The Blocked Bridge on the LaBarque

Bridge over Doc Sargent Road

I've seen Roman aqueducts; they're very cool and they still work. This one on LaBarque Creek is more basic. I enjoy sidling down the sandy creek banks and hunting the fascinating fossils near this bridge on Doc Sargent Road. This area was once the shore of the great inland ocean, so the fossils are of marine plants. Imagine a time when plants, only plants, ruled the Earth! Was there love? Oh, there had to be! The rocks pictured below are from my latest hunt. Fortunately, fossils on rocks almost always lie fossil-side-up, making hunting a little simpler.

Yet this was the first time I actually  saw how one of the bridge's two ducts was clogged near to its "ceiling" with sand. Now I fully understand why in 2015 and 2017 the LaBarque, usually not much more than a stream, rose so quickly and forcefully over its banks and the adjacent road.

Seeing new and huge deposits of sand choking the creek, after those floods, did bother me, but it seems that Nature took care of them. This, though, I can't see a solution to.

Light Like Christmas Cookies

How perfect: a sunny Christmas Day, 50 degrees, and eight off-trail hikers who met through Meetup.com, for various reasons all of us free on Christmas afternoon to explore LaBarque Creek Conservation Area and Natural Area, 639 acres, almost all forested, including seasonal waterfalls on LaBarque Creek tributaries. This was our second annual Christmas Day hike; last year's was snowy, cloudy, and icy. This year's had the pale yellow light of Christmas cookies. Recent rains allowed us to see running streamlets with green-and-gold pools up to three feet deep. We found that the Conservation Department has been sawing down red cedar trees, an invasive, non-native species, so that natural Missouri dolomite and sandstone glades can restore themselves. The downed trees made our going rough at times. But we were out for adventure. Above you see our leader, Kim.

I am always at the end of the line of hikers, about 45 seconds behind the rest despite my best efforts. This is called "being the sweep," and it is a job: The "sweep" makes sure the number of hikers leaving the woods is the same number that came in. One of us slipped on wet rock and fell, but it wasn't me; unfortunately he landed on, and broke the screen of, his cellphone.

(Excuse me--I have to go--the kitchen mousetrap just went "snap"!)

Erosion Control on the LaBarque

LaBarque Creek has changed over the years, and the side nearer the highway, when it was in full flood, eroded way into the clayish soil until there was a 6-foot dropoff at the creek bend. A daydreamer walking in that meadow (formerly a baseball diamond) could have taken a step like Wile E. Coyote and plunged right into the drink. The Divine property is adjacent to newly public land, and the Missouri Department of Conservation came to here to stabilize this creek bank. Concerned about the same erosion, Demetrius and I had tried to plant native trees there some years ago. We had the right idea but wrong approach.

First, the conservation people cleared that meadow of its cedars, which are invasive and non-native trees here, but instead of letting 'em lie, anchored them to the creek bank sidewise and halfway in the water, as you see in the photo. They act like tree roots, capturing natural debris that helps rebuild the creek bank, while serving as habitat for fish and other water creatures. They filled in some of the slope with dirt. And then some volunteers planted, like, a thousand willow trees which will grow quickly and further stabilize the creek bank. You can see the willow slips, just about six inches tall, in the meadow, planted in rows, croplike.

This is green creativity at its best!