Nature Notations from an Early August Day of Biking and Hiking

Over the course of my senior executive years (reporting directly to the CEO at three universities; serving as CEO at four) I subscribed to a belief that four levels of fitness are essential to effectively serving, leading, living, and learning. I hold firmly to my conclusion that human capacity, performance, fulfillment, and enjoyment correlate with individual health and well-being…that maintaining fitness across all four dimensions enhances our ability to live fully:

    1. Mental – acuity and sharpness
    2. Physical – health and vitality
    3. Emotional – friends, families, colleagues
    4. Spiritual – embrace of a presence larger than self

I’ve carried these core beliefs and life-guidelines into retirement. In what way does this GBH Post relate to my four levels of fitness theme? August 3, 2021, I began my day walking 45 minutes with Judy (spouse) in our neighborhood as dawn broke. Check boxes 1-4. I’m most alert (mental) to the world around me when I’m outside, especially in the morning. Physical is obvious; emotional is quality time with Judy; and, nothing is more spiritual than welcoming a new day’s dawning.

After breakfast I loaded my bicycle, drove to Owens Cross Roads, parked at the trailhead just east of the Publix and began pedaling south at 7:30 AM (temperature ~67 degrees) on Big Cove Creek Greenway. I wanted to log at least 20 miles. The trail traces through mixed forest and meadow cover along Big Cove Creek on its journey toward the Flint River, which it enters in Hays Nature Preserve, a property of the Land Trust of North Alabama. The Greenway crosses the River on an elevated concrete and steel span. Once out of the Preserve the trail becomes the Flint River Greenway, continuing through meadows, forests, and part of the Hampton Cove Robert Trent Jones Golf Course, once again crossing the river before reaching the parking lot and trailhead at old highway 431.

Flint River

[Photos from Prior Visits]

 

I doubled back to the trailhead, then out and back to the Greenway’s end north of Route 28, then east on the Little Cove Creek Greenway along the north side of the Eastern Bypass out of Owens Crossroads, taking me five miles to the end, a place of beauty framed by meadows, farm fields, and surrounding hills standing up to 500 feet above the valley floor.

Hampton Cove

 

I returned to Publix, adding another out and back to the Hays Nature Preserve parking lot. Total mileage reached 22.3; riding goal accomplished!

Hays

[Photo from Prior Visit]

 

I feel a bit guilty about including the detail, yet, I would love to have had these combined route possibilities presented to me three years ago when seeking options upon arriving at my Madison retirement destination. So, I risk boring you for the cause of informing those with similar interest.

I captured the next five images of the Flint River just off the Flint River Greenway. Still carrying a good early August flow following nearly seven inches of July rains, the River passed from left to right, entertaining me with gurgles and soft ripples. Wild potato vine’s white flowers graced the shoreline, welcoming the morning sun.

Hays

 

A few hundred feet upstream, the river flows (again left to right) beyond a marshy area. Look hard to the far bank mid-photo. Squint if necessary to see a great blue heron. Okay, I can’t see it clearly either without telephoto help — scroll down.

Hays

 

These are magnificent birds, avatar and totem for my Dad, who left me with a deep and abiding love and respect for Nature that has only grown stronger since his death 26 years ago. See this three-minute read for the story of my spiritual connection to the great blue heron: https://stevejonesgbh.com/reflections/

Hays

 

Exchanging my biking clothes for my woods gear at my daughter’s nearby office restroom, I drove the three miles to the east entrance of the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary, also bordering the Flint River. I wandered into the bottomland hardwood forest and adjacent tupelo swamp. I had no purpose in mind other than, because I was already on that side of Huntsville, to see what secrets the forest might reveal in early August. Our southern forests never disappoint!

Persistent rains have kept the lower areas still saturated with lots of standing water in the tupelo stands, justifying my extra effort trudging through the forest in nearly knee-high rubber boots. I saw lots of wildlife sign (deer and raccoon tracks), but no actual forest critters except for a single squirrel. Okay, I suppose mosquitoes are critters…plentiful voracious critters intent upon finding nourishment at my expense!

I also wanted to see what mushroom varieties were prevalent. I found a scattering of aging chanterelles completing their cycle and recycling back into the forest litter. I spotted one grouping of oyster mushrooms past peak on a fallen log. Some remnant peppery milkcap were also losing their pure white luster, along with one fading bolete. Other fungi species tantalized me, reminding me of my far-too-inadequate mushroom knowledge.

The average daily high and low temperatures for early August are 91 and 70, above my preferred range for deep woods exploration. Looking ahead to more favorable conditions, I shall endeavor to return for another round of biking and hiking by mid-October, when the average temperatures are 76 and 52! Now that sounds inviting for cycling and hiking. In the meantime, I will restrict most of my summer Nature ramblings to our more accommodating morning weather.

 

Tree Form Oddities and Curiosities

Always alert for tree form oddities and curiosities, I encountered several worthy subjects in the bottomland forest. This warty hickory posed nicely, not at all embarrassed by its blemishes… cankers which I believe are of viral or fungal origin. Given the hordes of mosquitoes buzzing me, I imagined my face undergoing a similar transfiguration! The hickory’s dermal condition is clearly not fatal. The tree reaches high into the canopy and has a full crown. I wondered whether this individual is genetically predisposed to the culprit microorganism. Is this tree  particularly sensitive and reactive to infection? And, does the infection interfere in some way with the tree’s fecundity. As with so much that I uncover through my forest wanderings, I need to learn more. Is there a forest pathologist in the house?

 

Not far away, here’s another hickory with a single, and larger, canker.

 

These Sanctuary bottomlands suffer frequent winter floods and periodic summer flash floods, when the Flint River overtops its banks and rushes through the forest. Perhaps a particularly savage flood snapped a twin from this now 3-foot diameter sycamore decades ago opening a decay fungi infection court, gradually hollowing the entire remaining trunk, even as the tree attempts to callous over the old wounds…a losing endeavor. Regardless, a tree of considerable character with a great story to tell! Such trees bring to mind the opening lines of Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman:

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas

I wonder what appearance this tree might project on such a harsh November night along the Flint River! What spirits inhabit these dark woods? Even if none are present, what might we imagine in the eerie darkness?

 

Could Ichabod Crane have experienced forests with trees such as these (What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path) when he spotted the headless horseman?

On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveler in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless! – but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle!

Perhaps Mr. Crane felt the nighttime invisible fingers of Vitis (grapevine) air roots as his horse plodded unsteadily forward, sending shivers of fear deep into his soul.

 

I was there in midday light, yet, even then, my mind had little trouble imagining the gloaming amidst a November wind howling a torrent of darkness. I long ago discovered that a vivid imagination enhances vision. I have learned to employ five essential verbs, leading me to see far more than what otherwise presents. So much in Nature lies hidden in plain sight, including lessons for living, learning, serving, and leading. The five verbs — Believe, Look, See, Feel, and Act:

    • I find Nature’s Lessons because I know they lie hidden within view — belief prompts and enables me to look and see
    • Really look, with eyes open to my surroundings, external to electronic devices and the distractions of meaningless noise and data
    • Be alert to see deeply, beyond the superficial
    • See clearly, with comprehension, to find meaning and evoke feelings
    • Feel empathically enough to spur action… action manifesting informed and responsible Earth stewardship

Action for me may be as simple as drafting a relevant Blog Post to present a photo-narrative revealing and translating lessons from Nature to readers. Lessons that might further my retirement mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vegetative Elegance

A lifelong enthusiast for woodland spring wildflowers, I have grown to appreciate our summer beauties as well. I encountered abundant black-eyed Susans along Big Cove Creek Greenway. I could not resist photographing this wall of black, yellow, and green… an elegant border back-dropped by trees along the creek with old-field planted loblolly pine beyond. Would I have appreciated the scene without context…without knowing what lies immediately behind the elegant wall? I think not. Occasionally my leisure reading will take me to a location familiar to me, like Call of the Wild or White Fang. Anytime that I can personally authenticate content, the book more effectively draws me into its grasp. The trailside floral arrangement would still provide aesthetic reward, yet, knowing and understanding the integrated whole deepens my appreciation.

