It is difficult to perceive a vertical height of ice over one mile in thickness, yet that is exactly what is partially responsible for the present glaciated landscape. Sea level was several hundred feet lower, and much of this water was likely trapped within the ice from which the glaciers were formed. Large amounts of rock and soil were carried within the glaciers, often for hundreds of miles from the original locations from which the material was picked up. As the ice melted, rivers created more land forms. Those that were the fastest pathways for meltwater expanded tremendously with this erosion and sediment transport. This is especially evident in waterways that flowed toward the Mississippi River. A glacial deposit laid down by ice is referred to as a till. Water-laid deposits are termed outwash. Broken blocks of ice that wedge into and later melt in drift are termed kettles. Most form lakes, and in some, where plant material accumulates concentrically, form bogs. This is too much like July to be October. There’s something just so “I’m tired of being hot” about it all. The light is a honey-colored amber. On open ground, around the bog, there are small fields of barely and rye. Many weeds grow amongst the grain, including knotweed,goosefoot, black nightshade, corn spurrey, field cow-white and hair-grass. There are large areas of common or heathland which has been previously cultivated, but abandoned when the soil became too impoverished to grow corn, wheat, barley, and rye. A mixed flora of grasses, white and red clover, ribwort, sheep’s sorrel, sheep’s bit, birdsfoot, trefoil, and heather grow on the commons. I walk in the mornings. The sun is low, and lowers still more everyday. It will continue to do that through December when it will take a turn upward, impercetible except to most sensitive eyes, until early February when the increase in light becomes so apparent that no one can deny that winter is through, and spring is here coming slowly as it does. There are places faded to dust, the tarnished berry light of shriveled apples gleams in the steel branches of the trees. Birds like them and will feast on them for a good many weeks to come. I hear we’ll get snow tomorrow.