The Power of the Phalange

         On Sunday, I hurt my thumb playing volleyball. It was a spectacular set that came my way. Just pure gold. I was in position 4, outside hitter. I am a pretty decent spiker (Better known as a killer (because you should be getting the point by putting the ball down (get it? (put it down..?)))))

Right there, the number 4 position.

          I got an AWESOME set from one of my teammates. He set it quickly to match my light jumping style. Feeling the spike as something that should have happened naturally, I swung at it with my right hand. (I am right handed (for the record)). The set wasn't intended for that hand; it was supposed to go to my left hand so I could hammer it down (and get the kill)! I spiked at the ball (technically, I wasn't spiking at the ball) at full force. My thumb was pushed all the way back. As soon as I horribly executed the play feeling my thumb, not in the right place, I grabbed it (while midair still if I may add that) and grimaced.

The point was valid. (cheap but valid) 

Planetwalk Day Five

Coming soon!

Planetwalk Day Four 2015

Steps: ~25,500 

          Today was significantly harder than the other days (in my opinion) perhaps it was because I wasn't pushed very hard and the sudden jump in intensity. We started in the back of Frosty’s (a local restaurant). The asphalt was cracked and broken bleached by the sun.
          We slid out of the sight of the city in an instant. I would have missed it if I were looking at the 18-wheelers mowing through the worn. It seemed like the highway took a break in the city. It was easy to think we would continue down the highway, but that would be dangerous. There was no indication that we were expert Planetwalkers. I saw many instances where the walkers weren't following conventions. We were to walk against the flow of traffic, facing the incoming traffic. That way we would be able to see cars coming and would not be victim to the Doppler Effect.

          There was a calm while walking. The roars of the semis died down and faded into the open space. The rows of corn silage became a regular sight again. There was a hum in the air though. It wasn't coming from the us passing by. There was an ethanol plant right nearby. Two massive piles of corn being processed. The fields around the facility were being surveyed by XXX He was using a machine from XXX the previous year, they put some tech underground and he wanted to find them. He was like a savvy treasure hunter using a metal detector on the beach.
          I planned on walking with Nichole, but she was involved in another conversation. I decided to change gears to cruise control (at my pace).

a shadow of my former self, cast on a broken road

          Walking past houses sprinkled on the path. I left little notes in their mailboxes. They were literally just little hello's telling the relaying a little message to the people that I didn't have a chance to talk to in person. There was one that wrote that saying “Hi. I’m just informing you that Planetwalkers passed by your house today.”  I would include John Francis’s name so they would have something to look up and find out more. This would possibly open up a conversation in the future where people would check out what we are and what we did and have a little memento of something that could be valuable in the future. The method was kinda similar to what John did all those years ago. He didn’t speak but to introduce himself, he would have a little card that explained his situation, the small biography that I would give to the people if I had been speaking to them in person. I wanted to have these be like magical tickets that would bring us all together to a tea table in a gazebo to talk about what life is all about. Imagine what that would be like, a conversation between people about where they live and their place in the living environment! 

mailbox located!

Walking ahead

the first seen the first conversationability to break the glass.set an example to how to actreinforce the feeling of discovery and "firstness"
 

          The path to number one can be arduous. There are always things that sidetrack the wanderer. The first was a pair of brothers that were working with a disk plow. It could have been the middle of a chisel plow, but I saw there were no hooks on it. I thought that they were outfitting their rigs. It was quite the opposite. The brothers were breaking down the old plow for recycling. They said the steel may fetch some fair price somewhere. I thanked them for recycling. Using that preceding sentence, I cleverly introduced my field of study. They were pleasantly surprised and welcoming after that. We got into a little conversation about the different practices one can have on a field the size of his. There as a continuous silage on the field. These cats were getting everything right.

We ended the conversation with a picture.

Breaking down the old plow. Much respect.

Planetwalk Day Three 2015

          Walking was a lot easier today. I thought there was a lot of dust blowing around but in retrospect that just means I need to take a nice shower.