Hays

 

A  trailside wall of peppervine obscured what lay beyond in one spot near the Hays Preserve. I turned to iNaturalist for identification. From the Gardening Know How website: peppervine is a perennial climbing vine that is native to the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico. To some it may be known as “buckvine” and “cow itch” but to others it may be known as an expletive because it is very invasive due to its vigorous root system. Another source noted that many people confuse this ubiquitous vine with poison ivy — note the leaves-of-three arrangement.

Hays

 

Cardinal flower, a particularly showy Lobelia, ranks among my summer favorites. The Missouri Botanical Garden website offers informative insight: native perennial which typically grows in moist locations along streams, sloughs, springs, swamps and in low wooded areas. A somewhat short-lived, clump-forming perennial which features erect, terminal spikes of large, cardinal red flowers on unbranched, alternate-leafed stalks rising typically to a height of 2-3′ (infrequently to 4′). Tubular flowers are 2-lipped, with the three lobes of the lower lip appearing more prominent than the two lobes of the upper lip. Finely-toothed, lance-shaped, dark green leaves (to 4″ long). Late summer bloom period. Flowers are very attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds, but not cardinals. 

I like the subtle humor of mentioning that the flower does not attract cardinals. The flower does not draw its name from the bird. Instead, both the bird and the flower owe their moniker to the exquisite red robes worn by members of the College of Cardinals within the Catholic Church. The Cardinals (princes of the blood) wear red to symbolize the blood of Christ.

 

Rich summer flower colors magnify my appreciation of time spent in Nature, whether pedaling along a shaded greenway or hiking deep into a bottomland hardwood forest. The vivid colors provide sufficient counter weight to heat, humidity, and hungry mosquitoes. Far too many people choose not to venture into Nature during our southern summers. I take a different tack, refusing to succumb to one season or another. I live in the south where summers can be hot, humid, and long. I accept that reality and embrace the season. I restrict my mid-summer wanderings (biking or hiking) to mornings, a far more agreeable time of day. Just as I chose to experience Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe throughout winters in Fairbanks, Alaska, I elect to embrace the heat and humidity of north Alabama summers.

There will come a day when my own seasons will come to an end. I don’t intend to depart regretting that I accepted sitting on the sidelines for the sake of my own shallow comfort. As we used to say, Man Up!

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Nature wanderings enhance mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well being.
  • Nature fuels mind, body, heart, soul, and spirit
  • Every season of the year provides unique rewards.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

Steve's BooksHays

 

All three of my books (Nature Based LeadershipNature-Inspired Learning and LeadingWeaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

 

 

 

 

A 20-minute Video: Reflections on Tree Height

February 25, 2021, I led a 20-minute Facebook Live Nature walk at Hays Nature Preserve in Hampton Cove, a suburb on the southeast side of Huntsville, Alabama. I conduct similar walks monthly on behalf of the Residences at Wellpoint, a new, Nature-oriented assisted living community currently in the latter stages of construction. The Preserve is just four miles from the Wellpoint Community.

 

 

I focused this video on the importance of tree height as a function of competition and site quality. We measured (diameter and height) a sweetgum and a water oak near the Match Stick Forest.

 

Rather than include lots of verbiage and additional still photos, allow me to direct you to the video: https://www.facebook.com/residencesatwellpoint/videos/240720984415859

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Early December Forest Treasures within a Two-Acre Area of Riparian Forest

December 6, 2020, I biked 18 miles, ten of them making two loops on the Bradford Creek Greenway in Madison, Alabama. Dismounting back at my vehicle in the Heritage Elementary School parking lot, I changed into hiking boots and a field jacket to explore a small section of the riparian forest just one-quarter mile down the trail. I limited my up-close exploration to what turned out to be about two acres, all within 165-feet of a central point just off the trail.

I offer a montage of images… a photo-essay heavy on photos and light on essay (verbiage). I see an order of magnitude more when I’m cycling at 10-14 MPH compared to when I am driving at 60+ MPH. Give me another order of magnitude more visual gifts on foot in the forest, wandering to whatever captures my attention… tree, shrub, vine, moss, or trunk-cavity!

Photogenic American Beech

 

I do notice this stream-bank-hugging American beech from the greenway, especially during the leafless season. I admire its tenacity… its insistence on holding tightly to terra firma. I presume that at some point as a seedling this individual sprouted from a soil mound thrown up from an uprooted tree. The seedling’s roots reached down and around the soil mound, since somewhat worn away by stream flooding. Today its stilt-legs hold the trunk some 18 inches above the current ground level. Below left the stream is visible between the legs. This seeming tranquil, streamside perch belies the violence that a night of heavy rain can bring to Bradford Creek. The view below right gives a more complete picture of the clinging roots, the perspective enhanced by the persistent gold-brown leaves that will hold on until spring leaf-out abscises the leaf hangers-on.

Local Greenways

 

The beech and I are smitten with the stream… the beech for the vital moisture and the soil amendments delivered with each freshet; and me for the emotional and spiritual restorative balm afforded by biking or hiking along its shore.

Vine Haven

 

The Society of American Foresters defines a forest as an ecosystem characterized by more or less dense and extensive tree cover usually consisting of stands varying in characteristics such as species, structure, composition, age class, and commonly including streams, fish, and wildlife —note forests include special types such as industrial, non-industrial, public, protection, urban, as well as parks and wilderness; they are commonly managed to sustain single or diverse products or special values.

The two acres I am bringing to your attention is, in fact, characterized by dense and extensive tree cover. Dense shade comforts my June through September bike rides. But the forest shade derives from more than the tree foliage. The overstory sunshine is shared with multiple species of woody vines that ascended into the crown with the trees as they grew from seedling and sapling stages into the canopy 70-100 feet above the forest floor. Our diverse southern forest vineage (my word, not recognized in any of the online dictionaries I consulted) includes grape, trumpet vine, poison ivy, supple jack, scuppernong, Virginia creeper, crossvine, Dutchman’s pipe vine, and others. As I’ve matured as a naturalist into retirement, I have become more and more enamored with such vineage, which, I assure you, is now a word — I have added it to my personal online dictionary!

I am striving to understand and seek to explain what remains inexplicable vine forms, twists, and knots. This grapevine presents a ten-foot-high archway. Something the druids created as a portal to who-knows-where? I chose to walk through it, disappointed that I simply found myself on the other side… not in some alternate dimension. The business end of this arch reaches into the crown, where it competes for light that does not penetrate to the forest floor.

Local Greenways

 

This supple jack (green-barked) is writhing a slow dance with a grapevine… twisting, binding, and strangling to a draw. Like their arched cousin, both of these individuals (if you can separate them) have found space in the main canopy far above.

