International Rock Flipping Day

September 2, 2007 found me at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. An Army Corps of Engineers project from the 1950s, Lake Cumberland has 55,000 surface acres of water and over 1200 miles of shoreline. What a place to flip a rock!



Because of much needed repairs to the dam, the water level this year has been drastically dropped (about 40 feet) revealing beautiful rocky ledges and colorful expanses hidden beneath the lake for years.

For me, though, red, rocky ledges can also mean unfamiliar hidden reptiles--I was a little out of my comfort zone on these more southern Kentucky slopes. So, I decided to play it safe and seek my rocks by canoe, along the edges.

The layering is beautiful,
from fragile shale that disintegrates into flakes like jigsaw pieces,

to chunky limestone blocks.

And, if you look very closely, some large, round, crystal-lined balls are within the layers--

geodes!

I was able to glide right up to this one at the water's edge.

And many are still buried within the layers--
looking like little cannonballs embedded in the walls of the canyon.

Can you see this one? (Look 18" beneath the weathered stump)

So, technically, I didn't look under a rock, more actually, between rocks.
Does that count?

To see what others have found on IRFD, take a look:
Windywillow (Ireland)
Heraclitean Fire (London, England)
Sheep Days (Illinois, USA)
Earth, Wind & Water (somewhere in the Caribbean)
Pocahontas County Fare (West Virginia, USA)
chatoyance (Austin, Texas)
Fragments from Floyd (Virginia, USA) - GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Watermark (Montana, USA)
pohanginapete (Aotearoa/New Zealand)
Fate, Felicity, or Fluke (Oregon, USA)
Thomasburg Walks (Ontario, Canada)
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Woman (Queensland, Australia)
The Transplantable Rose (Austin, Texas)
Nature Woman (New York state, USA)
Marja-Leena Rathje (British Columbia, Canada)
A Blog Around the Clock (North Carolina, USA)
Busy Dingbat’s Sphere (West Virginia, USA)
Hoarded Ordinaries (New Hampshire, USA)
Congo Days (Kinshasa, Congo)
this too (London, England)
Roundrock Journal (Missouri, USA)
Wanderin’ Weeta (British Columbia, Canada)
Blaugustine (London, England)
A Honey of an Anklet (Virginia, USA)
Looking Up (Ohio, USA)
Ontario Wanderer (Ontario, Canada)
Bug Safari (California, USA)
Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA)
Pure Florida (Florida, USA)
Burning Silo (Ontario, Canada)
Musings from Myopia (Texas, USA)
Cicero Sings (British Columbia, Canada)
Joan (Missouri, USA)

My IRFD escort, a Green Heron who stayed just ahead of the canoe, waiting for a juicy tidbit to crawl out from under a rock.