Vital Basics: Nature Journaling Week #18

Another back-to-back weekly journaling! I’m feeling more together and motivated to open that book. I’m still working inside but hopefully will do an outdoor session soon.

Last week, Juncos and the other creatures at the bird feeder inspired me to think about interactions and connections. One of the things all the living things outside are dealing with right now is snow. It’s a cold habitat out there, but not just cold. There’s water out there. Snow is water in its solid form. But I also have a heated birdbath, so there’s liquid water, too. Icicles have hung on my house eaves. That was natural water that moved from snow to liquid water and back to a solid. A much more substantial solid, but still composed of the same molecules.

I decided to spend some time with water. It’s a unique molecule with both positive and negative regions that allow it to do all the things it does. Ice floats because it has less mass than liquid water, for example. Salts can dissolve in water because the pieces are drawn to the charges of water molecules. Every living thing requires water in some amount and form. As I flip back through my journal, I must understand that.

The creatures here right now, especially mice and voles, can use solid water as a home. A layer of snow insulates the ground from major temperature fluctuations that occur in the air. We’re basically blind to this subnivean zone life unless we catch some tracks as they occasionally come to the surface to raid dropped birdseed.

Water is so important and so complex, many journal entries could be made. I like the water cycle and added it. It’s another reminder of how life changes constantly and how everything is connected. We depend on that change and those connections. If water only fell and didn’t rise as vapor, the skies would eventually become dry. If water didn’t flow underground, we would eventually become submerged. If we lose the ice at our poles, we may lose the thermoclines that power winds that direct our climates. If our water reserves become polluted, the mechanics might still work, but will we be able to drink it? Consuming water is necessary for all life.

Simple things are important. Writing about water reminds me of that.