Local Greenways

 

Supple jack fascinates me. This three-inch diameter vine (below left) carries its green color even deep within the understory. Is its green bark actively photosynthesizing? Or is its olive green hue simply for show… and for what purpose? The woodpecker that drilled the half-dozen holes below left found purpose in the vine… either in form of insect larvae within… or an intent to instigate sap flow to attract insects for a later snack. I like the gnarls the vine creates in its ultimate struggle to maintain main canopy purchase and function (below right). During my timber beast forest products industry years, vines worked at cross-purposes with my own. They competed with crop trees for moisture, nutrients, and sunshine. They increased susceptibility to ice and wind breakage… and complicated felling, trimming, and bucking into merchantable log-lengths.

Local Greenways

 

I accept, even embrace, vineage now. For reasons aplenty: aesthetics, wildlife food and habitat, fascination and curiosity! Richness in my estimation has shifted from economic to diverse other values.

Decorative Moss

 

Life has changed in so many ways since I retired from university leadership positions, when days often raced past in a blur. Today, the days still begin before dawn, but the pace is far more relaxed, comfortable, and rewarding. The two photos below epitomize the slackening pace. I can (and do) take time now to see, absorb, and photograph a forest floor woodland still life. I repeat what I’ve said many times in these Posts. I prefer Nature paintings that look like photographs; I love photographs that could be paintings. How could even a talented artist possibly best these images of downed wood, time-polished, and festooned with magic mosses?!

Local Greenways

 

Wolf Tree, an old forestry term — denotes a tree that originated in a more open condition, this one probably in an abandoned field prior to the current younger forest filling in around it. Large branches and coarser crown. This tree was a loner, like a lone wolf. From a 1945 edition of American Forests magazine — an article titled Woodman, Spare that Wolf Tree: “…these ugly wolf trees, these snags, these trees classified as worthless space fillers are valuable wildlife units in the vast stretch of North American woodland.” I see wolf trees often through our north Alabama second- and third-growth forests. Each has a story to tell.

Local Greenways

 

Many people inadequately schooled in the ways of Nature subscribe to the notion that moss grows only on the north side of trees. Finding oneself navigationally, therefore, is as simple as orienting to the mossy side of a tree. However, moss thrives in moist shade. In certain climatic zones, the rule may hold here in the northern hemisphere. In our deep forests of dense understory shade and abundant rainfall, the rule weakens in practice. The thirty-inch diameter white oak (Quercus alba) wolf tree above serves well as the exception to the north-side-moss rule.

Below left the tree’s north side does indeed carry a rich American tree moss-coat at its base. Deep shade, plenty of moisture. Let’s swing to its east flank (below right) and examine the result. Deep shade; thick moss coat. Surely, the south side will not be as moss-cloaked.

Local GreenwaysLocal Greenways

 

Yet, I detect no difference (below left). Are we lost yet? In our region of ample rainfall across the seasons, the near-ground micro-climate stays moist. Stem flow concentrates rainfall, ensuring that the trunk base is well-saturated with most rain events that yield at least a half an inch. That stem flow also delivers nutrients washed and leached from the canopy and stem above. Below right we get another glimpse of the wolf tree’s coarse crown.

Local Greenways

 

A nearby yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) likewise sports a moss-green skirt. I appreciated the cross-ribboned mockernut hickory (Carya tomentosa) trunk (below right) accented by a lacey moss-matrix. Were I more entrepreneurial, I would consider marketing a line of wallpaper (or placemats or tee-shirts or murals or coffee mugs) employing such imaginative real-life images of tree bark. Anyone care to explore such an enterprise with me? I have lots of such tree bark images in my archives.

Local Greenways

Local Greenways

 

I am sure this hollowed sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) tells a tale of former injury, introduction of decay fungi, callousing, and use by critters of many stripes and colors. I include the sweetgum here because it stood out among others in my two-acre exploration… and because it, too, carried a mossy skirt.

Local Greenways

 

I wonder how many of my fellow trail bikers, walkers, runners, and other casual users notice the forest riches along the greenway. I see far too many, for my taste, distracted and isolated by the world they pipe-in via ear buds, obstructing the beauty, magic, and awe otherwise enveloping them. Some days I am tempted to slow my wanderings an additional order of magnitude by finding a downed log or comfy buttressed tree base upon which to sit and contemplate life…my own and of the forest. John Muir knew the blessings of quiet wildland contemplation:

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God’s eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.

Life in the Understory

 

Sapling and seedling American beech (Fagus grandifolia) insist upon holding persistent golden foliage until new spring leaves jettison them. Nothing spectacular, yet a dose of color that brightens our winter woods. I was pleased to see several specimens in my two-acre woods.

Local Greenways

 

 

Local Greenways

 

This four-inch diameter black cherry (Prunus serotina) is surviving through an infection (disease) called black cherry canker. The internet sites I visited attribute such growth variously to fungal and bacterial infection. In simple terms, the canker is a benign tree tumor, in this case three times the tree’s diameter. Somehow the tree continues to transport water, nutrients, and carbohydrates sufficient for survival, albeit barely. The tree is dwarfed, and will never make it beyond the mid-canopy. The old child in me imagines severing the stem at the canker’s upper surface and at ground level… yielding a four-foot club, a fine weapon for use against forces from the dark side. A homemade Middle Ages battle club. If I squint my eyes just right, I can see a face with distinct forehead, eye brows, eyes, prominently ridged cheeks, nose, misshapen mouth, and chin. Perhaps the glass of Malbec for dinner has sharpened my vision (or imagination).

 

My woods ramblings spur imagination, encourage inspiration, and lead me to an inner place of serene humility.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer two observations from my early-December two-acre wanderings:

  • From Leonardo da Vinci — So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.
  • My woods ramblings spur imagination, encourage inspiration, and lead me to an inner place of serene humility

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2021 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

Steve's Books

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

 

A Few Fungal Highlights from an Early Fall Trek through a River Terrace Forest

As a forestry undergraduate I took courses with titles like Plant Pathology and Eastern US Forest Diseases, studying economically important tree diseases like chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, beech-scale-nectria, white pine blister rust, fusiform rust, and oak wilt. I learned fungi as disease agents and causes of decay and wood deterioration reducing the commercial value of important timber species. I also understood the crucial role fungi played in the great cycle of life… returning dead and dying woody material to the soil. In graduate school I delved more deeply into the positive synergy between tree roots and mycorhizal fungi. Most importantly, I paid little heed to mushrooms common to the forests I roamed as a teenager, or to those I am sure I encountered during my 12 years of forestry practice in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Likewise, I passed through my 35 years at nine universities (seven states) nearly oblivious to the ubiquitous fungi-kingdom inhabitants in natural areas that I explored and wandered.

A Day of Visual Mushroom Bounty

But, in retirement that has changed. If you’ve followed these Posts over the past four years you will have noticed my ever-increasing fascination with fungi and their fruiting bodies. In the old days, my attention focused above-ground from tree trunks to their towering heights. I find myself these days visually scouring the ground for colorful, diverse, odd, and edible mushrooms. When I mention in these Posts that this or that species is edible, I offer a necessary caveat that the reader not take my word for it. The lion’s mane fungi (Hericium erinaceus; below) is one I harvest, prepare, and consume. Its vivid whiteness in our fall and winter woods makes it easy to spot. Its delicate filamentous structure is unique and a sensory delight to hold and examine. I found this specimen on a well-decayed downed tree October 17, 2020 in a bottomland hardwood forest on the eastern end of Alabama’s Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Other names for lion’s mane include: monkey head; bearded hedgehog; pom-pom; bearded tooth.

