Home Our Beginning Our Place Our Role About Us Contact
Click HERE to submit your message.
Accepted responses will be banked by year for research.
Read thoughts from our visitors below.
from our visitors
today the cold and long winter rolled up revealing a rosey wash gleaming on dripping icicles and chickadee song
beatrice, USA
I recently tagged along on a journey with a group of CMU University Graduate students to Drummond Island, Michigan, to a rare habitat called an Alvar. This Alvar on Drummond Island accounts for approx, 15% of the Great Lakes total Alars in the World. Rated one of the least disturbed Alvar sites in the World. An Alvar is an amazing, rare harsh habitat that is based on the watershed that drain the Great Lakes, a part of the Niagara Escarpment, which consists of a base of limestone deposits. This undisturbed opening of limestone is believed to be 435 million years old. Standing on this flat, barren and largely treeless base, we realized that we were standing on an ancient sea floor left from the glacier receding 10,000 years ago and 5,000 years ago the surface came to life as dry land. You could virtually see the marine ecosystem impressions in the limestone base. At first glance you think that this opening is barren, but with closer inspection is a home to very distinctive plants and animals. This extreme habitat has very little soil and what soil there is, it is 100% organic matter. The soils were long ago scraped away by ice, wind and water. Home to uncommon wildflowers such as, Hill's Thistle, Prairie Smoke, Prairie Dropseed, White Goldenrod, Ram's Head Orchid, fragrant Sumac and mosses, lichens, many kinds of grasses and sedges as well as stunted trees. Some of these trees have been shown to be dated back 300-500 years old, and look like bonsai trees. I was very attracted to this amazing habitat. The colors of the lichens and little plants were a world onto themselves. Where most people would see not much, with a little more knowledge you could feel the ancient her-story of the place, all you can say is wow! Taking the time to feeling the presence of this place was a gift. For more information or to help preserve this rare habitat from development go to: The Nature Conservancy Great Lakes Program - Alvars.
Wendy Wagoner, USA
I was riding to a sad event when a deer stepped out of the wooded edge. I slowed to a stop and we stared at one another for it seemed a minute before it turned and lept back into the green. I felt something passed between us that was a real blessing of gentleness and care. I think my way, our society's way, of living is cutting out such exchanges of energy by spending so much time indoors. How can we rearrange things?
Matisse, USA