Nick Blocha
The snow sparkles like a reflection of a star-lit galaxy. The mid-morning sun is warm, out in full for the first time in some uncounted weeks. In open space it heats the pink skin it can see, while the inside of my insulated hand-me-down coat and new overalls, a personal investment, keeps my body cocooned in my bodily warmth.
It is the winter solstice. The season officially starts tomorrow, so I seek some other pieces of nature, in lieu of our lack of growing mistletoe, to hang over our entryway. A tradition of Alban Arthan and Koliada, rather than looking for a kiss, evergreens are hung to bring well-faring tides on the winter season as we travel into spring. The Oak king replaces the reign of the Holly ‘till the mid-summer when the switch will happen once more, as it always does. Now is the time, traditionally, of the child of the new year to be reborn, as the days grow up and the sun shines longer again.
The squeaky crunch of snow can be irritating after a while of walking but kneeling at the cross-roads of our prairie I still myself to level with the trees and tall grasses, all still silently weathering on, as they do through each season. There are no leaves now on the cottonwood to sing and dance their celebration in the wind, only the occasional creak of the curved, wooden limbs. Through them can be seen the many pathways, trails, and roads now highlighted in white.
Ice fishers drill down to tap unfrozen water and pitch their huts on the bay, assuming the form of black squares against the still solidifying snow and ice. The occasional echo of a birdshot or rifle parades on the air faintly, “pow, pow, pow!” like a whisper yelled across the highway. Pheasants hide in the grass and mule deer leave their tracks compressed in the sparkling white under hoof. Tracks of all kinds are abundant in the snow, and so easily reveal the range, patterns, and diversity of life. Around Lakeside’s campus, one can see evidence of the common occurrence of turkey and humans following the same path. There is order to the chaotic wilds of nature and chaos in the order of mankind.
The gilded prairie still is filled with the chirp of birdsong. Little brown ones, whose names I do not yet know, flutter and tweet between the reeds, flapping harshly against the gusts of Westward winds. But today the air is calm, and the birds sing to their lung’s content, “even on the shortest, darkest day of the year, the sun shines and we are here, grand and little alike!”
About The Author
Nick Blocha is serving as a Land and Water Steward via Green Iowa AmeriCorps at the Iowa Lakeside Labs (ILL) in Milford, Iowa. Sister lab to the state hygienists in Iowa City, ILL analyzes water samples from around the state, hosts researchers and students, artists and writers, and aids in a number of environmental and community efforts with a multitude of partnering organizations and government agencies.
With a background in the arts and storytelling, and as a long-time environmental enthusiast, Nick grew up as a barefoot hippie in the woods of North Carolina and Atlanta, and values the service they can provide and assist with via the GIA program. Nick seeks to focus on the spaces where human society and nature intersect and coexist in harmony.