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

The October 17, 2020 trek offered other fungal rewards. This large willow oak (Quercus phellos) looked sound and healthy until I glanced above to about ten feet (below right), where a foot-wide cluster of shaggy bracket fungi (Inonotus hispidus) extended from the trunk. I could just reach it with my fingertip, feeling its soft pliant texture. Many other fresh brackets hung above me to 25 feet. This fungus is a decay organism, feasting upon a living tree. The old Steve-as-timber-beast would have lamented the reduction of commercial value and perhaps marked the stem for harvest. Now I marvel at the simple beauty of this shelf fungus. Its deep color and large dimensions. First-Nature.com remarks, White rot results from attack by the Shaggy Bracket, and infected trees have to be felled because this aggressive decay agent weakens the timber and can result in trunks or branches breaking and falling in stormy weather. Although still living, this oak is doomed. How long will it survive? I certainly cannot hazard a guess. Perhaps last night’s gusty winds have already felled it. Or it may continue to run its annual cycles of bud break and leaf abscission another decade…or three. The circle is in fact unbroken, even if the tree (or, shall I say, especially if and when) the tree crashes to the horizontal. The material of its cells will become soil organic matter, then will find warm absorption in a new plant…or slug or insect or small mammal or a future mighty oak and perhaps once again hang from the side of an oak within the structure of a shaggy bracket fungus.

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

Another oak, this one dead on its stump, sprouted a colony of (Ganoderma sessile), a polypore fungus. Like all Ganoderma species, G sessile has a shiny lacquered surface, especially when fresh like this grouping.

HGH Road

 

I found its distinctive beauty to0 special to include just a single photo. Enjoy all three, taken within ten feet of each other!

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two weeks later (November 4, 2020), I retraced my steps (more or less), coming across the same colony of G. sessile. Their lacquered sheen lies hidden beneath a thick dusting of countless spores. Nothing in Nature is static.

HGH Road

 

This is upright coral fungus (Ramaria stricta), common in forests across most of the US, growing on dead wood. Also known as strict-branch coral, this fungus appears throughout our local bottomland hardwood forests.

HGH Road

 

My iNaturalist app did not provide a definitive identity on these two beauties. It offered ten suggestions, most of them of the genus Amanita, which I accept, but not with certainty. The taller specimen stands about six inches. The cap and stalk are firm. The cap is scaly. Those features seem distinctive, yet I could not secure a firm identity.

HGH RoadHGH Road

 

Two Days Later at Big Cove Creek Greenway

Two days later (October 19) I biked at Big Cove Creek Greenway, City of Huntsville. Here I am standing by a trail-side river birch (Betula nigra) with its exfoliating bark. I append these additional photos because the timing fell so close to my discovering the mushroom menagerie above at the Wheeler Refuge and because of the spectacular display offered by what I found along the greenway. I had grown a beard, confirming my old man of the woods look, and verifying the image of a mushroom geezer! The beard is no longer with me (I exfoliated it!), so I felt compelled to include bearded-Steve in one of these Posts.

Big Cove Creek

 

Here is the spectacular display — these eastern American jack-o’-lantern mushrooms (Omphalotus illudens) visually shouted at me as I passed them. I couldn’t resist gathering images. What better time to find these jack-o’-lanterns than the Halloween season!

Big Cove Creek

 

My growing interest in fungi and mushrooms enriches my forest wanderings. I’ve discovered that the more I know, the harder I look, and the more I see. What in prior years had been invisible to me is now in plain sight. And what is in plain sight generates deep feelings of respect, admiration, learning, and inspiration.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer two observations from my mid-October fungi explorations through an aging hardwood bottomland forest:

  • Nature’s gifts come in all sizes and variations, from a towering oak to the mushrooms of its decay fungi
  • We can find whatever we seek when we know where to look within Nature

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2020 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

Steve's BooksHGH Road

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Seasons Flowing with the Waters of Bradford Creek

I’ll begin with the broad lesson I draw from these photos and reflections:

Just as the waters of Bradford Creek flow ceaselessly seaward, Nature’s seasons advance reliably day after day, annually completing a full cycle. So too do the seasons of our lives pass year after year.

Seasonal Progress Across Geography

I published a Blog Post June 5, 2018, chronicling the advance of spring across a 660-mile south-to-north road transect from Madison, Alabama to just north of Pittsburgh, PA: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2018/06/05/six-hundred-sixty-mile-transect/. Elevation and latitude are powerful variables controlling spring’s inexorable trip northward.

Yet we don’t need to travel to observe seasonal shifts. I offer here my observations at a fixed place (nearby Bradford Creek) from October 12, 2019 (climatically very late summer here in north Alabama) through the end of May, 2020 (early summer here). Keep in mind that my characterization of climatic season is based upon a life perspective across thirteen career-driven interstate moves, including stays in upstate New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, western Maryland, and Alaska, as well as Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama..

Seasons Flowing with the Waters of Bradford Creek

October 14 in Fairbanks, Alaska (our home for four years) is the autumn date when the average high temperature first rests at freezing. From that point through April 1, the average daily high stays below 32 degrees. I snapped the photo below October 12, three weeks ahead of Huntsville’s average date of first freezing temperature (November 2). Snow had already fallen in Fairbanks by October 12 each of the four autumns we resided there. In fact, first flakes arrived by the end of September. Along Bradford Creek October 12, the hardwoods had begun dropping brown leaves, blanketing the sand and gravel bars. Canopy-greens are fading. In central Interior Alaska, aspen and birch reached full fall color during the first two weeks of September; branches were bare before the fall equinox. Therefore, I do not hesitate to observe that October 12 represents very late summer along Bradford Creek.

Bradford Creek

 

By November 5 the mood had changed. Still a lot of leaves clinging above. Greens weakening to yellow-brown. More fall than summer, yet clearly short of winter.

Bradford Creek

 

By December 4, I am willing to declare winter-like. A few residual main canopy brown leaves, some which will persist until spring leaf-out. Bradford Creek flowing gently, evidencing that seasonal rains had not yet begun to return creek levels to typical winter flush.

Bradford Creek

 

Ah, by December 28 we have reached deep winter (again, winter is relative), looking nothing here like the Hallmark Card ideal of New England Christmas cards. Bare trees and occasional bank-full flow along the creek.

 

A week later (January 3) Bradford Creek had receded from flood, leaving debris scattered across the trail. Grandson Sam poses on a stranded log. I admit to missing the threat and reality of a classic major north-land snow, yet I continue to embrace the magic of a Gulf-fed deluge over a couple of days, triggered by a low pressure system encountering an attempt by winter to surge southward.

Local Greenways

 

For two reasons I skipped ahead to the spring equinox (March 22). First, I don’t venture out on the trail often during the wet and chill of winter. Second, the seasons don’t progress much during January and February. By this point stream-side green is bursting and the canopy is evidencing bud break. Spring has sprung! In contrast, one of our Fairbanks year we experienced a high of one-degree below zero April 1, no fooling!

Bradford Creek

 

And from the webcam on our University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, here is the image taken at the spring equinox 2020. Still a snowpack of nearly three feet. Bud break remains a distant dream. Spring has not sprung, except as a point on the calendar.

West Ridge Webcam

 

Spring along Bradford Creek soon surges… explodes. By April 4 light green dominates.

Bradford Creek

 

Within the next few days, greens deepen and shade begins to grace the forest floor.

Bradford Creek

 

By April 26 the mood gives faint evidence of the winter just ending. I consider this full-spring, deep spring if you will.