          I was talking and walking with Carlie (aka. Curly). I found out that she was a big-time photographer and wanted to take photos all day that day. I would be shadowing a pro today. We did a lot of lingering. Wherever there was a group of people, we were there to document it. Such is the life and time of a person that was in interested in the way that people saw and interacted with their environment.

          We got a complaint' that we went taking any time to paint or draw pictures. Something that the planet walker did was draw and write little haiku about what he saw on his travels. They are littered throughout his books aptly titled Planetwalker. I didn't think I [personally] did things like that ...but apparently I do. I've got this habit where I saw people on the train when while going to and fro. Some of the best ones happen in the morning on my way to my high school in Williamsburg (that was when I was in NYC). John too had done that. Now we were going to take a drawing break

          There is a barn in our path and we'll use that as our stopping path. It is a windbreak for us. All the chill slipped out of the air as we enjoyed the sun in its full glory. The air was warmer and started a gentle simmering on my skin. I decided to take off my layer of sweats to fully appreciate the life-giving warmth. The trademark barn red faded away blurring into a mahogany colored wood. The wash appeared to be painted by a skilled artisan. Planetwalkers take their time allowing nature to seep into their papers. Some use paints, others pens and pencils.

The soft sky is aptly punctuated with listless clouds each smoothly sailing dragging their transformed shadows across the ground.

          Leaving the barn with Carlie, I walked on. Eventually, I came across a young man (definitely over twenty (and according to a fellow Planetwalker, quite handsome)) and his father. They were the first people I had seen out during that day. They were doing something together and I was intrigued. They turned out to be moving gravel back in place. During the winter shoveling, they had inadvertently moved the gravel off of the driveway. today they were spreading it out again so their [dirt] driveway would be more protected from rainfall impact and not flow away with the rain that was expected the coming Friday. They turned out to be Dutch. They had loved the tranquil space that the outback offered. 

          There was a guy driving an ATV in a field of what was corn the previous year. The soil was tilled the previous year with a disk plow. The silage was half under the soil with little pieces sticking up.  He was planting new water drainage tiles and also placing GPS tags into the soil so he could find them later. Great idea!

          Back on the road. I broke from my walking partner curly. Carlie and picked up the Planetwalker's son, Luke Francis. We ended up walking up to catch up with his dad.

          We walked forwards. There wasn't much to talk about. Luke is eight years at the time and he didn't really feel the whole walking thing. He was saying that running would be better to do. “It got to there faster" he said. There was a different mindset. John started his walk after seeing an oil spill. His son, on the other hand, hasn't felt the same drive to walk. (funny word choice there aye?)

marching on...

I end dropping Luke off at the next group. The done after his dad. I returned to my pace on and trudged ahead. I had wanted to walk with someone the entire time to avoid something that happened last year. During the 2014 planet walk, I had gone at my own pace.

What happens at Shilvio pace
-   A chance to observe tree stands and their staccato-like nature on the landscape-   Silence-   A kind of walking cruise control

Planet Walk Day Two 2015

Steps: ~19,000

Today my walking partner is Anisa.

A photo of Anisa taking a photo

          I know we are going to go about twice the distance today. We're gonna start from a small town called Marion where we ended yesterday. A degree of calm leaving ng that small town. Their way of finding themselves seemed to be their little teenage-life crisis (as opposed to a mid-life crisis).

          I had walked through their feelings and we had lent an ear to their troubles. It felt as if there is a wide variety of troubles. There are the drivers’ troubles with seeing walkers. They seem to drive with caution, giving us right-of-way. It has probably been a few months since they had to know how to deal with people on the side effects of the road.

          I had taken a soils class and we were talking ab it about soils and how they are more directly important for different practices. As an environmental scientist, I feel I need deep understanding of soil in order to do research and talk to people about land and how they treat it. I found myself not walking on grass at the camp we are staying at with respect for the bulk density of the soil (amount of compaction (density) of a particular pedon (area and profile of soil)).  

America's praised 'white picket fence.'

A CAFO behind America's praised white picket fence.

