Tuesday, August 23, 2005
injury report week ending 8-21-2005
"I got a leech on me" I thought I heard Dean's voice from somewhere behind me. His wife Nancy was ahead of me and I didn't know if I heard him right or if he was addressing her in some married couple code. We were more than halfway to Bridgeton, IN from the Mansfield dam on one of western Indiana's most beautiful and little used creeks, Big Raccoon. There was a background clattering of loose rocks in a riffle and I could see that Nancy was headed for water too shallow to float her kayak. To avoid climbing out of mine and wading with my kayak on a leash, I would need to pass her on the right where it was deeper water even though that would take me very close to overhanging trees.
We had taken a lunch break and a rest break on the best shady sandbars we could find and Dean took a break to go for a cooling dip in the creek although the swimming hole he found was not very deep. This section of Big Raccoon makes me wish I had been a better student in Geology class at Indiana in 1961. Getting a grade on multiple choice tests is not as important as getting an understanding and being able to recognize the formations of the earth. I sense that the striations on the rock bank, the limestone creek bed and the trees and grasses that I cannot identify mean this is the edge of one kind of geology and the beginning of another. Earlier, I had looked at the face of the left bank and commented that it was an ancient creek. I half hoped to start a discussion about the end of the last ice-age and the glaciers that progressed to about this place in Indiana before receding as the world warmed, ice melted and the present day valleys were formed. Dean let a small smile betray how poorly my question was formed and said, "They all are."
There are times on moving water when converstions are clipped short. During the runs when the water has shape and power, it demands your full attention and only warnings are called out. When it pools due to constriction downstream, looking and listening are usually in order in the presence of serene, unspoiled beauty.
"Did you hear me say I had a leach on me?" It was Dean again and not joking. I pictured the chart from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources I got when I took the beginner class on the health of streams and I asked how big?
Dean spread his finger and thumb to about 2 inches but said it was about an inch.
"Where did it bite you?" Nancy wanted to know.
Dean pointed to his foot a few inches above his river boots at two red spots on his lower calf. We gathered our kayaks close together for a look and then continued down stream single file.
"I didn't know there were leeches in here!" "What are the chances that it would lay there who knows how long waiting for me to come by and attach to my leg?"
I had no information about the life-cycle of a leech to offer and held back my opinion that it was an ancient life form.
"It's still bleeding", he said later. "Look!"
Nancy said she could see a drop of blood. I told them of the enzymes in leech bite that prevent clotting so they can...
"... suck my blood!" Dean finished my sentence in mock horror.
After a discussion of "The African Queen", he seemed to forget about it but later said he should have kept the leech to look at later. When he found out it was not a leaf because it didn't brush off easily, he threw it into the water on instinct, revolted.
That would have been cool to see.
I could have taken a picture of it close up with his white kayak as a background.
Oh well, Monday morning from his desk at work, he rolled down his sock and hiked up his trouser leg and snapped a photo of his wound and sent it to me on the internet.
The leech is an indicator of the health of a stream. The EPA says an abundance of leeches are generally considered indicators of very poor water quality, especially in running waters. If we assume Dean picked up the leech in the pool where he swam and not in the riffles where he noticed it, one leech is not an indication of an environmentally degraded stream but I'll want to examine Big Racoon and all the streams we play in more closely.
I'm thinking we need to give something back to the environment we've been enjoying. Maybe we can learn to monitor and report on the health of the streams.
We had taken a lunch break and a rest break on the best shady sandbars we could find and Dean took a break to go for a cooling dip in the creek although the swimming hole he found was not very deep. This section of Big Raccoon makes me wish I had been a better student in Geology class at Indiana in 1961. Getting a grade on multiple choice tests is not as important as getting an understanding and being able to recognize the formations of the earth. I sense that the striations on the rock bank, the limestone creek bed and the trees and grasses that I cannot identify mean this is the edge of one kind of geology and the beginning of another. Earlier, I had looked at the face of the left bank and commented that it was an ancient creek. I half hoped to start a discussion about the end of the last ice-age and the glaciers that progressed to about this place in Indiana before receding as the world warmed, ice melted and the present day valleys were formed. Dean let a small smile betray how poorly my question was formed and said, "They all are."
There are times on moving water when converstions are clipped short. During the runs when the water has shape and power, it demands your full attention and only warnings are called out. When it pools due to constriction downstream, looking and listening are usually in order in the presence of serene, unspoiled beauty.
"Did you hear me say I had a leach on me?" It was Dean again and not joking. I pictured the chart from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources I got when I took the beginner class on the health of streams and I asked how big?
Dean spread his finger and thumb to about 2 inches but said it was about an inch.
"Where did it bite you?" Nancy wanted to know.
Dean pointed to his foot a few inches above his river boots at two red spots on his lower calf. We gathered our kayaks close together for a look and then continued down stream single file.
"I didn't know there were leeches in here!" "What are the chances that it would lay there who knows how long waiting for me to come by and attach to my leg?"
I had no information about the life-cycle of a leech to offer and held back my opinion that it was an ancient life form.
"It's still bleeding", he said later. "Look!"
Nancy said she could see a drop of blood. I told them of the enzymes in leech bite that prevent clotting so they can...
"... suck my blood!" Dean finished my sentence in mock horror.
After a discussion of "The African Queen", he seemed to forget about it but later said he should have kept the leech to look at later. When he found out it was not a leaf because it didn't brush off easily, he threw it into the water on instinct, revolted.
That would have been cool to see.
I could have taken a picture of it close up with his white kayak as a background.
Oh well, Monday morning from his desk at work, he rolled down his sock and hiked up his trouser leg and snapped a photo of his wound and sent it to me on the internet.
The leech is an indicator of the health of a stream. The EPA says an abundance of leeches are generally considered indicators of very poor water quality, especially in running waters. If we assume Dean picked up the leech in the pool where he swam and not in the riffles where he noticed it, one leech is not an indication of an environmentally degraded stream but I'll want to examine Big Racoon and all the streams we play in more closely.
I'm thinking we need to give something back to the environment we've been enjoying. Maybe we can learn to monitor and report on the health of the streams.