 

Even the understory shrubs and herbaceous perennials are in full leaf by May 5.

Bradford Creek

 

May 19, by any standards and criteria I might select, we are squarely in what I would characterize as early summer!

Bradford CreekBradford Creek

 

Aldo Leopold famously captured the flow of seasons on his Wisconsin property seventy years ago in his timeless classic, A Sand County Almanac. I don’t suggest that this brief photo essay is on par with Leopold’s near poetic, deeply philosophical, and scientifically spot-on musings. However, I do hope that my photo and reflective journey along nearby Bradford Creek from October through May does in some small way enlighten, inform, and inspire readers to appreciate, value, and enjoy the magic of local wildness across the seasons.

Thoughts and Reflections

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All three are available on Amazon and other online sources.

The fundamental truth I draw from this Blog Post: Just as the waters of Bradford Creek flow ceaselessly seaward, Nature’s seasons advance reliably day after day, annually completing a full cycle. So too do the seasons of our lives pass year after year.

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Reward, and Heal you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2020 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

My Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few others lives… sow some seeds for the future

Steve's Books

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Introducing Nature’s Richness to Residents of Wellpoint Assisted Living

May 7, 2020 I led a Facebook Live virtual tour along Big Cove Creek Greenway just north of Hays Preserve. Residences at Wellpoint, a new assisted living community just a mile from where I led the tour, produced the video.

My personal goal includes reaching out to multiple audiences… from K-12 across the lifespan to senior citizens, who like Wellpoint residents, wish to experience life fully well into retirement. My dedicated retirement mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

I am ever-more convinced that Nature is an essential variable in the equation for living meaningfully into the liberating stage of life called retirement. I speak from personal experience!

Please watch the 20-minute video: https://www.facebook.com/residencesatwellpoint/videos/1731492206989805/

Just a Sampling of What We Viewed

 

I strolled just 250 feet along the greenway during our 20 minutes, pointing out well over 25 plant species, many of them in flower. Without elaboration, below is a modest sampling.

Virginia pepperweed (Lepidium virginicum) and Philadelphia fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus).

Big Cove CreekBig Cove Creek

 

Floating primrose-willow (Ludwigia peploides) and Red Clover (Trifolium pratense).

Big Cove CreekBig Cove Creek

 

Hop Trefoil (Trifolium campestre) and butterweed (Packera glabella).

Big Cove CreekBig Cove Creek

 

Field madder (Sherardia arvensis).

Big Cove Creek

 

Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin), an Asian import, and Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica).

Big Cove CreekBig Cove Creek

 

Nature is amazing… and amazingly accessible. I found all this rich beauty, magic, wonder, and awe along a tiny segment of a paved greenway just a short van ride from an assisted living community. The campus will eventually house nearly 200 senior residents seeking some level of immersion in Nature. What a great audience to engage and involve in my Earth Stewardship venture.

Thoughts and Reflections

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All three are available on Amazon and other online sources.

Here are the three succinct truths I draw from this Blog Post:

  1. Each venture into Nature opens my eyes ever more keenly to discovering her secrets
  2. Nature is an essential variable in the equation for living meaningfully into the liberating stage of life called retirement.
  3. Nature hides richness within plain sight

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Reward, and Heal you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2020 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few others lives… sow some seeds for the future

Steve's BooksBig Cove Creek

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

 

 

Easter Storms — A Covid-19 Corollary

Covid-19 Context

 

I wrote these words the Wednesday after Easter, a day when Covid-19 deaths in the US were at approximately 30,000 (42,000 today), with confirmed cases at 614,000 (787,000 today). We remain under what I term Covid-19 House Arrest. A dire situation, yet I see signs of hope. The new case and hospitalization curves in most places (including New York City) appear to be beyond peak — that is, we have successfully flattened the curves. Deaths are at peak, reflecting the 10-16-day lag beyond new cases. I thought a lot about parallels to Covid-19 as violent Easter Sunday storms raked across the southeastern US with an energetic storm system trailing a cold front ushering record-breaking cold to much of the country.

Here in northern Alabama I measured just under four inches of rain, bringing us to ~44-inches since December 1, 2019! Right here in Madison, AL we endured numerous warnings during the afternoon and evening: Area-wide flood; flash flood; severe thunderstorm; and tornado. Fortunately we suffered little damage beyond several snapped utility poles nearby and eleven hours without power. We had readied our storm shelter, but never retreated into it. Nothing signaled imminent impact; even the tornado warning indicated the funnel in the southern porting of our county. Southwide the system killed 40-plus.

Monday morning, which dawned with full glory and promise, after allowing time for Bradford Creek to ease back into its banks, I headed for the Bradford Creek Greenway to bike. I offer the reader photographs and reflections from the Easter storms and their standing as a metaphor for the savagery of the Covid-19 pandemic. This viral fury, too, will pass, leaving an indelible mark on life and living, and stamping reminders, lessons, and emotional scars into our individual and societal psyche.

Bradford Creek GW

 

Rather than develop a text-packed Post to communicate my reflections, I find it easier to condense my impressions and feelings, expressing all with verse and accompanying photographs:

Easter Storms — Covid-19 Corollary in Verse

.

Easter 2020 dawned forebodingly

Skies dark with threat,

Absent the light of hope, and

The sunshine of resurrection

 

Covid-19 and its own darkness

Cast deep and frightful shadows,

Cancelled Easter gatherings and services

Kept us physically isolated… hug-less

 

 

Now add the ominous threat

Of imminent flooding,

Severe thunderstorms and hail,

High winds and twisters

 

By Easter’s early afternoon

An energetic storm system lifts,

Bringing rain and thunder, and

Storm warnings through late evening

 

Cloud and Sky

 

Pounding, slanting downpours

Snapping lightning; growling thunder,

Frequent new warnings

Storm shelter open and stocked

 

But this time not needed

All slipping east by nightfall,

Threats ebbing with the departure

Easing our minds for sleep

 

Easter Monday dawned with promise

With the full glory of renewal,

An abundance of hope’s light

And the sunshine of resurrection

 

213 Legendwood213 Legendwood

 

 

The storms left their mark

Eleven hours without power,

Others were not so fortunate

More than 40 died southwide

 

Monday morning biking

Along Bradford Creek Greenway

Revealed the clear evidence

Of rain just shy of four inches

Bradford Creek

 

 

Bradford Creek

 

Bradford Creek

 

Like Sunday’s storms,

A literal deluge and whirlwind,

The Covid-19 savagery is passing

Leading to a dawn of glory and promise

 

 

This, too, shall pass. We will emerge stronger for the experience. We have learned that we are all in this together. That we are one with Nature. That even the smallest of life forms, a lowly virus, can change lives. That humility can be soothing salve for the soul and heart, and for our emotional well-being. And most importantly, that the power of Nature’s inspiration (even from an outbreak of severe weather) can lift us toward resurrection and renewal. And, for me, I feel a growing sense of sacred connection to life and living… to what is important and essential. Not just sacred… spiritual as well. The storms and pandemic reinforce my belief that I am nothing. Nothing beyond a small element of a greater whole. Part of Creation… for a brief moment in time.

Thoughts and Reflections

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All three are available on Amazon and other online sources.

