Man-made landscapes

Footprints

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Step lightly
To do as little harm
As we step forward
In a world teeming with life
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Time and the forces of nature
May erase some of our former steps
But there are more than 7 billion of us

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Ever stepping forward
Ever the desire
Ever the need for more
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Our footprints become heavier
As we mar the ground beneath our feet
Ever harming more living things
Those that are not us
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The steps of the past are still there
If we look behind

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It is to our next steps
To our children, and to theirs’
To learn
To teach

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To step lightly
And do as little harm
In a world teeming with life
For it shouldn’t be only about us
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective

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This winter I have taken two airplane trips to visit kids and as I looked out the window of the plane I was in awe of the beauty of the landscape with all of it changes and at the same time sadden by by our footprint in all of it’s environments.
As one stands on the ground you can’t always see the true impact we have had on natural wonders of a living earth, it takes that different perspective even though even flying is adding to the changes that are occurring.

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From my perspective that is the problem – that of human dominance and our ability to take it all for our own needs; like a run away train without much thought of the future for us and all living things

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My photos don’t do it judice, so I might recommend a book “Designs on the Land: Exploring America from the Air” for it is fascinating photos of America’s landscape

Designs on the Land Exploring America from the Air by Alex S. MacLean, Jean-Marc Besse, James Corner and Gilles A. Tiberghien
“Designs on the Land: Exploring America from the Air”
by Alex S. MacLean (Author) , Jean-Marc Besse (Author) , James Corner (Author) , Gilles A. Tiberghien (Author) , Alex MacLean (Author)

Curious Friday 2-21-2014

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As we travel around town we pass many things that are just part of the landscape, most times we don’t give it a thought. Other than realizing that if you were driving a truck that was more than 9′ 6″ you might have a problem

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This is a railroad bridge in downtown Dover NH, it was built in 1901, in an era before cars and trucks. It is still in use by Amtrak on it’s Boston to Portland passenger train and Pan Am freight trains, and it is described as being in fair condition.

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What I find curious is it design for looking down at it it is parallelogram construction and I always wonder why?

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Photo Weekly Challenge : Juxtaposition

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On the first of the year we traveled from Winter in New England (the day before everyone got snowed in) to Sunny Phoenix Arizona to visit family

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To come to a place where the average rainfall is 7 to 8″ a year, yet while in the urban areas it was hard to know we were in a desert, it in some ways it could have been home in NH in early summer just replace the maples and oaks with palm trees (which are not native to there)

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Knowing that water is issue in the southwest as in other parts of this country, it was hard to understand seeing green golf courses, green lawns that gave it all that theme park feel to it.

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Don’t get me wrong, we had a wonderful time, certainly enjoyed being with family and the weather wasn’t to hard to take.

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And now being home with freezing temps, part of me misses it or at least being with family. Yet I do have all those pictures I took to maybe help think being warm and remember seeing the native landscape of a desert just outside of town

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Weeds, Invasives and Books Part 2

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antilandscaper

 

 

 

Sometime beyond 30,000 years ago the climate had changed, and the cold and ice advanced out of the arctic covering a large portions of North America, Europe, and Asia. The ice sheet was estimated to be a mile thick and with so much of the water of this planet frozen, the oceans were as much as 450 feet lower than they are today. As the ice sheet advanced to cover what we now call home, it had scraped and scoured the earth carrying soil particles, boulders and anything living in its’ path that couldn’t flee its’ approach. The areas south of the major ice sheets were what might be considered sub-arctic; a tundra and open boreal woodland with very little rain. Around 13,500 to 11,000 years ago the ice sheets receded and the flora that had managed to survive south started to advance north and grow in…

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