life moves on. 

        and just like this stream , life does move on . i was frozen in time as i stood in this valley and looking into this creek and upstream was that old covered bridge and i thought to myself how lucky these people are to be graced with all that beauty and the sounds of a creek as falls and moves forward to its final destination. full of life and even its reflection has beauty in it as it reveals , whats on the other side . this is a pic i took in columbiana county , as i was visiting a park outside of lisbon and then decided to go past the park and found this lovely spot and a covered bridge i have showed before. 

        this weekend is the tree planting on reclaimed strip mine land at hellbender park . heck of a name but i have seen a few pictures and will say i am impressed by the idea of planting trees and doing something for our environment . to replace a small portion of the trees so that we had light to read with years ago. 

         Columbiana County Park District- this is the link to call for volunteers to plant trees at 10 a.m. on saturday april 7th. they say all tree planting equipment and trees will be available . there are supposed to be some natural bluffs here. also the hellbender is a large salamander that calls this area home. but think i have seen one myself while working at a construction site in richville ohio. i was standing there talking to the foreman in a truck to truck exchange as he was telling me i could go home as it rained to much to do any excavating that day and we were rained out. and i looked down in a mud puddle and noticed this large salamander about 6 inches long and he was scurrying into sheer doom headed straight into the heart of our construction site. he had a long way to go before he would have ever made it out of our site if he could have. anyhow i scrambled out of the pickup and chased him down and took him to a safe area where he could circumvent the jobsite , if he was on some kind of migration.at least i gave him a chance. i imagine for the extent of the mining that occurred in this area , maybe there is a reason that the hellbender salamander is so populous and that could have been due to the mining that occurred in that area. i imagine the creeks such as beaver creek were home to multitudes that used to exist in smaller creeks that were subject to soil pollution or may have been actually eliminated when the coal company came through. the salamander moved in and around the main creeks making it appear to be more than there actually was as their habitat dwindled. i am just guessing as to all this and maybe this weekend might answer that question. 

           when operating equipment i was always alert to animals when i was operating heavy equipment trying to give them a chance to escape the impending doom we were thrusting on them with our heavy equipment. mostly frogs and some fish as ponds were eliminated. never saw many groundhogs , or rabbits as they seem to know to leave . you will see dear tracks in the morning on the fresh dirt where deer had visited the night before wondering what happened to their favorite apple trees. i tried to not think of all the worms grubs and anthills , and minuscule forms of wildlife such as field mice, and moles, or infant animals , for  which it was impossible to see , but still perished as another taco bell was raised from the ruins of their former homesteads. this is all in the name of progress . and yet we have land we have already managed to screw up totally and could stand a lifesaving face lift , and now we find unsuitable for any use except an illegal dump site. an eye sore to our better way of thinking , and something to be ignored . people are fickle and constantly moving on to the next big thing or place . leaving another ramshackle thing in its wake. 

          we live in the land of abundance , of unlimited natural resources we demand to make into goods , to feed our appetite for more. we are making yesterdays newest thing obsolete before  hitting the shelves .  this is the way technology and business moves now . well it is not the way i move though. and in my time i have left i intend to undo some of the wrong i  did and hopefully balance out my life. 

        so i will head to hellbender park on saturday and embrace the task i have before me. this should be interesting as i haven't seen anyone plant that many trees at once . also here on the farm we are installing a tree border area and hopefully a buffer area letting others know this is our property on reclaimed strip mine land . we have problems with the field being open to neighbors and people passing at will. have to install no trespassing signs of which i hate to do. seems to me if the land you are standing on isn't yours , shouldn't you just stay off. worked for us years ago. yet doesn't work any more.

        in order to prosecute for trespassing in ohio you have to post conspicuously. which is a load of crap. seems the county government can sure find out who the owner of the property is at tax time. so why should it be so hard when someone trespasses. get another couple of billion people and see how well this law thing works. maybe we are the lucky generation. 

       this is also the weekend to view the blossoms at oardc. kinda of getting tired just hearing myself talk about it. don't know if i am going to make it over this weekend , but will plan on the following weekend for sure. just don't know how i will feel about getting up and getting out of here early to plant trees. and there is always the possibility for some reason it is called off. oh well still plan on checking out the park and the bluffs. oardc said today that the blooms are one month early this year. maybe some more inside the state trips might be in order.