Here are the two succinct truths I draw from this Blog Post:

  1. Now is a time to reflect on what is important and essential
  2. Nature always provides lessons for dealing with life and living

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Reward, and Heal you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2020 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: https://stevejonesgbh.com/contact/

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few others lives… sow some seeds for the future

Steve's BooksBradford Creek GW

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

 

 

 

Leafless Tree I.D. Hike along Bradford Creek Greenway

 

February 22, 2020, the North Alabama Land Trust hosted a Leafless Tree I.D. hike along Bradford Creek Greenway in Madison, AL. I remain convinced that learning more about Nature amplifies our commitment to Earth stewardship. Don’t we care more about other humans when we know something (positive) about them, including their names? I believe the same is true of our kinship with the natural world. I was pleased to see some 30 eager-to-learn participants accompany hike leader Dr. Ken Ward, a retired Alabama A&M professor of dendrology, the scientific study of trees. Allow me to observe up front that Ken led the educational tour with distinction!

You might wonder why I, a bachelor-degreed forester with a doctorate in applied ecology, would want to take a three-hour tree identification hike. The answer is simple, even if multi-faceted:

  • I took my one and only dendrology course 51 years ago
  • Six hundred miles north of here
  • I’ve made thirteen interstate moves during my professional career, gaining knowledge many miles wide… and far too shallow
  • The final two decades of my professional pursuits locked me in senior executive leadership roles at seven different universities, relegating dendrology growth to secondary, tertiary, or perhaps even quadrary level — a thing of occasional weekend hikes
  • Although for the past two years I have been resharpening my Nature skills in our north Alabama woods, my blade is rusty
  • I relished the idea of soaking up knowledge from a true local expert
  • Ken did not disappoint!

We walked the trail (paved greenway) on a picture-perfect morning, one somehow lifted from within an otherwise drenched December through February period.

A Glorious Winter Day

 

Land Trust NAL

 

Beyond hosting the hike, the North Alabama Land Trust played a major role in establishing the Bradford Greenway. I borrow these words (and the two photos beneath the two paragraphs) from my January 20, 2020 Blog Post about our local greenways and floods: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2020/01/20/local-greenways-the-blessing-of-urban-floodplains/

I offer another tribute and appreciation to our Land Trust of North Alabama for its partnership in creating the Bradford Creek Greenway and other special places locally. I love the Land Trust’s tagline: “Conservation in Action!” As a former four-time university president, I hold that application adds value to knowledge. Applying knowledge (driven by dedication and passion) brings action to bear. Without applying action to conservation, we as humanity, communities, and individuals practice only a shallow and meaningless conservation inaction. Amazing how removing that one space (between ‘in’ and ‘action’) changes the entire essence. Talking by itself can amount merely to conservation virtue-signaling. The Land Trust gets it done! I applaud its action, guided by a succinct and noble mission: The Land Trust preserves land and its legacies for conservation, public recreation, and environmental education to enhance quality of life in North Alabama now and for the future.

The Land Trust donated a 112-acre easement to the City of Madison (2006) for the Bradford Creek Greenway. The aerial photo shows the property lines (green) and the 2.5-mile trail (red) from Heritage School to Palmer Park. I have spent many hours biking along the creek under its welcome riparian forest cover and shade. A wonderful gift to future generations. We began our Tree I.D. hike at Heritage Elementary.

North AL Land TrustLand Trust of North Alabama

 

 

Here’s Ken (below left) speaking to us at trailside, the riparian forest behind him. Below right he’s pointing out the water tupelo (Nyssa aquatic) along Bradford creek, drawing our attention to the distinctively swollen base, often termed “butt swell.” Water tupelo is happy with wet feet; in fact the species demands it, hence the “water” moniker. Where you find a tree growing (and flourishing) is an important identification diagnostic.

Land Trust NALLand Trust NAL

 

Ken focused on bark and bud characteristics. Black cherry (Prunus serotina) bark varies from its mottled grey (lower left) on younger stems to the finely flaked near-black of mature trees. I know black cherry, the principal species of the Allegheny Hardwood Forests of New York and Pennsylvania where I conducted my doctoral research. Lower right we see white oak (Quercus alba) with its vertically-shredded white-grey bark, which varies little across tree age.

Land Trust NALLand Trust NAL

 

Never reaching beyond the intermediate canopy, Carpinus caroliniana (musclewood; American hornbeam) has an elephant-smooth grey bark, with sinewy muscled stem form. Lichens of various types often accent its bark (lower right). The Carpinus with my leaned trekking pole grows snug against an over-story sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) that towers above it. The musclewood tree, a shade tolerant species, is content in the sweetgum’s shade. In addition to bark, stem structure, and bud characteristics, another leafless tree diagnostic is canopy placement and growth form.

Land Trust NAL

 

Both musclewood and ironwood (Ostrya virginiana; eastern hophornbeam) are common here in northern Alabama, as well in the forests of my doctoral research. Both also speak volumes about the need for learning scientific names, and not relying on common names: consider American hornbeam and eastern hophornbeam! Ironwood has finely vertically-shredded bark, grows straighter than Carpinus, yet likewise occupies the lower and intermediate canopy. both have very dense (hard) wood.

Land Trust NALLand Trust NAL

 

The common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) occurs commonly across the northern half of the eastern US, and does venture into northern Alabama, primarily on upland sites. However, sugarberry (Celtis laevigata) is much more commonly distributed in the southern half of the eastern US. I do not know how to distinguish the two. Each has the diagnostic prominent corky ridges on the grey bark. Because we are in the southern half of the eastern US and on a riparian site, I am leaning toward sugarberry (laevigata).

Land Trust NAL

 

I can’t resist another photo or two of that day’s incredible weather: 35 degrees when we gathered at 9:00 am, rising mid-day to 55 degrees. Where we lived for four years (Fairbanks, AK) on the same day that we hiked here, the temperature rose to a balmy 11 degrees above zero with a two-foot snowpack. A week prior and a week later the highs ranged in the negative 20s! We are winter-blessed here in the Tennessee Valley region of northern Alabama. I suppose we pay our weather dues June through mid-September.

Land Trust NAL

 

In case any of my Fairbanks friends see this Post, here’s one more photo of the group enjoying the winter day!

Land Trust NAL

 

And, one more reflection on our Land Trust 0f North Alabama — a true service to Nature enthusiasts and future citizens across the region. The LTNA mission is simple, succinct, and noble: The Land Trust preserves land and its legacies for conservation, public recreation, and environmental education to enhance quality of life in North Alabama now and for the future. I urge you to visit the Trust’s website: https://www.landtrustnal.org/vision-history/ Please consider joining and or contributing. 

 

Thoughts and Reflections

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All three are available on Amazon and other online sources.

Here are the three succinct truths I draw from this Blog Post:

  1. Learning about Nature enhances our understanding of our place in this world
  2. Understanding our place magnifies our appreciation for Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe
  3. Appreciation of Nature inspires and leverages our passion for Earth stewardship

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2020 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: https://stevejonesgbh.com/contact/

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few others lives… sow some seeds for the future

That’s Alabama grandson Sam with me below right by a planted longleaf pine at the south end of Bradford Creek Greenway, opposite from the Tree I.D. hike.

Steve's BooksWeaned Seals and Snowy Summits

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

 

 

Local Greenways — The Blessing of Urban Floodplains!

I’ve enjoyed many hours biking and walking along our local Madison, Alabama greenways: Bradford Creek; Mill Creek; and Indian Creek. Note the commonality — each bears a creek moniker. One might assume city planners wanted us to experience the peaceful streamside environment, the gurgle of flowing water, and the shade of the riparian forests. Not a bad assumption. However, other reasons prevailed. Here in northern Alabama’s Tennessee Valley, Nature blesses us with an annual average of 55 inches of rainfall. Our streams overflow their banks several times each year. So, their floodplains are not suitable for residential or commercial development. Five-and-a-half-year-old grandson Sam and I visited Indian Creek and Bradford Creek greenways January 3, 2020. I had measured eight inches of rain over the prior 13 days. That’s roughly 15 percent of our annual precipitation! Light rain continued as we walked. The heaviest rains had fallen the prior evening; the streams had begun to fall.

