's second note: Who knew that shotgun shells came in so many colors?)