Bluff Country Reader

The beauty of the valleys holding our Driftless Area trout streams always enthralls me. They are so pretty with cascading springs and riffles, deep pools and often steep bluffs towering over them. I like to think of them as an ancient landscape, which we need to care for and keep clean, so the waters run clear and remain cold.

I can truthfully admit I am tired of snow. It seemed like spring was finally arriving, so I raked leaves off the sprouting rhubarb plants.

Then it snowed and covered them up.

A flock of robins gallantly hung out on the upper branches of a flowering crab I can see from my kitchen window. Some flew down and were gleaning the tiny rotten apples that blew onto the driveway. Their tiny footprints overlapped each other while they hung out under the overhang on our deck.

I am happy the birds have the cover of the spruce and pines in my yard and apples for food.

On the day of our first scheduled landing at Antarctica, we were to visit the Arctowski Polish station. However, the weather did not cooperate, and the seas were too rough for us to go ashore. This became the first of several times when the Captain reverted to his Plan B; some days it was to Plan C, D and even further.