Indian Creek Greenway

I asked Sam to stand by the Indian Creek Greenway sign. Ever-ready with appropriate armament, he decided to aim back with his trekking pole. Beyond him the trail dips into Indian Creek, flooded impassably.

Local Greenways

 

Seen from the highway bridge above the trail and at water’s edge, the creek gives little deference to the paved greenway. As always, Nature holds sway. We are wise to know and respect her ways. What better application of land use than to dedicate a riparian zone to recreation.

Local Greenways

 

But there is more. Bradford Creek and Indian Creek greenways serve another purpose. Both are rights-of-ways for public sewer lines, a conscience and deliberate effort to place utilities where they do not interfere with commercial and residential development. I accept and applaud the complementary uses of utility right-of-way and recreational corridor. As I pedal I pay no heed to the surface manifestation of the underground utility (photo below from a week later (January 12) along the Bradford Creek trail), the flood waters long since subsided.

Local Greenways

 

Where the water rose above the trail surface, a crayfish scurried across the pavement. Sam and I picked him up, avoided his pincers, said hello, and placed him back into his watery realm.

 

Bradford Creek Greenway

Because Indian Creek was so completely underwater Sam and I drove the three miles or so west to Bradford Creek. Indian Creek was two or three hours past peak flood flow. Bradford Creek is a lower order stream, having reached maximum flow around midnight. Stream order describes the hierarchical sequence of streams within a watershed. Small headwater streams are first order. Their flow peaks while the deluge is falling. Bradford Creek is probably second order, formed from several first order streams draining Madison City neighborhoods. Sam is sitting on and standing by a log that washed over the culvert during the night. The creek has already fallen a couple feet below peak flow. Indian Creek, a higher order stream, was still close to peak.

Local GreenwaysLocal Greenways

 

Stream order classification rises to a high of 12. The lower Mississippi rates a 12. The peak flow at New Orleans may lag several weeks behind the spring dousings and snowmelt that inundated farmlands of the upper Midwest. I wonder, how many Bradford Creek watershed equivalents would it take to furnish the Big River’s flood-flow at its Gulf outlet. And then compare that to the world’s largest volume river, the Amazon. The Amazon carries more volume than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined. It has ten tributaries larger in volume than our Big River. If we could redirect the Amazon’s outlet flood-flow into an empty Lake Ontario basin, the lake would fill in three minutes. As I marvel at the force of Bradford and Indian creeks in flood, I once again feel overwhelming humility knowing that this is nothing to the Amazon and our own Mississippi. All things natural are relative.

 

The Special Magic of Wet Tree Trunks

Forest hydrology stood among my top five favorite undergraduate courses. According to the US Forest Service, Forest hydrology studies the distribution, storage, movement, and quality of water and the hydrological processes in forest-dominated ecosystems. Forest hydrological science is regarded as the foundation of modern integrated watershed management. Our spring-break field trip that semester took us to Hubbard Brook Watershed, a world famous calibrated, monitored US Forest Service hydrological research station deep in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. I felt as though I were heaven-bound as I drove the university van north and east through the Adirondacks toward northern New Hampshire. Spring break at a Florida beach — not for me! I would have traded the Hubbard Brook trip for nothing… neither fame, nor fortune, nor warm ocean breezes.

The forest hydrological system begins in the tree canopy, where raindrops (and snowfall) first meet the forest. Let’s stick with rain. The fate of rain in the canopy: evaporation from twigs and leaves; throughfall to the forest floor; stemflow. Tree crown geometry for many species funnels canopy water along twigs, stems, and branches toward the trunk. A little over three-inches of rain fell during the 36 hours prior to Sam and me hitting the two greenways. This American Beech (Fagus grandifolia), a species with widely-spreading dendritic branching pattern, is particularly skilled in drawing water to its trunk. This one is soaked, every nook and cranny thoroughly wetted. Its bark supports rich communities of algae and lichens, much of it far less visible on dry bark. Sam and I marveled over the beech bark palette of life.

Local Greenways

 

We also saw magic in the beech fingers clinging tightly to the riparian forest floor. Don’t we all cling fiercely…and lovingly…to those things, places, and people we hold dear. Security comes in many forms. I know from my training as an ecologist and soil scientist that all terrestrial life on Earth begins and ends with that fragile layer we call soil. This beech symbolizes our universal dependence on this thin layer of weathering rock, organic matter, rich microbiological life, water, and gas (oxygen, carbon dioxide). Sadly, the vast majority of humanity is excruciatingly oblivious to our need to cherish, tend, and protect our One Earth and its life-sustaining soil. Let this beech teach us to be informed and responsible Earth stewards.

Local Greenways

 

 

A Footnote

I offer another tribute and appreciation to our Land Trust of North Alabama for its partnership in creating the Bradford Creek Greenway and other special places locally. I love the Land Trust’s tagline: Conservation in Action! As a former four-time university president, I hold that application adds value to knowledge. Applying knowledge (driven by dedication and passion) brings action to bear. Without applying action to conservation, we as humanity, communities, and individuals practice only a shallow and meaningless conservation inaction. Amazing how removing that one space (between ‘in’ and ‘action’) changes the entire essence. Talking by itself can amount merely to conservation virtue-signaling. The Land Trust gets it done! I applaud its action, guided by a succinct and noble mission: The Land Trust preserves land and its legacies for conservation, public recreation, and environmental education to enhance quality of life in North Alabama now and for the future.

The Land Trust donated a 112-acre easement to the City of Madison (2006) for the Bradford Creek Greenway. The aerial photo shows the property lines (green) and the 2.5-mile trail (red) from Heritage School to Palmer Park. I have spent many hours biking along the creek under its welcome riparian forest cover and shade. A wonderful gift to future generations.

North AL Land Trust

Land Trust of North Alabama

Thoughts and Reflections

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; with co-author Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All three are available on Amazon and other online sources.

Here are three succinct lessons I draw from this Blog Post:

  1. Nothing in Nature is static… from peaceful stream to raging torrent
  2. An urban riparian zone presents both a land use restriction and a wonderful recreational opportunity
  3. Land Trust organizations can be essential partners in conserving Nature close to home

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2020 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: https://stevejonesgbh.com/contact/

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few others lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits

Three Books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. The books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

Longleaf Pine along Bradford Creek Greenway

Autumn Serenity along Bradford Creek

Hard to believe that this is my last Great Blue Heron Blog Post of 2019, a very fulfilling year for my semi-retirement ventures to spread the gospel of Nature-Inspired Life and Living. This Post returns me to nearby Bradford Creek Greenway.

Our first autumn weather at long last arrived overnight October 11, 2019. Saturday the 12th dawned cloudy with temperature in the upper 40s. I pedaled 19 miles along nearby Bradford Creek Greenway beginning at 7:00AM. So nice to don long pants and my biking jacket, the first time since April that I needed more than my summer gear:

 

Here below are two special images of the creek just off the trail… without the distraction of the old guy in the foreground! What’s so special you might ask. I loved the lighting… dark overcast and deep riparian forest. The placid creek after two-and-a-half months with little rain. The clear water and the leaf-fall lining the sand and gravel bar.

