Brook trout.

 Snow day.  schools and many places closed in Grand Haven and along the coastline of Lake Michigan.

After a warm December the ice on Lake Michigan is beginning to freeze along the shoreline. One crystal grabs one grain of sand and the ice begins to build outward into the lake.

 

 

 

 

Our Lives Together

 

My husband, you know my love for you forever

Remains true over time and restless tides

We live and love each other in our fine house

Where we have raised our loving family                                                 

Two successful daughters on their own

Beautiful women with children of their own

Five grandchildren now grown and successful

One great grandchild, a sprightly girl with curls

Who does the splits on a balance beam.

 

Our lives blessed near the freshwater seas rolling in

And sometimes like a mirror for sky

I need you as the earth needs the sun light

And as the earth needs rain, clouds, snow and ice

We are blessed on earth, blessed and forever blessed.

 

Stay by me as you have for many years

And I will stay by you my faithful husband

Down through the passing days, months, years

We started with little and as we worked

We gained more: our house, our family and friends

It could never be better our lives together

With a love like this we shall live long lives

Together in our house by Lake Michigan

Together here and beyond our lives here.

 

                                            --Barbara Spring

 Wet in Wet

Pigments stain wet paper
Swirl out in rolling clouds
Of colors that run together
Blend ochre for antelope hides
For sand dune forms and
For the earth I roll up under my toes.
I add Paynes gray translucent as water
And a touch of vermilion for desire.

Palette and brush extend from the mazes
Of my brain and move to rhythms imbedded
In cycles of stars, the arms of
Spiral galaxies, in the dances of creation
Bright planets and singing stars
In the rolling of waves, the beating of wings
And wind sighing through green leaves of trees
And singing in gold and green grasses
I am making my wet into wet painting

--Barbara Spring

Summer

See how green breezes

Play oak leaves high

Above me.

Summer breezes touch my cheeks

Bend beach grasses

Scatter their seeds--

Sand pipers skitter across the beach

As a brown bear dances

 in my dream.

                           --Barbara Spring

Whale Watching on the Sea of Cortez

                                          Whale Watching on the Sea of Cortez 

Baja California, the long finger of land dangling into

Mexico with the Sea of Cortez on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other, is full of surprise encounters. The Sea of Cortez is a playground for whales and other marine mammals.

      In La Paz, we embarked on a small cruise ship fitted out with all sorts of equipment designed to investigate this surprising environment. The trip opened worlds of wonder to us.

     The Sea Bird is operated by Lindblad Cruises, a line that specializes in ecotourism.  Our guides were specialists in the flora and fauna of Baja and though they had studied their specialties for many years, they as well as we were constantly surprised by what we encountered.

      “Look, a Blue Whale,” Steve our expert in marine mammals shouted.  “It’s the largest animal that has ever lived on earth!”

      We saw the dark, majestic body of the whale surface and then slowly sound, several times.  We watched its dorsal fin and its graceful tail disappear quite close to us.  We peered through binoculars while we waited breathlessly for it to emerge again from the mysterious waters that some call the Sea of California.

      Steve was full of information: “These waters are ll,000 feet deep at their deepest...the whales have a different song in each ocean basin... their low pitched voices can travel l500 miles...no one knows how long they live...ivory harpoons have been found in whales...best estimate..135-200 years.” 

      He told us the area is young in geological time.  Millennia ago, tectonic plates shifted separating the Baja from the mainland causing the depths of the Sea of Cortez and thrusting up the Sierra Madre Mountains on the mainland of Mexico.

      “The rocky islands you see are of volcanic origin,” he

explained.

      Just then another whale surfaced quite close to the ship “A Brydes Whale,” Steve shouted.  “I’ve never seen one before.”

      We had not either.  The Sea of Cortez is full of whales as well as twenty other species of marine mammals.  There is plenty of room for them to cruise its deep canyons and plenty of food brought up by upwelling currents.

Our scientist/guides on board seined the waters with a net to see what sort of plankton they could find. They put a drop of water under a microscope and hooked this to the t.v. in the lounge so we could see the fascinating array of life on the t.v. screen--life forms only visible when magnified. We saw the larvae of star fish and many beautiful shapes of diatoms.  I thought we might see krill, the preferred food of baleen whales, but such was not the case.  The seine net could not go deep enough to strain out krill. Our day of whale watching changed to evening as we watched the vivid colors on the rugged landscape we passed.

   The next day we saw two humpback whales spouting and sounding in unison, perhaps a mother and her calf.  We got quite close and Andrew, the ship’s underwater camera man went out in the zodiac to film them.  I gasped when I saw how close he was to the whale’s flukes when he plunged into the water.

      I asked him if he got any pictures when he was back on the Sea Bird. 

      “My heart was just pounding,” he said, “but I couldn’t

get close enough for filming...we had equipment to record their voices, but they were not vocalizing.”  

     We learned to identify whales by their spouts...these whales had V shaped spouts while the Blue Whale spouted straight up.  Gray whales have a heart shaped spout. Two Common Dolphins rode the bow wake as we cruised along. I leaned over the rail to snap photos. Toward evening the sunlight on the islands we passed turned their rose madder colors to deep royal blues as a full moon rose over them.

 We also had an underwater camera and we used it the next day to photograph California Sea Lions.

      We were up early and the sunrise shining on the islands turned them to gold. After breakfast we donned wetsuits provided by the cruise line along with fins and snorkels.

      We could hear the barking of the sea lions as they cavorted on a picturesque rocky island.  These were young males, pups, and their mothers.  We slipped into the sea and were greeted by playful sea lions under water.  They zoomed by us and peered into our masks with their large eyes.  They played. I imagined that one was dancing with me...twisting, looping, and sleek. I wished I had just some of its underwater grace. All around us were vivid flashes of bright colors and the fanciful patterns and shapes of tropical fish going about their lives around the rocky island.

      We stopped at Arroyo Blanco to kayak around the sea caves. We heard the water surge and recede, sonorous and low, boom in the caves where we paddled. Paddling close to the rocks we saw Sally Lightfoot Crabs and lizards and many types of sea birds: pelicans, blue footed boobies, osprey. On the sandy beach, small stones and shells washed in and out with the waves.

We found paddling around the islands easier than walking.

      Many varieties of cactus march up the stony hillsides of the islands we visited.  We took hikes, mindful of the thorns. These rugged islands are not an easy place to live, yet many species of plants have found a way to cling to the rocks in drought and in the rainy season.

      We were told that 99% of the living space on planet Earth is in the oceans. I felt we had only scratched the surface on this cruise yet there were mysteries and surprises abounding.  We were fortunate to see a Blue Whale, a Brydes Whale,and Humpback Whales sounding and spouting in unison.  We followed a Sperm Whale, but it was elusive. We examined minute plankton through a microscope.  We saw many dolphins and swam with California Sea Lions.  We saw tropical fish and kayaked in sea caves. What a great adventure for two land lubbers.

The Nearness of God 

See how the breeze moves through 

Every blossom and leaf. 

See how the sounds of each bird 

And insect wing sings 

In our very heart’s core. 

Under a dome of rock in a sea cave. 

Listen to the ocean roar  

Hear the whales sing through green 

Halls shot with sunlight. 

God’s majesty in all. 

--Barbara Spring