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Come back to this page each day to read another entry from Frederick R. Gehlbach's almanac of suburban natural and unnatural history, "Messages from the Wild," which chronicles the world of a forested ravine in central Texas.
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I am greeted by five degrees and eight inches of snow at dawn in 1985. While walking in this rare white world I hear a horrible din and see a snowmobiler -- obviously a displaced person. There is nothing so quiet as a morning's snow-covered landscape before the unnatural history of motorized noise. This is our second biggest snowfall -- ten inches is the record. Schools and businesses are canceled, allowing full appreciation of nature's gift, because there is no snow removal equipment in this normally snowless land. But most snows are in full retreat the next day. Two and a half days is the longest they ever put the relative quietus on suburbia, permitting me to hear what winter sounded like before the industrial revolution. |
Frederick R. Gehlbach is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Baylor University. His ecological studies have taken him from New Zealand to Slovakia and, in the Americas, from Alaska and Newfoundland to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. His research interests include the life-history strategies of small owls, small burrowing snakes and urban wildlife ecology.
From MESSAGES FROM THE WILD: AN ALMANAC OF SUBURBAN NATURAL AND UNNATURAL HISTORY by Frederick R. Gehlbach, Copyright © 2002. Courtesy of the University of Texas Press.
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