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Category Archives: Earth Science
Oxbow Mystery
OXBOW MYSTERY When a channel cuts through the steep bank in a meander loop there’s a distinctive landform produced called an “oxbow”. This blog has a number of posts describing our oxbow because it’s a cool complex of unique small … Continue reading
Posted in Earth Science, Life Science
Tagged cricket frogs, ecology, frog calling, habitat
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Native Americans Along the Creek
Last week’s post described some “treasures” that our grandkids have discovered in the pasture down along Kanaranzi Creek. Some of the artifacts and bones that they found near circular vegetation patches seemed to warrant input from professional archaeologists. That input … Continue reading
Posted in Earth Science, Farm History
Tagged artifacts, Dakotah, geophysical anomalies, glacial geology, Great Oasis
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Artifacts, Bones, and Cache Pits
For six generations, the children in our family have looked for adventure down in the pasture along Kanaranzi Creek. And, they’ve found it: fishing and hunting, building rafts and shacks, picking up unique rocks and shells, and picking wild plums … Continue reading
Posted in Earth Science, Farm History
Tagged arrowheads, buffalo bones, cache pits, role model
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Channel Bank Erosion
The Kanaranzi Creek has had sustained flows at high water levels over much of the past two years. As a result, very active erosion has exposed a whole variety of features. This is a view of the high channel bank … Continue reading
Posted in Earth Science
Tagged alluvium, boulder, cache pit, erosion, glacial gravel, stream channel
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Water Levels in the Oxbow
This has been a really nice spring. The cold winter weather didn’t just slam into hot summer. We had a lot of sunshine in April; only about a quarter of the days were overcast. In contrast, last year about half … Continue reading
Kanaranzi Creek and Covid-19
The last two years we’ve had record rainfall and Kanaranzi Creek has changed a lot because of it. Although the spring melts have not produced much flooding, the summer “rain bombs” have resulted in bank-full flows sustained over long periods … Continue reading
Posted in Earth Science
Tagged air photos, channel changes, Covid-19, deposition, erosion, scientific process
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Rural Fall
We had about two inches of snow the other night, but it blew into drifts. Several weeks ago, we had our first accumulating snow that stayed on the level. I had forgotten how much traffic is recorded in a few … Continue reading
Posted in Earth Science, Life Science
Tagged autumn, coyotes, eagles, fall, snow, tracks, trees
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Snowbound
Earlier this week we were snowbound in Colorado. The first storm dropped about 10 inches on our kids’ home in the mountains west of Boulder. The snow piled up on the trees and then fell a second time when the … Continue reading
Equinox Week
It happens twice a year. The polished surfaces of tombstones facing east, light up to reflect the sunrise. It shows up as a brilliant bright line at the base of the trees on the horizon in this photo that Margaret … Continue reading