Local GreenwaysLocal Greenway

 

Summer’s New Growth on Planted Longleaf Pine

The Bradford Creek Greenway is an urban sewer line right-of-way, managed as a recreational trail for its 2.5-mile length in Madison, Alabama. Utility crews lifted and increased the line’s capacity over the trail’s southern 0.70-mile length during the summer of 2018. Crews completed the upgrade late summer. Regrading, repaving, and seeding the right-of-way finally permitted biking that south end by early autumn last year. I took the two photos below in December 2018, showing the double rows of planted longleaf pines in a 50-foot wide construction staging area between the trail and an agricultural field. The forester in me cannot resist this opportunity to tell a tree tale (fact… not a tall tale). Read-on below these two images.

 

Longleaf begins its seedling life resembling grass, and sends its first vertical growth candle only after several years. From the Longleaf Alliance website: This stage is an inconspicuous yet unique stage of a longleaf pine’s life history where the seedling resembles a clump of grass more than a tree, hence the name. During the grass stage, the growing tip (bud) of the tree is protected under a thick arrangement of needles at ground level. When fires sweep through, the needles may burn but the tip of the bud remains protected. New needles quickly replace those that were burned off. During the grass stage, longleaf pine seedlings are virtually immune to fire. At this stage, although the tree will not be growing upwards, the seedling will be putting down an impressive root system underground. Also during this stage, longleaf may become infected with a fungus called brown spot needle blight. Brown spot causes the needles to brown, fall off, and hamper growth. Repeated defoliation will cause the seedling to die. The grass stage may last anywhere from one to seven years depending on the degree of competition with other plants for resources. Rare instances of 20 years have been documented.

Here’s my grass-stage photo from a prior outing at one of our Alabama State Parks. The trees in the above December 2018 photos grew at least two summers in nursery transplant beds, evidencing two vertical candles.

 

The photos below are from October 13, 2019. The longleaf seedlings obviously enjoyed a great first summer in their new location. Last summer’s (2018) candles now have the second year needles downcast, preparing to shed them this winter. Longleaf needles perform for just two growing seasons. This year’s growth includes the seedlings’ first lateral branches (see the tuft above last summer’s candle) as well as another vertical shoot. Summer 2020 will see vigorous lateral branching… growing up and out.

 

I’ll try to retake the longleaf pine images every fall to chronicle each subsequent summer’s growth. Photos are unmatched for demonstrating Nature’s dynamic progress. Ten years from now people will not be too impressed if I tell them that I remember when those trees were just planted. But show them the ten-year images. Their eyes will widen and their jaw will drop! Ten years out I picture breast high diameter at 5-7-inches and height at greater than 20-feet. Nothing in Nature is static.

Local Greenway

 

I took the images below a day earlier, October 12, 2019. I often showcase in these Posts my fascination with weather, sky, and clouds. These are the same trees, yet their appearance is radically different, almost night and day. Dense clouds in contrast with deep blue. Which image is more striking? Neither — both are superb. I’ll take Nature’s glory however it presents itself! My ride this morning (October 13) covered 29 miles. Three extended loops, each one further opening my eyes and deepening my fulfillment and satisfaction.

Local GreenwaysLocal Greenways

 

I’ve said frequently that understanding the science magnifies my appreciation and multiplies Nature’s inspiration. The image is only part of the magic. Would it mean as much without knowing about the species’ grass stage and its growth patterns? Clearly not. I see a point in time along a trajectory deep into the future. Nature rewards those willing to believe, look, see, and feel. I am grateful I chose a career and education path that led to understanding and appreciating Nature.

Local Greenways

 

A not-so-pleasant surprise greeted me November 23 when I rode loops on the trail. One of the longleaf pines had died. I had seen no signs of impending demise on prior rides. It is now clearly dead. Cause of death — undetermined. I see no evidence of mechanical stem damage. Nothing has chewed or disturbed the cambium. No obvious stem cankers or signs of fungal infection. Perhaps the seedling had not been well-planted… big air pocket or roots J-shaped (stuffed into the hole so that the longer roots bent back on themselves). During my time (1981-85) as Alabama Region Land Manager for Union Camp Corporation, we planted 16,000 acres annually to mostly loblolly pine. We conducted seedling survival surveys the winter following the first growing season. I don’t recall many sites with greater than 95 percent survival… and none with no mortality. I fought the temptation to pull this one to see whether the cause of mortality was discernible. One fatality out of 16 out-plants is not bad; 94 percent survival. I will continue to monitor, hoping that we lose no more next year and beyond.

Local Greenways

 

A mid-December Postscript

I biked 19 miles on Bradford Trail December 12. The low temperature had reached 28 degrees; the high nudged 55. The average for the date: 35 and 54. The coldest average low and high (mid-January) is 32 and 51. My point? We are enjoying mid-winter mildness here in north Alabama. I enjoy getting out this time of year. I see more now than I can with full foliage. I’ve been bike-cruising Bradford Trail for three years. Yesterday was the first time I’ve noticed this trail-side honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos). Formidably beautiful! My three books include tales of pleasurable terror — stories of times when I’ve been caught in rather scary weather, survived it, and took great memories of withstanding the ferocious onslaught. So, just another of Nature’s many ironies. Pleasurable terror and formidable beauty. Nature is rich with irony.

Local GreenwaysLocal Greenways

 

When I stopped to photograph the thorny specimen, I noticed several sapling buck-rubs, also at trail’s edge.This one will not survive; the buck has stripped cambium 360-degrees. I had hoped to find a cause of mortality as obvious on the dead longleaf — not so.

 

Nature…everyday Nature…fuels my passion and purpose in life. Death is natural. The dance of life and death is ongoing. Everyday Nature, whether we like it or not, includes both death and renewal. Life giving death — yet another of Nature’s ironies.

A Footnote

I love the Land Trust of North Alabama’s tagline: Conservation in Action! As a former four-time university president, I hold that application adds value to knowledge. Applying knowledge (driven by dedication and passion) brings action to bear. Without applying action to conservation, we as humanity, communities, and individuals practice only a shallow and meaningless conservation inaction. Amazing how removing that one space (between ‘in’ and ‘action’) changes the entire essence. Talking by itself can amount merely to conservation virtue-signaling. The Land Trust gets it done! I applaud its action, guided by a succinct and noble mission: The Land Trust preserves land and its legacies for conservation, public recreation, and environmental education to enhance quality of life in North Alabama now and for the future.

The Land Trust donated a 112-acre easement to the City of Madison (2006) for the Bradford Creek Greenway. The aerial photo shows the property lines (green) and the 2.5-mile trail (red) from Heritage School to Palmer Park. I have spent many hours biking along the creek under its welcome riparian forest cover and shade. A wonderful gift to future generations.

North AL Land Trust

Land Trust of North Alabama

Thoughts and Reflections

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; with co-author Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All three are available on Amazon and other online sources.

Here are three succinct lessons I draw from this Blog Post:

  1. Nature rewards those willing to look closely, whether in a bucket-list National Park or along a local Greenway
  2. Everyday Nature can amaze and inspire with her stories of magic and wonder
  3. Every element of Nature has a story to tell — whether an entire ecosystem or a single species of tree (i.e. longleaf pine)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire and Reward you!

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2019 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: https://stevejonesgbh.com/contact/

And a Third: I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Three Books

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring in Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few others lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits

Three Books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. The books inspire deeper relationship with and care for our One Earth. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.