Shoals, Indiana Area Photos

As usual while on vacation with my sister, Diana, we both took lots of photos.  It is one of the things we love doing with each other.  I have two more sets of photos to post, including the pictures below.

Jug rock is located on the edge of town.  Jug Rock is a natural geological formation located in the valley of the East Fork of the White River. It is composed of sandstone, and is the largest free-standing table rock formation in the United States east of the Mississippi River. It is part of the Mansfield formation, laid down in the Pennsylvanian geological epoch, roughly 325 to 286 million years ago. Erosion along fracture lines separated it from a nearby cliff.

Next we stopped at Overlook Park....

 

Then we drove southeast of town to Hindostan Falls.  The town of Hindostan was founded at the falls of the East Fork of the White River in 1816. The settlement sat along the original stagecoach route  and was one of the only roads in the new state of Indiana, which had been a territory until 1816. By 1820, it was the largest community in what was then still Daviess County and the most promising town on the White River.

By 1820, about 1,200 people lived in the new town, making it one of the largest settlements in frontier Indiana. Many lived on houseboats on the White River. The surge of population toward new land on the Indiana and Illinois frontiers, as well as Hindostan's location along the stagecoach route, meant that it was constantly open to carriers of disease. Disease eventually destroyed the town. An epidemic of yellow fever or cholera broke out in Hindostan in 1820. Water- and insect-borne illnesses were the bane of many towns on the Midwestern frontier. Situated along rivers for the purpose of easy transportation, towns were often built on flood plains that bred insects in huge numbers. The ferocity of the epidemic that struck Hindostan, however, caused the population to succumb to disease or abandon the area.  The falls is shown below.

Our next destination was a covered bridge, located northwest of Shoals.

Just up river from the covered bridge we stopped at a damn....

 

We walked down a stairway to the beach....

Then we walked onto the cement structure located at the damn.  The photo below shows a view looking straight down....

On the way back to Shoals, we stopped at a small park that used to be the Trinity Springs resort.

The house we rented was located next to a church.  We had to drive through a hole in a hedge to reach our very remote rental.

There was a porch off the second story.  The photo below shows the hill located next to the house.

The pictures below show Diana and I playing with the house and the antiques that were located all over the house.

CITES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jug_Rock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindostan_Falls,_Indiana

Southern Indiana -- Ohio River Photos

Yesterday I arrived back home from the Mason, MI gem and mineral show.  I took a couple of extra days after the show to visit with friends and family.  Then I headed back home and finished moving the rest of the wood pile into the wood shed.  For today's blog posting I decided to dip back into the photos I took a couple of weeks ago while visiting southern Indiana with my sister, Diana.

We stopped at a small park along the Ohio River to have lunch.  There was a huge root system and evidence of erosion....

There were walnut trees everywhere....

We went for a hike along the river....

At the end of the trail there was a dry river bed and dry waterfalls.  It would have been interesting to see this tributary river with water in it.

On the way back to the car a long barge being pushed by a tug went by....

A pond next to the parking lot...

All About Snowy Owls

The other day while hiking in the western side of Grand Sable Dunes, we spotted a large snowy owl sitting on the top of a pine tree.

The snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) is a large, white owl that are native to Arctic regions in North America and Eurasia. Younger snowy owls start with darker plumage, which turns lighter as they get older. Males are almost all white, while females have more flecks of gray plumage.

This yellow-eyed, black-beaked white bird is easily recognizable. It is 52–71 cm (20–28 in) long, with a 125–150 cm (49–59 in) wingspan. Also, these owls can weigh anywhere from 1.6 to 3 kg (3.5 to 6.6 lb).  It is one of the largest species of owl and, in North America, is on average the heaviest owl species. Their heavily feathered taloned feet, and coloration render the snowy owl well-adapted for life north of the Arctic Circle.

This species of owl nests on the ground, building a scrape on top of a mound or boulder. A site with good visibility is chosen, such as the top of a mound with ready access to hunting areas and a lack of snow. Gravel bars and abandoned eagle nests may be used. The female scrapes a small hollow before laying the eggs. Breeding occurs in May to June, and depending on the amount of prey available, clutch sizes range from 3 to 11 eggs, which are laid singly, approximately every other day over the course of several days. Hatching takes place approximately five weeks after laying, and the pure white young are cared for by both parents. The young hatch asynchronously, with the largest in the brood sometimes 10 to 15 times as heavy as the smallest.  Both the male and the female defend the nest and their young from predators, sometimes by distraction displays. Males may mate with two females which may nest about a kilometer apart.  Some individuals stay on the breeding grounds while others migrate.  Snowy owls nest in the Arctic tundra of the northernmost stretches of Alaska, Canada, and Eurasia. They winter south through Canada and northern Eurasia, with irruptions occurring further south in some years. Snowy owls are attracted to open areas like coastal dunes and prairies that appear somewhat similar to tundra.

In January 2009, a snowy owl appeared in Spring Hill, Tennessee, the first reported sighting in the state since 1987.  Also notable is the mass southern migration in the winter of 2011/2012, when thousands of snowy owls were spotted in various locations across the United States. This was then followed by an even larger mass southern migration in 2013/2014 with the first snowy owls seen in Florida for decades.  Since two snowy owls were seen by a friend east of Grand Marais, they definitely have migrated to the south shore of Lake Superior.

This powerful bird relies primarily on lemmings and other small rodents for food during the breeding season. They feed on a wide variety of small mammals such as meadow voles and deer mice, but will take advantage of larger prey, frequently following traplines to find food. Some of the larger mammal prey includes hares, muskrats, marmots, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, prairie dogs, rats, moles ducks, geese, shorebirds, pheasants, grouse, coots, grebes, gulls, songbirds, and even other raptors, including other owl species. Most of the owls' hunting is done in the "sit and wait" style; prey may be captured on the ground or in the air, or fish may be snatched off the surface of bodies of water using their sharp talons. Each bird must capture roughly 7 to 12 mice per day to meet its food requirement and can eat more than 1,600 lemmings per year. Unlike most owls that hunt at night, snowy owls are diurnal and hunt during the day and night.

CITE:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl