Articles by Bo Mackison

Cabbage Flowers

Decorative Cabbage

Decorative Cabbage © 2008 Bo Mackison

I don’t think a flower can be any prettier than this decorative cabbage. I love the contrast of the purples and greens. Yesterday was the last day of the Dane County Farmers’ Market on the Capitol Square. Happily, the market now moves inside so we can shop in comfort. I love my Saturday forays to the Square, but I’m not fond of getting my fingers frozen pinching the produce.

Spirit of the Tree

The Last Hurrah

Last Hurrah © 2008 Bo Mackison

When you can see each leaf as a separate thing, you can see the tree, you can feel the spirit of the tree, you can talk to it, and maybe you can begin to learn something.
~ William J Bausch

I guess if I’m going to learn anything, I’d better be quick about it. I think perhaps these are the only two leaves left in my neck of the woods. Wonder if I can study the snowflakes that are falling today instead. Not much accumulation though.

Does anyone remember catching snowflakes on black construction paper and looking at them with a magnifying glass. I think my Grandpa took me out snowflake spying when I was about six years old.

Do kids do still do that kind of thing?

Petrified Wood for Sale

Petrified Wood for Sale

Petrified Wood © 2008 Bo Mackison

My way of thinking, this is a lot of money for an old (thought, granted, very old) piece of tree. Someone must buy the stuff, or they wouldn’t have such big piles of it. The ranger at the entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park did say that the people from Jim Gray’s Petrified Wood Company in Holbrook, Arizona ran a reputable shop–unlike some nearby store keepers who illegally remove the rocks from the park to sell.

Petrified Logs in Petrified Forest National Park

Petrified Logs in Petrified Forest National Park © 2008 Bo Mackison

So how much would one of these logs cost if they were for sale? Well, we’ll never know, because they aren’t available for purchase. They are located in the National Park.

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In response to a Marcie’s question in the comments below, here are some facts about petrified wood that you might not know:

Petrified wood is permineralized wood (as in permanently mineralized) and it is a fossil from a family of trees now extinct in the Northern Hemisphere. The trees are still found in a very few places in the Southern Hemisphere. During the Late Triassic Period – 248 to 206 million years ago – this Arizona desert region was tropical. During seasonal flooding, trees were swept into sandy river channels, and then periodically buried by layers of gravelly sand and volcanic ash.

The ash, which is a source of silica, permineralized the buried wood, replacing the wood with silica. Red iron oxide and pink manganese deposits added coloring in the fossil. Voila!

Petrified wood, of course, didn’t occur overnight. The ocean receded over 60 million years ago, and the wood gradually turned into mineral fossils. Awesome stuff, this geology.

How to Mentally Survive Cold Weather

Glenwood Springs Pool

Glenwood Springs Hot Springs Pool © 2008 Bo Mackison

This is my solution to the arrival of challenging weather. Today it is rainy, not cold, but just rainy and a bit gloomy. So whenever I look outside, I visualize one of the places we visited when we were in the West and Southwest earlier this fall. I have lots of variety – I can imagine standing on the trail winding through the red rock formations in Utah, or feel my feet planted in the desert surrounded by saguaro cacti in Arizona, or imagine I am relaxing in these steamy pools, surrounded by the Rockies.

And what amazing pools they are. I’m not sure it’s the place I would like to be in the middle of summer vacation, but on a cool and cloudy Sunday evening in October, it was a grand experience. The water is supplied by the mineral-filled Yahweh Springs, the water so hot at 122˚F that cold water needs be mixed with the spring water to make it a balmy 90˚in the large pool and a relaxing 104˚ in the therapeutic pool — which is smaller, but still the size of a typical community pool. Three and a half million gallons of mineral water run through the pools every day.

Originally built in 1890, the Glenwood Springs’ Hot Springs Pools have seen their share of celebrities. Al Capone, Titantic-survivor Molly Brown, and President Teddy Roosevelt have all been satisfied visitors. I was happy to share the same experience, and today I’m remembering the splash of the hot water and how all the weariness from a 10 hour travel day seemed to melt away.

Now I plan to use those memories to wipe away the weariness of inclement winter.

A New Era Dawns

Barack Obama Delivering his Victory Speech

Barack Obama Delivering his Victory Speech

The winner of the Presidential election:

The road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there.  Barack Obama

And a gracious loser:

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.  John McCain