"Be kind to your web-footed friends,

For a duck may be somebody's mother;

She lives all alone in a swamp,

Where it's always dark and damp."

Or does she live all alone in a marsh, where it’s always dark and harsh? Or a fen like an old moorhen? Or a bog? And are they all just wetlands? It is one of my life goals to figure out how marsh, swamp, fen, and bog differ. Hey, you have your bucket list, I have mine. I'm just a Riparian kind of girl.

My own personal swamp

Once I asked friend, Nancy, to explain all of this to me because she worked in the field. Now I understand the pained look she gave me. It turns out it all depends on whom you ask and where your little puddle is located. There are both professional (ecologist, hydrologist, etc.) and regional variations in terms. And there’s more than a little disagreement.

Feels like a swamp. . . .

I never should have opened this can of peat. Here I was worried about swamp vs. marsh vs. bog vs. fen. I had no idea I needed to add:

peatland    billabong    kettlehole    cataract    muskegs

seeps  swales   pocosins   hollows    mires

and more.

You’re on your own with those. For now, I’ll go with:

A wetland has saturated soil, flooded enough to create anaerobic conditions. Good for anaerobic plants, not so much for us aerobic types.

 Swamps have trees and are found in the southeast and Great Lakes areas. That explains why I grew up thinking swamp.

Marshes have thick vegetation in the form of grasses and cattails but not trees. So when the beaver took down the trees in my pond, did he turn it into a marsh? (See entry for March 30 & 31.)

A bog is peat-filled and has sphagnum moss and conifers. It’s acidic.

The fen is alkaline.

No wonder I had trouble. I’m sticking with swamp.

Oh, no–a slough-

What will I do?

STICKTOATIVITY

The countryside will grip you,

But sometimes it can rip you;

You’ll hear your pants a’rippin’

When greenbriers are a’grippin.’

Burdocks, nightshade, stickseed,

Gooseberries and chickweed-

Some have little pickers,

That shred your favorite knickers.

The countryside will grab you,

Lacerate and stab you.

Stella's Green Cravat

Watch where you're steppin', little Myrtle Warbler.

BIG SKY COUNTRY

We’ve watched the sun rise and set over the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the China Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the North Sea. And over a pond in York Township. 

The view here includes east, west, south, and half the north sky. 

City lights are exciting and fun, but they wash away the stars. Our night sky is like a planetarium because luckily, there are no big farm lights nearby. 

The Milky Way, the space shuttle, eclipses, and Hale-Bopp-- we have viewed them all from our front row seats on the deck.

Move over, Montana. Move over, Colorado.
Make way for the flatlands.