Monday, April 7, 2008

Dim-veiled Grandeur





(This post belongs over in Tree in the Door...to be corrected later...One Floppy Ear is today's Fauna and Flora post!...interesting though...Fauna and Flora has taken on the look and feel of the old Nature Notes!)

I think I had thought today to work into a post...dont know but it might have been a thoughtless day!...oh...in fact I got so worked up about taxes on the phone that I've thought to make an extra effort not to stress!...it's some age thing!...it was a fine day...and thought some on the Fern Ledge adventure...there's a route up to the base of the Upper Falls on the right...seldom used...and with some exposed parts...so says the little map in the climber's route book I picked up...I tend to over plan these things!...like to go there and maybe tomorrow..though the wade across the Creek seems to have left me a bit chilled and sore throatish!...either that or the sneezing sniffiling passenger in seat in front on Shuttle!...oh!...that was the thought...they sprayed some populated area and wrecked havoc!...brb...






quote






The state agriculture department plans to use airplanes at night this summer to spray a farm pesticide over urban San Francisco, Marin County and the East Bay, intending to eradicate a potentially destructive moth.







State plans Bay Area pesticide spraying
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Friday, February 15, 2008












unquote






This is worse than I thought...that story predated the one I read today...brb...






quote






one of hundreds of families in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties that reported health problems last year after the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture ordered an aerial spray of pesticides containing synthetic insect pheromones and other ingredients in a campaign to eradicate the light brown apple moth.







Health problems reported after aerial spraying
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Monday, April 7, 2008












unquote






Well...not quite what I thought..this spraying story predates the first I quoted...but it's still thought provoking...I've been provoked in self similar fashion when malathion was spayed over my neighborhood. Sometime not much one can do but shake a futile fist at the sky...but it's a "sometime"...






brb...






quote






The light brown apple moth is a native insect of Australia. It has been introduced and now occurs in New Caledonia, the British Isles, Hawaii where it has lived for more than 100 years, Western Australia and New Zealand. In March 2007 the moth was positively identified by DNA in mainland United States in California across hundreds of miles from Los Angeles to Napa north of San Francisco. The highest concentrations found so far are in Santa Cruz County and the City of San Francisco.












unquote




And here's the tale...








Thinking thoughts increaseth sorrow...




But to Fern Ledge...brb...




quote




The best point from which to observe them is on Fern Ledge. For some time after moonrise the arc has a span of about five hundred feet, and is set upright; one end planted in the boiling spray at the bottom, the other in the edge of the fall, creeping lower, of course, and becoming less upright as the moon rises higher. This grand arc of color, glowing in mild, shapely beauty in so weird and huge a chamber of night shadows, and amid the rush and roar and tumultuous dashing of this thunder-voiced fall, is one of the most impressive and most cheering of all the blessed evangels of the mountains.
A wild scene, but not a safe one, is made by the moon as it appears through the edge of the Yosemite Fall when one is behind it. Once after enjoying the night-song of the waters, and watching the formation of the colored bow as the moon came round the domes and sent her beams into the wild uproar, I ventured out on the narrow bench that extends back of the fall from Fern Ledge and began to admire the dim-veiled grandeur of the view.








unquote




A journey there at night is a bit beyond...but another wonder story of Muir's!...brb...I've snagged a bit from Yosemite Nature Notes...which is online courtesy of the Yosemite research library...I think..brb...well...the Tenaya bit makes it a must do...sometime.
DavidDavid

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