          We treaded past a pile of snow that had fallen perhaps a month ago and was finally shrinking as the frozen water took its slow trip back to the soil. There was soot on the snow making it look darker than it would normally be. There were sediments as well. Sediments are broken down soil clods that can freely blow roll or float with the whims of the natural laws (usually pertaining to friction gravity and aerodynamics). The freeze-thaw cycle had gotten to this unfortunate portion of the soil. Thankfully it’s all part of a cycle.

          The cycle that we rely on for generating soil is impacted by the soil forming factors. Climate, parent material, biota (biology) relief (topography) modified by time. We humans are part of biota and deal significantly in the soil formation and deformation.

Planet Walk Day One 2015

Steps:~10,000

          The morning was cold but bearable. I started off doing some basic stretches that I do in kendo club practice.  The preceding night was spent keeping with the routine I've established, doing 200 sword strikes with the megaBoken, regular seburi and kata. I know we probably won't go very far, bit I want to be as ready as I can to take a long walk.

          It would be interesting if we had a faster pace.
The walk this time was around seven miles. Starting around eleven o'clock. It was not that windy as we started the weeklong trek.  After a series of photos to mark the beginning, we headed down the street. The first of many.

A non-selfie-serfie of the group.

          The pace was comfortable. There were a few people that hadn't done walking for an extended period of time. The first day was fitting of the atmosphere. The cool breeze brushed our faces gently, a prelude to what we would be Nature’s students were walking the path of wisdom some in single file, others and in groups of two or three.

I walked with Morgan (Purple).

Things we talked about 
*Walking the second time versus. the first time around

-There are some differences that I noticed this time as someone with experience. I had to take time with one person at a time or I wouldn’t be able to taken nature in its fullest. I walked with Purple today. She was also big on having more silence and conversation focused on the living environment around us.

*Different cropping systems

- It was obvious that there were differences, but we were interested in the differences in the decisions of the farmers especially since there were Amish farmers nearby.

*Hortonian overland flow.

- an occurrence where water flows on the soil surface with sparse (a little bit of) vegetation.

*Heavy soils and tillage.

Designated wetland sign. I was so happy when I saw it!

          The group is year has already split into two parts. I don't think it has to do with pace. I think it’s about involvement. Maybe some are seeing this more as a vacation than an experience. Near the front, Purple and I were burst ahead, away from what seemed like incessant chatter. We felt that a conversation about the environment could be achieved with observation coupled with our knowledge. She had taken a geomorphology class and was swing some of the landforms natural and man-made alike. I added my input with knowledge of soils and hydrological systems perspective. We noticed where tillage (inversion of the soil) was beneficial and where it was unnecessary and self-defeating. It was obvious where the people had some education or more sense for n the issues associated with water and soil interactions.

          During our walk, near the bridge (shown on the map as a pair of squiggly lines) we saw the second Amish buggy. There was no hood over this one. They seemed to be average on the bell curve of happiness.

          We ended in Geneva where we had a long conversation about small towns. Some of the kids had hurried resentment for their situation in the small area. There was a twenty-year-old that didn't really have aspirations beyond working in a factory. He started out in Florida... And then moved to Bern then to Geneva. In Geneva, there is a strange old fashion mentality where the kids are pitted against the older generation.
          The older people in n the community control most of the money and are the larger part of the decision-making process. The large complaint was that any god idea would be taken away and rebranded as the leadership's ideas. The kids didn't feel as if their opinions would he valued if they were given in for approval.

          Perhaps the worst part I see is that the kids may fall and not the same cycle as their predecessors. Think of the moms that put their daughters through valet because they didn't do that as children and wanted to do it themselves. Ellie, a fellow planet walker, suggested the awesome grant. The grant is given out to groups that want to pull it off a small project and project and they are given out frequently. That would free them from some of the autonomy issues that they face. 

Men!

That's the very first strike in Kendo that is learned. It is a cut to the head. a straight beautiful arc. 

It's a 45 degree angle from over the kendoka's head, extending the angles between the wrist and elbows simultaneously. 

The strike is completed when the tsuba (hilt) is in front of the striker's face. Upon impact the striker grips the shinai to let inertia finish the hitting.