nexus

errands took me close to the impermanent borderland between suburban sprawl and industrial monoculture so i drove a bit farther along the nexus...among other things i was looking for possible erosion as the january thaw turns the snow of last weekend into slush and ice...i will need to go out again before spring plowing because i am inclined to think there could be a bumper crop of failed berms around fields..as i drove along 750 N i came across an icon for the nexus...a microwave transmission tower planted among the outbuildings on a farm not a mile south of a big box store...civilization has its needs

groundhog day

groundhogs across the country can safely stay in their burrows today as far as i am concerned...i already have the answer to their particular insight...winter, such as it has become, will last until it is over...and that will probably be sooner rather than later...it was snowing when i went out early today to run some errands and have a look around...between that and yesterdays cold i know it is winter...the palmer drought index still has my home county in a moderate drought but it hasn't been updated since the 29th of last month and i have to wonder if the precipitation of the intervening time has changed that...the snow on the peri-urban fields is unbroken by tracks of critters...i couldn't see any industrial corn in the field behind the big box stores and there wasn't anything else looking...the corn field has a new sign up...i hadn't seen it before...seems harris bank is claiming to be the party behind the "finance" of whatever there is planned for that particular piece of farmland...so there may not be a crop here in the spring..."growth" insists on being itself and corn ( for processed foods or ethanol...your choice ) be damned...the snow in the wheat field by the supermarket has just about covered the wheat...but you can see by the tops sticking out that it's still green...no more dormant than the wheat grass on campus...winter grinds on but it may be spring by the end of the month which will please some people as much as it disturbs me...this aint natural.