The Planet

This week's Time magazine cover article is about the global warming that we have likely caused. It seems both the worst calamity that man has yet devised and the furtherist thing we can really have any impact upon a solution. Amish Acres sits on a watershed where we have field tile draining both north and south in the same 80 acres, I realize what we do here affects the water in the Atlantic and The Gulf of Mexico. In a recent newsletter I learned that the drainage running south goes to the Tippecanoe River, considered the 10th most important waterway into he country due to the diversity of species that live in it, as well as the number of species living there that are considered endangered. It twists and turns for 225 miles throughout northern Indiana on its 70-mile trek to the Wabash River, encompassing 1.25 million acres. It has the largest and most significant population of the imperiled mussel species remaining in the world, supporting 47 of its original 57 species. I accompanied Doug and Barb Grant on a spring field trip to see these mussels two years ago. Doug is secretary of the board of trustees of the Indiana Nature Conservancy. The Tippecanoe River also contains American ells, paddlefish and sturgeon. I will be more careful of what I pour on our sacred ground.