Today's walk to work

On my way to the train station I pass these sacks of lime which are gradually emptied into the river to make the lake nearby less acidic. This is wonderful and good for the fish, of course. But being of an intrinsically idle bent, I can't help thinking of all the dreadful work that has gone into getting hold of that lime. Horrid mining, big machines, massive packing thingamajigs and transport over insane distances. All this to make up for inconveniences caused by more work, the redirecting and damming of rivers, the creation of factories to produce acidic rain and on and on. If nobody had worked themselves to the bone to mess up, nobody would have needed to spend any effort on cleaning up. And in the end we would have had more fish in the lake.

Sure, sure. A lot of other stuff would have been different.

Here's what looks like a bridge to nowhere. The fog is so thick you can't see the other shore of the lake, which makes it feel as if you're walking on the edge of the known world. I love this.

Though this looks like a snapshot from a vacation in Mordor, it is in fact the minions of the logging company widening the road. The road was originally built in the late 1700's. Logs were first laid in the direction of the road, then more logs were lain perpendicular to the ones below. Then a layer of fir branches was laid on top of it, and a whole lot of sand and gravel on top of that again. All done by muscle power (man and horse, I'm presuming), as there wasn't much choice. Now it's more a matter of putting large rocks in one place and covering it with some kind of membrane, and then top it off with sand and gravel.

I'm not sure why they're widening this part of the road, as they did a small clear cut in this area recently and even then managed to get their vehicles where they wanted them too.