The moonlight was brilliant, creating perfect silhouettes of everything that stood between the sky and the earth below.  The delicate shadows of bare branches and limbs cast a lacy network upon the ground as pools of moonlight splashed in the negative spaces between.  The remaining patches of snow became luminescent.  It was, in a sense, other worldly.

The landscape I know and loved seemed all at once foreign and exotic.  Terms you may not normally associate with the Midwest, but this land bares its own striking features, whether basked in light or shrouded in haze, that just may amaze you.

  Moraine

A ridge or mound formed by a glacier that remains unstratified.  Generally made up of soil, rock, silt or clay.  Kettle Moraine State Forest in Wisconsin is a perfect example of such a geological feature.

  Kame

A hill or mound composed of sand, gravel or till left in the depression of a retreating glacier that becomes stratified over time.

  Esker

A winding ridge of silt, sand and gravel, deposited by melting water of a retreating glacier.

  Kettle

A shallow body of water formed by retreating glaciers or flood waters.  Some kettles become bogs over time.  Bogs are wetlands where the water is covered by a layer of acidic, dead plant material.

  Slough

A slough is an alkaline wetland, often located within a prairie.  Songbird Slough in Itasca offers a local example of this glacial trait.

The formation of our landscape is truly intriguing with unique features that we can now name and fundamentally understand.

“The landscape you grow up in speaks to you in a way that nowhere else does.”

-Molly Parker

Best wishes,

Kim Sweeney