Water, water, everywhere! I’m at the Necedah Public Library, updating my blog, and before I head back to the Refuge I’d like to share a few images of the water itself, which is the life-blood of Necedah’s ecosystem. Necedah is translated as “yellow water” which refers to dissolved tannins in the water. Placid, Necedah’s waters reflect the sky in dazzling cobalt blue — but where the water is churning through culverts and spillways it resembles a foaming mug of root-beer. The roads (within the refuge) are graveled trails which largely follow the tops of earthen dikes around impoundment ponds, or on the berm-banks of old drainage ditches. The entire area was extensively ditched and drained around the turn of the century, for agricultural use, but the farms failed by the time of the Great Depression… for historical details, I recommend reading the work of Aldo Leopold (set just south of here).